rubinc at large

More robots!

2012-02-06T23:15:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Ben and I volunteered at the FIRST Lego League Championships at Penn. Like last year, Ben was the head ref and therefore special:

Also like last year, I was a regular ref:

As always, it was a ton of fun. I think my favorite team was a girl scout troop, who all wore denim shirts and red head kerchiefs (à la Rosie the Riveter) and were called the "tough cookies." Gotta love getting girls excited about engineering!

Long time, no blog

2012-01-25T19:50:00.001-05:00

I've been pretty hosed with my new job (which I love!), hence the long hiatus from doing anything interesting enough to write about here. It may be depriving me of cross-stitching for now, but it did give me a cool new mug:

Unfortunately, I don't drink coffee... but it is a nice place to keep my pens!

New Toy

2012-01-12T23:08:00.001-05:00

We got a new rice cooker! My favorite part so far is the instruction book, which has nice anthropomorphized illustrations of the correct and incorrect ways to use your rice cooker:

Now I really want to wash the rice in the inner pan, just to see if it really makes that face.

Pen Pals

2012-01-08T22:01:00.000-05:00

A while ago, we got this in the mail:

(You can click the picture to go to the link. Same for all the pictures below.)

After careful deliberation, we sent this postcard in response:

Check out that fine craftsmanship:

The following week we received a package in return, containing a laser-engraved wooden placard:

That's a still frame from the video illustrated in ASCII, with the url at the bottom:

So, we escalated by creating and sending this:

It has been a few months now and we've heard nothing back, so I think at this point we are victorious. It's too bad, though, because we had a few other cool ideas we were planning to send... perhaps we will continue this correspondence one-sidedly.

A Productive Break

2012-01-01T19:15:00.000-05:00

One of the perks of working for a school-based organization is that you get the same winter break as the schools do. So for the past week I've been able to get quite a lot done, from the kind-of-important (wedding planning, catching up on emails) to the not-at-all-important-but-still-wanted-to-do-it (reading a long book, watching all of Dr. Who*).

Most importantly, I finally got to make the new Steotch sampler! I don't know anyone getting married in the next month or so, so instead I made it as a 1.57th anniversary present for some friends:

It was really fun, although this was the first time I've worked with metallic thread (for the crown and the sword), and it was kind of a pain. I sort of want to make a stack of blank ones now, so as friends get married in the coming years I can just add the names and dates and be all set!

*Just the 6 seasons of the new version, not the 26 seasons of the original. Yet.

Check it out

2011-12-26T13:59:00.000-05:00

My sister is famous on a liberal arts college fashion blog, which apparently is a Thing.

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-24T14:13:00.000-05:00

While out doing some last-minute shopping today, I spotted this charming shirt on the guy in front of me in line:

If you can't tell, the fabric is a camo print.

It's great to be home in the only red county in Maryland!

Two Cool Things

2011-12-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

First, my xkcd cross stitch was featured on Mr. X Stitch yesterday! In the world of needlepoint blogging, that's a Big Deal.

Second, my Unknown Gnome* surveyed all my coworkers for adjectives about me, and created a word cloud that is probably the most accurate description of me of all time:

My favorite parts are "sedentary," "Excel," "Hermione," and the fact that "ice cream" is on there twice.

*Our office's non-denominational version of Secret Santa.

Insert Jack Donaghy Quote Here

2011-12-08T18:29:00.001-05:00

Guys, I have a new job! Sort of. It's still within TFA, but it's a promotion and it's on a new team: Admissions. I flew to Chicago for the first part of this week to start training with my new manager, and when I returned this morning my cube looked like this:

The Admissions team is sort of spread out across the country (hence my manager being in Chicago), but there is one other team member who works from the Philly office, and he took it upon himself to welcome me to the team in an awesome way. My three favorite signs are:

The Admissions team refers to itself as the "A-Team."

This one took me a little while to work out.

I'm super excited about my new job, and about going to NYC next weekend to meet some more of my new team members. You know your new job is Serious Business when it involves two pictures of Mr. T in your cube.

Deck the Halls

2011-12-04T10:12:00.001-05:00

Well guys, I finally got the condo decorated for the holidays. Now as soon as you walk in the front door, you will see our very own Christmas Tree:

I know. I'm practically Martha Stewart over here.

Then and Now

2011-11-26T15:04:00.001-05:00

Since my sister and I moved out, my mom uses our return every Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take our annual holiday card photo. This year she decided to duplicate her greatest hits.

1994

2011

1990

2011

After two days of these painstaking reenactments, we have created our family's 2011 holiday card. I think it's our best one yet.

Front

Back

Maybe in 10-15 years we can recreate these photos again with our own kids. I hope neither of us has boys, or, if we do, I hope they don't mind wearing dresses.

Ready for my closeup

2011-11-21T21:18:00.001-05:00

They are filming a movie where I work! Last week a small village of trailers sprang up seemingly overnight, and ever since then there have been guys setting up complicated lighting contraptions and giant camera things all over the block. I wanted to take a picture of all the trailers, which are actually quite fancy, but there are a lot of big scary guys around and I was too chicken.

Based on the fact that one of my coworkers saw Julia Stiles in the sandwich shop next to our office, and another saw Bradley Cooper on the street, we have surmised that this is the movie being filmed. Now we are spending our lunch hours hatching elaborate plans to put on all our TFA gear and try to get in the background of a scene. Some people are also hatching elaborate plans to run into Julia Stiles and/or Bradley Cooper, but those seem less likely to bear fruit.

Antici....

2011-11-20T10:15:00.001-05:00

Look what arrived and is just hanging out in my closet taunting me:

Wedding dress!

How am I not supposed to put it on every day when I get home from work and prance around the house in it??

Schmaltz

2011-11-13T09:03:00.001-05:00

I am slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I made a horrifyingly cheesy baby sampler:

Ben's sister had a daughter, and she is really into pink and princesses, so I thought it seemed appropriate. It actually turned out to be somewhat difficult to stitch, since it is so detailed:

Unlike the cartoon-ish stuff I usually make, this pattern called for all sorts of complicated shading and other nonsense - it had nine different shades of pink alone. The way it worked was kind of neat, though - after stitching a base of all the different pinks, yellows, greens, and browns in a pixelated mess, you stitch an outline around the main figure and suddenly it looks like something.

Before outlining

After outlining

It's cool how your brain works.

No such thing as a free bed

2011-11-06T20:55:00.000-05:00

My parents came up to visit a few weekends ago, and offered to bring us their old bed frame. Our mattress has just been on a cheap platform since we got it, so we were excited about getting a real, adult-looking, and free bed. We hauled the pieces of the bed frame into our building, assembled them, and triumphantly lowered our mattress into place, only to find:

Sadness.

It didn't fit.

You aren't supposed to be able to see that part.

Apparently all these years we have had a full mattress, and for some reason I have mistakenly believed it was a queen. I always thought our sheets seemed kind of baggy, but assumed the sheet companies must just give you extra room, you know, to be nice or something. I am very good at rationalizing.

Anyway, after a few days of precariously climbing in and out of the too-large bed frame to get to our mattress, we finally caved and bought a new, correctly-sized one.

So now we have a nice new free bed, and it only cost us one mattress.

Punoween

2011-10-30T09:20:00.001-04:00

Last night Ben and I went to a Halloween party. We both dressed as doctors, I had a sign that said "Ben is lying," and he had a sign that said "Caroline is telling the truth." Nobody figured it out the whole night.

Anyone here get it?

Ben on TV

2011-10-24T21:54:00.000-04:00

Penn and Teller have a new TV show where they feature random cool things, and Ben's lab was recently on it!

You can see Ben for almost a full second at 1:13. Science!

Open source x-stitch-cd

2011-10-23T21:01:00.002-04:00

I've had a few requests for a pattern for my xkcd cross-stitch, and while I (sadly) don't have pattern-making software, I was able to get a somewhat decent scan of the pattern I drew:

Top half
Bottom half
Ball pit (This part was just a randomly generated matrix of R/G/B/Y, thanks MATLAB!) To make the top row of balls look wavy, I alternated 3/4 stitches with full stitches and blanks, so the top row was like /X\_/X\_/X\_/X\

I used 18-count white aida cloth, and 2 strands of floss for pretty much everything - the exception being fine things (like the hair on the female stick figures) and pale lettering (like "internet" and "outernet"), which I did with 1 strand. In addition to black, I used the following colors:

DMC 3046 (medium yellow beige) for the map of the internet, bakery rolls, and trees
DMC 304 (medium red) for the sheets, spider, cape, skateboard, roller coaster, and red balls
DMC 444 (darl lemon) for the yellow balls
DMC 702 (kelly green) for the green balls
DMC 826 (medium blue) for the blue balls
DMC 647 (medium beaver gray) for the transistor

The finished product was about 9" x 12" - which was quite convenient for framing purposes.

Hope that helps any nerdy cross-stitchers out there!

What is this?

2011-10-14T20:25:00.000-04:00

It just appeared on our block, and has been there for a week now.

Any ideas?

A Beautiful Map

2011-10-10T18:01:00.000-04:00

We had this great idea at work to buy a giant map of Philadelphia, put it on the wall, and mark all of the schools where we have teachers. Then we thought it would be even better to put all of the teachers' names along with their schools, but they didn't quite fit so we thought it would be cute to connect names and schools using color-coded strings:

While we were successful in our aim, the unintentional result is that it kind of looks like the work of a paranoid schizophrenic.

THE KEY TO CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IS DESTROYING THE NETWORK OF SPY SATELLITES THE CIA IS USING TO CONTROL OUR THOUGHTS THROUGH SMARTBOARDS.

Hallmark Occasion

2011-10-07T16:30:00.000-04:00

Look what I just bought!

They really do make a card for everything nowadays.

Oh Yeah

2011-10-05T19:06:00.001-04:00

I forgot to post this on my actual birthday, but we went out to a fancy restaurant and I wanted to share this prettiness with you:

Believe it or not, that is very fancy, deconstructed s'mores: molten chocolate cake, caramelized meringue, and graham cracker ice cream. It didn't actually taste anything like a s'more, but it was still delicious.

Data Data Data!

2011-10-04T21:33:00.000-04:00

Guess where my work sent me today?

Edward Tufte's one-day course about presenting data and information! Not only was it awesome for all of the obvious reasons, it was double awesome because I got a set of all of his books for attending, and a neat little carrying case for them:

AND I got his autograph in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information:

Somehow I am not surprised that his signature is so... concise.

It was a little disconcerting to be back in an academic lecture setting, since I have gotten used to being a regular working adult. It was also disconcerting to be in a room that was probably 80% men, since I don't work in CS. Oh well. I learned a lot, and tomorrow I will go back to work and yell at everyone about their graphs until they regret having sent me!

Perfect square!

2011-10-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

Look what I got in the mail:

At first I was like, "I can't believe they would send me another guilt mailing, especially since I didn't even give them anything last time!" But then I opened it up, and found:

In case you can't read the small script:

It's from my aunt and uncle, or - as it says on the certificate - "Lady High Mistress of Muckety-Muck" and "Grand Poo-Bah." And people wonder where I get my sense of humor from.

There was a bunch of other silly stuff in there too:

They crossed out "erasers" on that package, and wrote "mistake catchers" instead.

I think I'm going to wear the "Birthday Girl" ribbon to work tomorrow, and see if anyone comments. I think I'm entitled, after having spent a quarter century among the Muggles of Planet Earth.

In which I complain about getting free stuff

2011-09-10T11:47:00.000-04:00

I unexpectedly got a big, thick envelope in the mail yesterday from St. Joseph's Indian School. I knew its contents were going to be odd based on this:

But despite its promise of 3 - no 4! - free gifts, I was still surprised by the sheer volume of crap contained in the envelope:

I've gotten guilt-mailings from charities before, but this is ridiculous. In case you can't make out what everything is, there are two notepads:

A personalized calendar, a sticker sheet, and a sheet of address stickers:

A preemptive "Certificate of Appreciation" for my help:

A personalized letter from an Authentic Indian Child, and personalized gift certificates for me to provide said child with food and clothing:

And last, but certainly not least, a real live dreamcatcher:

I can't think of anything that would make me less inclined to donate to a charity than them sending me all this crap in the mail. In addition to making me feel resentful for trying to guilt me into giving them money because of the reciprocal nature of gift-giving, it also casts serious doubt on what they would actually do with my money once they got it - send more dreamcatchers to more random people in the mail? How is that helping any Lakota children?

Some quick googling revealed that not only have they been doing this trick for awhile, but that St. Joseph's Indian School is actually pretty negatively reviewed by the BBB's Charity Reports Index - for, among other issues, only spending 51% of their money on their actual program. I guess the other 49% goes to dreamcatchers and postage.

More Harry Potter!

2011-09-06T18:18:00.000-04:00

Look where I went this weeekend!


Me and my friend DJ at "Harry Potter: The Exhibition" in NYC

That's right, even though the last movie has come out, I still found a (sort of) new method of experiencing Harry Potter! Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so this photo is all I have to show you.

The exhibit had a bunch of the props and costumes from all eight movies, it was crazy how detailed they were. The annotated potions textbook from HP6 in particular was a work of art - they actually made up an entire book of potions, and then wrote all kinds of crazy stuff all over it. Other props were less meticulously crafted - the small print on Prof. Umbridge's educational decrees from HP5 (you know, these things) was just "blah blah blah blah blah."

The craziest thing was how tiny the main actors' costumes were from the first several movies - I mean, I knew they were only 10 and 11 when they started, but seeing those little kid clothes really hit home how young they were. It boggles my mind. Also, I always thought Snape's robes were black, but apparently they were really dark blue.

Next item on my agenda of perpetual HP excitement: the Harry Potter set tour in London?

(lambda (cross-stich) (awesome cross-stich))

2011-09-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

Behold, my latest nerdy cross stitch:

Yes, that's right, they make black cross-stitching cloth!

Figuring out the pattern for this one gave me quite a headache. I kept thinking, "Okay, I'll base this lambda's height off of the shield next to it, but I need that shield to be big enough for a lambda inside of it, but I need that lambda to be the same height as the shield next to it..." and recursing into frustration. But thanks to lots of arithmetic, I finally did it!

See, it is really cross-stiched:

And it is really recursive (to a point):

Bonus nerd feature: The outer shield is 128 stitches wide, the next one is 64 stitches, the next one is 32, etc... I am a nerdy cross-stitching genius!

Hurricane!

2011-08-28T18:45:00.000-04:00

Actually, Hurricane Irene was pretty anticlimactic here - mostly it just rained for a long time. But today Ben and I walked down to the Schuylkill, and there was definitely some stuff underwater that wasn't supposed to be there:

The water was also moving much faster than usual, so it's a good thing neither of us fell in.

In conclusion, it was a good excuse to spend the entire weekend inside in my pajamas, cross-stitching and watching TV. I would appreciate more weather that prevents me from having to do anything (without causing major damage) in the future.

Random Updates

2011-08-24T20:54:00.000-04:00

1. I successfully contacted Randall Munroe, and (based on his excitement at my offer) mailed him my cross stitch! I sent it about a week ago, so it should be in his hands at this very moment (or will be very soon). Yay! I also finished the pattern for my next big project, and while it's not quite as epic as the xkcd one, it should be pretty cool.

2. I bought a wedding dress this weekend! It is pretty and makes me look like a girl. I am very excited about wearing it again... in 14 months.

3. I've spent the last few days on the beach at the Chesapeake Bay, at a retreat for work. It was very fun, but I kept getting in trouble during the team-building activities because I am not good at thinking metaphorically. Examples:

Facilitator: Now we're going to do trust falls. Remember, if you drop your partner, it means that they can't trust you at work.

Me: I don't see how arm strength and trustworthiness are correlated.

Everyone else: Shut up, Caroline!

...

Facilitator: If you flinch before you fall into your partner's arms, it means that you don't trust them.

Me: Or that you have a functioning vestibular system.

Everyone else: Shut up, Caroline!

Also, while I was at the retreat there was an earthquake, but I didn't know that's what happened until the internet explained it to me later, so I don't think that really merits its own number.

I love to cross stitch!

2011-08-14T17:37:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: I ended up getting in touch with Randall Munroe and mailing it to him! He thanked me and said he was "delighted" to have it - life dream achieved!

ANOTHER UPDATE: I posted the pattern for this project here.

Alternate title for this post: x-stitch-cd.

Okay you guys, check it out:

Just to be clear, that is not a framed printout of "xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel," that is a framed cross-stitch of it.

It took about a month of obsessive stitching, as well as an entire skein of black thread. For context on how much thread that is, I have yet to go through a full skein of any other color with all of my other projects, combined. Ben kept calling it my "magnum opus" while I was working on it, but I'm not entirely sure if he was being a supportive fiance or making fun of me for waking up early to cross stitch before work.

Now that it's done, it is my dream to send it to Randall Munroe and have him acknowledge my existence in some way, but so far it's still in my house because:

I can't find a PO Box on the xkcd website, and
I am afraid that Randall Munroe hates cross stitch and will laugh at me while throwing it in the garbage, and then I will be sad.

So if anyone knows where Randall Munroe gets his mail and/or how he feels about cross stitch, let me know! And in the mean time, you can click on the pictures below to see close-ups of the different sections. If you only look at one, you should check out the ball pits. Oh God, the ball pits.

Drum Corps!

2011-08-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my high school band friends and I drove to Allentown, PA for day two of the Drum Corps International Eastern Classic (for those of you who aren't also band nerds, it's basically a professional marching band competition, and it's awesome). I thought I would try and take some pictures of the bands, but it was raining most of the night so the only picture I got is of me and my friend Joe wearing improvised trash bag ponchos:

My favorite corps is the Cadets (and Joe is an alum!), and this year their show did not disappoint. They split themselves in two and did a pretty epic good vs. evil thing, which included them having two separate uniforms and culminated in a giant "fight" during the percussion feature:

(That video is from earlier in the season, because their colorguard now have much cooler costumes. I also found a video of their whole show here, but it's during a rehearsal and the sound quality isn't great.)

The second coolest show of the night was Carolina Crown, who did a mash-up of classic rock songs and Rachmaninoff, entitled "Rach Star." I couldn't find a great video, but this gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like:

Now I really wish I was going to the championships in Indianapolis next week...

Serious Business

2011-07-28T21:35:00.000-04:00

Guys, look what I did yesterday:

The songs are what was popular with the cool kids each year that TFA has been in Philadelphia. They all have crazy names - in order, they are:

A-town stomp (this was how we started, but it's not on the video)
Chicken Noodle Soup (my kids in NYC still did this one a lot)
Wu-Tang
Souljah Boy
D-Mac
Stanky Leg
The Jerk
Dougie
Cat Daddy

Can you figure out which one is me?

At the Airport

2011-07-23T15:14:00.000-04:00

What do you do if your fancy ceiling clock breaks, but it is mounted to the ceiling so you can't easily replace it?

Glue another clock to its face!

(As a sanity check we found another, non-broken ceiling clock to confirm that they aren't supposed to have secondary clocks attached to them. They're not.)

Compare and Contrast

2011-07-17T14:35:00.000-04:00

I re-made my first sampler for a friend, and I fixed the mistakes I made the first time (and also made a new one). Altogether there are five differences between the two versions:

Take One

Take Two

Can you find all the differences?

(There's not really a prize if you can, but it's a good indicator that you probably have too much time on your hands.)

I hate the homeless

2011-07-13T17:32:00.000-04:00

...ness problem in this city.

I made a housewarming present for my friend, who loves Dr. Horrible:

(From this song)

I bought the pattern, but then modified it. The little landscape in the middle took forever - there are three different colors of green in those trees!

Maybe now I can finally get into the Crafty League of Crafts.

Seen around Philly

2011-07-08T06:50:00.000-04:00

BIG BELLY IS WATCHING YOU.

Shiny!

2011-07-05T16:04:00.000-04:00

We could only see four fireworks displays last night, which was anticlimactic after the six we saw on Fourth of July Eve. Why would there be more fireworks the night before than on the actual holiday? Philadelphia works in mysterious ways.

We did get to see our friends Julie and Dan, though, which was great because I finally got to give them the present I made for them like two months ago:

Julie and Dan introduced me to Firefly, for which I am forever in their debt. This quote is from one of our favorite episodes, and it seemed like a good enough life philosophy to merit embroidering on a sampler. I'm proud of myself because I made the pattern up by myself, and if you don't look too closely at the Serenity logo it looks quite circular!

It's hard to make a circle out of a bunch of squares.

I couldn't quite fit in all the lines for the Chinese characters, but you get the idea...

I can see fireworks from my house

2011-07-04T10:54:00.000-04:00

Last night we heard the popping sound of distant fireworks, and so we went out onto our balcony wondering if we would be able to see any. It turns out we could see six separate firework shows - one across the river in Camden, and then one each at points Southeast, South, Southwest, West, and Really Far West. It was super cool - especially because each of them had their grand finale at a slightly different time, so we got to watch six grand finales without so much as having to put on pants. I love our new house!

The Best Day Ever

2011-07-02T19:56:00.000-04:00

Today was the Annual Super Scooper All-You-Can-Eat Ice Cream Festival, which I have been looking forward to ever since we moved to Philadelphia two days too late for last year's. My goal for the day was to eat something from all twenty ice cream vendors, which I achieved in less than an hour without even breaking a sweat. (Well, I was actually pretty sweaty, but that was mostly because it was really hot and I was in a tent with several hundred other ice cream lovers).

With some friends from work, about to eat my first ice cream of the day.

Although the event is a fundraiser for a charity that fights pediatric leukemia, I think they should have used a different slogan:

This makes me imagine licking a cancer-ridden child, which in turn makes me uncomfortable.

Even if they still want to use an ice cream-related pun, I think they could have come up with something slightly less disturbing:

Let's cream leukemia.
Let's put leukemia on ice.
One good churn deserves another.

Okay, maybe that third one is kind of a stretch.

There were some other interesting things at the festival, like a kid with a pet rabbit, that she was walking on a leash:

What? And more importantly, why?

And a giant cow, with a creepily-veined udder:

This was on a trailer hitch, and I really wish I had been able to see it zooming down the highway instead of just sitting at the festival.

In the end, I ate something from every single booth, even though that meant I had to eat some flavors that I really don't like (coffee, yuck), and towards the end I had to be strategic about conserving stomach space (like when I ate all the cookie dough out of one scoop but threw out all the vanilla ice cream that had surrounded it).

My final scoop was Ben and Jerry's oatmeal cookie dough, which is also one of my favorite flavors.

Now I am feeling quite triumphant, but also sticky and disgusting because I am covered in a film of sunscreen, sweat, and melted ice cream. I'm going to go hose off.

Here's What Happened

2011-06-28T15:50:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the long absence, last week was when all the new teachers arrive in Philadelphia, and we have a week of welcome/orientation/get-ready-to-work-your-butt-off programming that consists of sessions and events from 8 am to 9 or 10 pm every day - not counting the fact that staff members need to arrive before sessions start to set up, and stay after they end to clean up. I exceeded the maximum amount of hours I'm supposed to be allowed to work in a week by Wednesday, so I had yesterday off to compensate. I spent it doing really exciting things, like the laundry and getting a haircut. Woo!

Anyway, the real excitement was the week before last, and I think most of you know me and therefore already know that Ben and I got engaged. It's actually wasn't a big surprise, given that (1) we bought a house together, so we already had the "okay this union is going to be permanent" discussion, and (2) we picked out the ring together about a month ago.

After we picked out the ring, I wasn't sure when Ben was going to get it, or how long it would take to get it re-sized, so while I knew it was coming I wasn't sure when. I kind of thought he would wait until after my insane work week, or possibly until July 16 (since after Harry Potter 7 part 2 comes out on July 15, after which I have nothing left to live for). But two weeks ago he came home and started acting all fidgety and weird, and after he had spent about 10 minutes pacing around the apartment and driving me crazy with his hyperactivity (I believe I snapped "if you want something to do, why don't you at least be useful and clean the oven?!"), he pulled it out of his pocket and said "okay, I got the ring today, will you marry me?"

Then I said no and laughed in his face.

Just kidding! Although that would have been really funny*. I obviously said yes, and he said "good, then you can have dinner!" Then he went to the hallway and retrieved the takeout food from my favorite Philly restaurant that he had stashed there. So it was great because I got to stay in my pajamas the whole time, and then have an artichoke afterward.

I tried to take a picture of my ring because it has neat engravings, but my cheap digital camera is very confused by the fact that it is both small and shiny, and can't figure out how to focus on it. Oh well.

* When I finally told Ben I was interested in him romantically after having rejected his advances a few times before that, he said "if this is a joke, it isn't funny." I wish I had been quick enough to respond to his proposal with that line.

Going Away Present

2011-06-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

I am in love with my manager at work, but she is leaving next week to start a new job and move to Minneapolis. I am too depressed to talk about it, but I made her a going away present:

I'm still not sure if I am happy with the spacing between the different components, but I am proud of myself because I put together the design entirely using free patterns I found online - the big "LB" is StitchPoint's "Paris" alphabet, the words are Victoria Sampler's backstitch alphabet, and the rest is from Kincavel Krosses' Birds and Blooms sampler. I especially like the bird's swirly tail, and the little dots around it:

Off to drown my sorrows in more cross stitch...

Bike Polo

2011-06-14T18:08:00.000-04:00

This weekend my friend Kevin had a bike polo tournament in Philly, so I got to see bike polo for the first time. I thought it would be easy to find him there because he's tall, has a beard and a bunch of tattoos, but it turns out those features are required of all bike polo players.

They put cut up cardboard on their wheels so the mallets don't get stuck in the spokes. Kevin took that guy's face from a political poster, but he doesn't know who he is, what he was running for, or if he won.

I felt very cool because the tournament was under a bridge and next to some abandoned buildings, which created quite a hip vibe.

I also felt very uncool, because holy crap bike polo is intense and I thought I was going to see someone die.

Look how close they are to each other! On moving bikes! While swinging sticks!

Once I got over being scared of someone going over their handlebars and breaking their neck, it was a very fun day. I have zero hand-eye coordination and couldn't hit a ball into a goal from a few feet away, so I was impressed by how many people did it from across the court while riding a bike.

How anyone does this game on horseback is still a mystery to me...

What Ben does all day

2011-06-10T18:06:00.000-04:00

Ben's lab was recently featured on some robot website - there are several neat videos on the page, and the last one is Ben's work. When the robot uprising comes and they are able to effortlessly open the doors to our homes, now you know who to thank!

Full on cross stitch all the way across the sampler

2011-06-05T08:41:00.000-04:00

I just finished my second steotch cross stitch sampler!

I thought it would be much quicker than the last one, but the design's simplicity is deceptive - it took a really long time to do the border, with each word being a different color.

Here's the back, which is a lot less messy than my last one:

You can see how many times I had to change color from all the little tufts of thread, each of which is the start of a new piece.

Now I need a new project! I'm thinking about something along these lines...

Weekend Project

2011-06-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

A guy I work with is leaving for a new job soon. Throughout the year we've had a mock-antagonistic relationship with each other (mostly consisting of practical jokes and other such tomfoolery), so over the weekend I made him a going away present:

goodbye my nemesis

I was very proud of myself for designing something new using elements of the last sampler I made, and for whipping the whole thing out in about a day. I'm turning into a real cross-stitcher!

And most importantly, it was well-received by my nemesis and our coworkers.

That name is my name too

2011-05-25T20:41:00.000-04:00

First my dad got me this candy that shares my nickname:

It was a chocolate covered orange slice, yum!

And then we got this junkmail with a familiar return address:

I kind of want to go there.

And then my job got featured on CNN Money as a best company to work for, even though technically we're not a company. Other than that the article is pretty accurate, except everyone in the picture looks super serious and actually people at work are usually smiling and aren't robots.

So in conclusion, I have a good name and a good job, and even though my vacation is over and I won't have a summer vacation for the first time since I was four, I don't really have anything to complain about.

More Hudson River Valley

2011-05-22T17:15:00.000-04:00

Since it didn't rain the whole time we were in the Hudson River Valley, we still got to go for a short hike. Well, I don't know if it was actually a hike, because the path was called "Poet's Walk," and it was pretty mild, but at the end you get to be on top of a hill and have a pretty view of the river:

They had to idiot-proof the trail by adding signs indicating you shouldn't wander through random open fields:

We wanted to take a picture of Ben walking past the sign barefoot, having left his shoes at its base to comply with the "No Bootprints" rule, but the ground was too muddy.

Also, we saw a beaver:

It ran away before I could get a more impressive picture.

After our beaver encounter it started to drizzle, so we decided to learn something and go to visit the Historic Vanderbilt Mansion nearby.

This was just for one Vanderbilt and his wife, and they only lived there 8 weeks a year.

We learned a lot of interesting things about the Vanderbilt family, including that in his heyday Cornelius Vanderbilt owned one dollar out of every circulating twenty (compared to Bill Gates's 1:157 ratio today), and was worth more than the entire United States. Also, he had 12 kids when he died, but he left 95% to just one son, because of the other eleven ten were girls and the only other son was epileptic (i.e. "insane" in that day and age).

The mansion we visited was owned by Frederick William Vanderbilt, whose dad was the second-generation Vanderbilt who got 95% of his father's fortune. He and his wife never had any kids, which is why their mansion went to the park service after he died. Also, since it is near one of FDR's homes, during the '30s and '40s the CIA and secret service had a bunch of guys living in it for president-protecting purposes, and they drank all the wine out of the wine cellars (plural because there was one for whites, one for reds, and one for champagnes). What a sweet service assignment for World War Two!

They had a small museum next to the house, which included a section on the 60ish staff required to maintain the mansion and surrounding estate:

The two lonely dudes in the bottom right corner have somewhat cryptic labels:

Day Man

Night Man

So that's how I ended up spending the remainder of my vacation silently singing "you're a master of karate and friendship for everyone" to myself.

Hudson River Valley

2011-05-21T22:48:00.000-04:00

We spent the last two days of our vacation in the Hudson River Valley, for the extremely significant reason that it is halfway between Burlington, VT (home of the farthest-away friends we visited) and Philadelphia, and I wanted a break from driving. Despite the dire weather forecast, it only rained for about half of our stay, and for the other half it was quite nice.

This was the view outside our window (when it stopped raining).

We stayed in a bed and breakfast, which was great with the possible exception of its super-bizarre hallway Art: Ziploc bags filled with paint and nailed to boards in semi-patriotic arrangements.

See, it looks patriotic! Also, slightly like blood.

It is definitely made of Ziploc bags, paint, and nails.

Some of the Ziploc Art also had plastic condiment cup lids in it, I'm assuming for extra Art:

History!

Disposable plastic lids!

Other Art had little explanatory tags attached to it:

Hmm, I don't recognize this flag...

... now I learned something!

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any tag that explained why someone decided to fill Ziploc bags with paint and tiny plastic lids, then nail them to boards in various interpretations of the American flag.

Art!

My other favorite part of where we stayed was that they had electric candles in the bathroom, which were obviously electric because:

They were made of plastic, and not wax.
They had a switch on the bottom, as well as a clearly visible battery compartment.

There was a sign in the bathroom telling you they are electric.

My favorite part is not that the candles were electric, but that despite the numerous indicators that they aren't real, they were all covered in scorch marks from people trying to light them with matches:

Gotta love people's determination to set things on fire! If only someone would carry that idea over to the hallway Art...

Vermont

2011-05-19T09:43:00.000-04:00

You guys, even though the weather forecast said it wouldn't, it stopped raining in Vermont yesterday! We got to go for a really nice walk around Burlington, and even dine al fresco, all while enjoying sunshine and dryness.

Of course, since it had been raining for the past week, there were some visible reminders of the recent wet weather:

This is not supposed to be underwater.

Neither is this, but he looks pretty at home there.

Also, I knew Vermont had sort of a reputation for hippies, but...

In my mind, the pink polka dots represent discarded foreskins.

Now on to New York!

The downside of vacationing in New England in the spring

2011-05-17T09:41:00.000-04:00

Here is the weather from where we were yesterday:

Here is the weather forecast for where we currently are:

Here is the weather forecast for where we are going tomorrow:

And here is the weather forecast for where we are finishing our vacation with a two day stay that was supposed to involve hiking, orchards, wineries, and other outdoor activities:

Next year we are going somewhere tropical.

Connecticut

2011-05-16T18:05:00.000-04:00

I have always resented Connecticut, and it’s stupid silent “c” in the middle that cost me a perfect score on my fifty states test in seventh grade. But now our friends Julie and Dan bought a house there, so I have decided to make amends with the Constitution state, and also to make it the first stop on me and Ben’s New England road trip this week (woo, vacation!).

Julie and Dan’s new house is great! It has a squirrel on the front:

See, I am not kidding.

Even more excitingly, it has a lake in the back!

It was raining, but it's still a beach.

Also, Julie and Dan and their beach are all in Connecticut, but the lake (and the land on the other side) is in Massachusetts. This is great for Julie and Dan because it means they can easily drive to MA for cheap gas and alcohol on Sundays (despite CT's blue laws), but potentially bad for me because if they ever have kids, and then I visit them and take their kids swimming, I will be guilty of transporting a minor across state lines.

The other exciting thing near Julie and Dan’s new house is a Big Y grocery store. The Big Y grocery store is better than all other grocery stores, because instead of a lame customer loyalty reward system that revolves around an easily transportable plastic card, they use doubloons to reward their loyal customers:

See, once more I am not kidding.

Well, technically they aren’t called “doubloons,” but “silver coins.” When you spend enough money on groceries, the cashier gives you a silver coin when you checkout. Then later if you are shopping and you see an item marked as a “silver coin deal,” you just give the cashier your silver coin and she gives you the discount! Assuming you remembered your silver coins, and you have a silver coin for each silver coin deal, that is. Also, apparently there are also gold coin deals, but Julie and Dan haven’t bought enough groceries to earn a gold coin yet, so we can’t be sure what they look like. I’m going to assume they are just as awesome, if not more so, as the gold coins.

So Connecticut was a great success, despite the fact that Julie (whose husband’s last name is Spagnesi) got accused of being racist against Italians by the head of the Hartford Italian American Society (much in the same way my Jewish paternal grandmother used to accuse my mother of anti-Semitism whenever they disagreed, despite my mother having married my grandmother’s also-Jewish son).

Next stop, Boston!

The Book of Mormon

2011-05-14T22:13:00.000-04:00

Look where we were today!

It's God's favorite musical, so you know it's good!

We have been wanting to see The Book of Mormon since we saw Jon Stewart rave about it on his show a few months ago. It was particularly awesome because we got to see it with my (formerly Mormon) mom and aunt, who were able to fill us in on all the juicy Mormon background, from having to wear Temple garments during sex ("there's a really long crotch zipper!") to when the Church decided black people are actually people in 1978 (despite them not being "white and delightsome"). Also, apparently at BYU (their alma mater) they send someone to proposition anyone who is 25 and unmarried in the theater department, to make sure they're not... you know.

The show itself was great, but sort of hard to describe. Highlights included dancing cups of coffee in Mormon Hell, God telling Joseph Smith not to show anyone the golden plates he found "even though that would really, really help people believe you and make you seem less crazy," and Jesus in a light-up robe calling someone a dick.

Also, since we were in NYC for the afternoon we got to stop at Baked by Melissa, a mini-cupcake place I used to go to when we lived there. It's great because they are delicious and have a lot of flavors, but you don't have to choose just one because the cupcakes are bite-sized and you get them by the half-dozen. Also, they are really, really cute:

I can't decide whether the caption should be "yum!" or "awww."

Now we are back in Philly and have no more fancy shows or cupcakes coming up, but the Book of Mormon soundtrack comes out on Tuesday!

Ben finally fixed our bathtub!

2011-05-11T20:38:00.000-04:00

Yay, no more leaking!

National Constitution Center

2011-05-09T18:46:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Ben and I went to the National Constitution Center, because we are good citizens and full of civic pride. Also, we had a groupon.

It ended up being surprisingly awesome, and very contemporary - they already had an exhibit on the constitutionality of health care reform, and an interactive thing about whether or not Obama should release the photos of bin Laden's corpse. But the thing I appreciated the most is that obviously the people who run it have a sense of humor, and aren't too uptight about their work. For example, the museum map describes the Signers' Hall exhibit as the "number one destination for people who like to hang out with life size bronze statues." And then there was this sign on a malfunctioning display:

I think that's what I'll say next time I have difficulty with the conference room speakers at work - "this presentation is exercising its 5th Amendment right to be silent."

My New Hobby

2011-05-08T16:19:00.000-04:00

For awhile now I've been obsessed with Steotch, who makes the world's coolest cross stitch samplers. For example:

They are all too expensive for me to be able to afford, so until now I've been content to admire them from a distance. But recently she started selling some of her patterns, and after much finger-stabbing and thread-untangling I am very proud to have produced my very own Steotch sampler:

If you look carefully, there are two small errors. Don't tell me if you find them, though, because I am trying to convince myself that they aren't noticeable.

That's right, I made that! I am so proud of myself! Also, now I finally understand why her finished samplers cost so much - they take a really, really long time to make.

As pretty as the front is, I also like to flip it over and look at the back. I think it's neat to see all the raw threads, although I have a feeling that a more experienced cross-stitcher would have produced a less-messy back.

Front

Back

I really enjoyed making it; it required just the right level of mindlessness to be relaxing, and it was very satisfying to see it take shape over time. I bought another pattern to start working on already, I can't wait!

Finally!

2011-05-05T18:58:00.000-04:00

Look what is now in the NBC online store!

(Link)

Only six months after the episode aired... but that's not fast enough in this internet-fueled age of instant gratification, so it's too late, NBC - you won't be getting my $49.95 plus shipping!

French Culture, Philly Style

2011-05-01T18:35:00.000-04:00

UPDATE: It seems like at least part of the delay was due to the fact that one of the main performers was mistaken as a wino and detained by security. Gotta love Philly!

Yesterday was the last day of the month-long Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (goodbye, backyard trapeze artists). For the grand finale, the French acrobat/musical troupe La Compagnie Transe Express put on a free outdoor show right outside our building - I was pretty pumped about it since there was a lot of hype leading up to it, and according to all the posters it would involve lifting a bunch of musicians 100 feet off the ground with a crane for an aerial percussion concert/trapeze act/light show. Ben and I watched them bring in the crane and assemble the giant cage/sideways Ferris wheel thingy on Friday night, and last night made sure to go outside plenty early to get a good spot.

The show was supposed to start at 7:30, and by 7:15 the street was packed. Even though I was standing only about fifty feet from our building's front door, I don't think I could have gone home if I wanted to - it was just wall to wall people. Most people were pretty good-natured about it, but there were a few who tried to shove their way through the crowd and ended up in shouting matches with those who refused to move (or rather, couldn't really move because there was nowhere for them to go). Also, there was a lady not too far ahead of me who seemed to have a claustrophobic freakout, and she sort of went crazy and ran through the crowd (nothing opens up a path like a crazy person) to the fence surrounding the crane, which she promptly jumped so she could sit on the other side and rock back and forth. The crane operator looked like he wanted to tell her she wasn't supposed to be there but couldn't bring himself to approach her, so she spent the rest of the evening in there. Eventually her husband was able to make it over to her, and he stood there really awkwardly and occasionally patting her back.

Anyway, by 7:55 the show still hadn't started and I was afraid the crowd was going to turn ugly, what with everyone being shoved together so tightly and Philly not being renowned for its well-behaved citizens. Some people started climbing onto bus shelters and lamp posts so they could get better views, and others started booing and chanting "start the show! start the show!" I was trying to remember a TV special on how to survive crowd crushes I saw once, because I was afraid I was going to get trampled to death a few yards from my own home. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to stick out your elbows and just try to ride the crowd like a wave, but thankfully it didn't come to that.

Finally, right at 8:00, the show started. Except, since it was a French circus troupe, "starting" meant one guy dressed like a hobo wandered out and started examining the giant cage/Ferris wheel contraption, while making a big show of falling all over himself and talking to the crowd in French. And maybe the crowd would have had the patience for a slow start at 7:30, but they wanted nothing to do with it after half an hour of waiting. When it became clear that it was going to take awhile for anything interesting to happen, the booing and chanting resumed, with the assorted loud person yelling things like "do something interesting!" or "climb up there already!" This continued for about 15-20 minutes, as more performers wandered in and theatrically "discovered" the contraption but didn't actually do much with it. Finally, one of them climbed to the top of it and started ringing a single bell, which temporarily soothed the crowd. Unfortunately, when after several minutes it was still just that one guy ringing his one bell, someone yelled "do something different!", which the crowd promptly began chanting.

Anyway, after about half an hour of build up and increasing crowd unruliness, the performers finally climbed into their contraption, and as soon as the crane lifted it into the air the crowd calmed down and watched the rest of the show peacefully. It ended up being extremely awesome - the thing spun around while expanding and contracting, and in addition to the dangling percussionists there were also several suspended trapeze artists, who did all sorts of impressive swinging and contorting. The Philly Inquirer posted this short video of part of it, which sort of gives you an idea of what it was like but in no way conveys how impressive it really was.

So all in all it was a good day - I got to see an amazing French circus troupe for free, and I did not get trampled to death by impatient Philadelphians. What more could you ask for in life?

Unpleasant Surprise

2011-04-30T16:39:00.000-04:00

One of our favorite Philly restaurants is Han Dynasty, which has the best Szechuan food ever. I was trying to remember the name of an awesome noodle dish I got there last time, and thought I'd check the menu on their website. So I typed handynasty.com into the address bar and... let's just say that I didn't realize that Han Dynasty is just two spaces removed from Handy Nasty. So if you are interested in delicious spicy Chinese food, make sure to go to handynasty.net - and only go to handynasty.com if you are interested in a different type of spiciness altogether.

That is all.

New Neighbors

2011-04-26T20:41:00.000-04:00

We live next door to the University of the Arts, so there's often weird stuff going on outside our window. Usually it's just bizarre music and the occasional hollering (not to mention all the sad kids in skinny jeans with assorted facial piercings who loiter outside), so Ben and I didn't really pay much attention when we started hearing whooping and clapping at 15 minute intervals awhile ago. But the other day while we were on a walk, we rounded the corner behind our building and ran smack into this:

Apparently as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts, there is now a temporary trapeze school in our backyard. It's actually really cool, we can sit on our balcony and watch them go at it:

Getting hooked up...

...grabbing the bar...

...woooo!

I will be sad when they leave and we no longer have a free (albeit rather tame) circus every night.

I am becoming crotchety

2011-04-20T22:41:00.000-04:00

For the first time in my life, I just wrote a letter to the New York Times editor - this article just got me too aggravated not to. Since I have no hopes of it actually being published, I thought I'd post it here so someone besides the Times' spam filter will see it. It was a lot more ornery, but Ben helped me tone it down in the spirit of reasonable discourse.

To the Editor:

Mr. Winerip admonishes several public education reformers for not having attended public schools themselves, while neglecting to mention that several have taught (Michelle Rhee, David Levin) or led (Marc Sternberg) in them. Did those experiences not provide them with insight into the public school system?

Mr. Winerip’s larger oversight is his conflation of all public schools into one category, as if any one public school district (e.g. Quincy, MA, where Mr. Winerap attended school) is interchangeable with the next (e.g. Roxbury, MA, not ten miles away). According to the latest census data, a mere 6.7% of families live below the poverty level in high-performing Quincy, and 72.5% are white. In Roxbury, where student achievement is more faltering, 25.7% of families live in poverty, and whites are a minority. To students in struggling urban school districts, affluent and racially homogenous districts like Quincy are just as alien as Phillips Exeter.

Lastly, the assertion that Michelle Rhee is “education’s Sarah Palin” is blatantly partisan to the point of offense. Perhaps she is education’s Gloria Steinem, or MLK – or perhaps she is a complicated political figure to whom people are entitled different opinions. Mr. Winerip’s opinions of her and her colleagues should be presented as such, not as fact.

Caroline Rubin
(Student from an affluent suburban public school, teacher from a not-so-affluent urban one)

Umm...

2011-04-18T21:07:00.000-04:00

Background knowledge: Our building's lobby has a revolving door, and a regular door next to it. You can even push a button and the regular door will open automatically, in case your hands are full or you are otherwise indisposed. Also, there is always someone at our building's front desk, and during these events the person was Ted, who is very friendly and awesome.

Situation: Ben and I disembarked from the elevator into the lobby just in time to see a girl, who looked to be around our age, attempt to go through the revolving door while pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. She made it into one of the revolving door compartments, but there wasn't enough room for her suitcase to make it into the compartment behind her.

Expected outcome #1: Girl backtracks out of the revolving door, and goes through the regular door.

Expected outcome #2: Girl is very committed to using the revolving door, backs up enough to pick up her suitcase and carry it close enough to her body such that it fits in the compartment with her and she is able to successfully exit.

Expected outcome #3: Girl is very committed to using the revolving door, but unable to figure out how to get the suitcase through. She lets go of the suitcase, completes her revolution through the door, then comes back in through the regular door to retrieve her suitcase.

Expected outcome #4: Any other course of action that involved the girl, who looked to be of sound mind and body and is presumably mentally competent enough to be allowed to travel independently, figuring out how to end up outside the building with her suitcase.

Actual outcome: The girl just stood there. For about 30 seconds, just kind of looking at the suitcase stuck behind the door panel. After it became apparent she wasn't going to figure it out, Ted said, "try backing out and going through the other door." She looked at him for a moment, then tried to keep going forward, only to be surprised when she again couldn't continue because of the stuck suitcase. She resumed looking at the suitcase and standing still. Ted once more tried to explain the solution to her, this time she didn't attempt to move in either direction, and commenced staring at Ted. Finally, Ted came out from behind the desk, took the suitcase from her, told her to continue out the revolving door, and took the suitcase through the normal door himself so he could hand it back to her outside.

After she was on her way and Ted came back inside, he made eye contact with me and Ben, who had been standing in the elevator watching the whole bizarre situation, and the three of us simultaneously burst out laughing.

Disclaimer: I am almost certain that I didn't just make fun of a mentally challenged person, but if I did I take everything back. In retrospect, I'm fairly sure the most likely explanation (given her relative youth, the number of college students that rent in our building, and the fact that it was early morning) is that she was on something, or coming down from being on something.

Moral of the story: Don't rave and revolve?

Is that a bear in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

2011-04-11T17:01:00.000-04:00

Since nothing exciting has happened in my life since my night of Ukrainian acrobatics, and since I already showed you all the funny videos of me as a kid, and since it's almost my sister's birthday, I give you:

My favorite part is the surprise at 0:44. I believe that's still how she starts every morning...

Murder Mystery

2011-04-02T08:47:00.000-04:00

Every spring my office has a Murder Mystery party. It was one of the first things people told me about on my first day back in July, and the past nine months have been a slow, steady crescendo of anticipation. It is the Social Event of the Year.

We got our character assignments and backgrounds a month ago - the theme this year was "Cirque du Slay," and I was Tatiana Torovic, Ukrainian Acrobat. The guy who works in the cube next to me was my acrobat boyfriend. Neither one of us wanted to be underdressed, so last week we went out and rented costumes. We also looked at a bunch of pictures of acrobats online and bought facepaint, so we could be adequately made up.

This shows our costumes, but it's hard to see our makeup.

I was a little bit nervous about going to a work party in basically nothing but a swimsuit, but I ended up winning the Best Dressed award so it was totally worth it. I did look like I was naked as I walked there with my coat on over my leotard, though.

Here we are with the Ringmaster! (you can see our makeup better too)

People take the Murder Mystery really seriously, and were in character all night. I did my best to channel my extended Russian family for my accent, and I ended up being just a few votes shy of Best Performer (it went to Crystal Divine, the circus psychic, who held a seance and got possessed my the spirit of the murder victim).

Not the most flattering angle, but it give you an idea of what I mean by "basically a swimsuit."

Cornelius Barnum, the circus owner, had a nefarious plot to flood the Circusdome after opening night so we could leave town with everyone's money and not have to stay and perform. I had to pass messages and bribes between him and the crooked contractor, even though doing so was antithetical to the values of my Ukrainian village, because if I didn't comply he would revoke my work visa and get me deported. When Barnum got murdered I was pretty sure it had to do with this criminal activity, but it turns out the local beauty pageant winner did it - she didn't like the circus being in town and stealing attention away from her. Her past as a florist's assistant gave her all the knowledge she needed to poison the pie a clown threw at Cornelius with Nerium Oleandar. Although I didn't unravel the murder, I was successful in my other objective for the evening - preventing a slew of other circus women from stealing my Acrobat Boyfriend. All in all, a successful evening!

Cake Wrecks, Sausages, and Board Games

2011-03-27T15:18:00.000-04:00

Last weekend my friend Kathrine came to visit, and besides reveling in the glory of Supermoon, we spent some time wandering around Philadelphia. Our best discovery by far was a bakery straight out of Cake Wrecks:

Yes, that is five full tiers of icing stalactites and misshapen clowns with broken necks.

"I will haunt your dreams."

They also had wedding cakes:

Those are plastic gift bows on the bottom tier, lest their expert frosting-work trick you into thinking they are icing or anything else that actually belongs on a cake.

After (despite?) viewing those confectionery delights, we were hungry and decided to have sausages in the Italian market. We over-reached.

Those are theoretically each for one person.

Or rather, we didn't anticipate how truly huge an authentic Italian sausage sandwich would be.

Kathrine looks cool and collected...

... but you can see the fear in my eyes.

After being utterly defeated by encased meats, we went home to await supermoon. In the mean time, a bunch of Ben's grad school friends came over for board game night. One of them brought a new game called "Power Grid." You can tell how fun it is from the box!

We spent about 45 minutes trying to set up the board, which has four separate areas for tracking natural resources, turn order, each player's power plant number and status, and the location and connectivity requirements for all potential power plants. It also requires a degree in nuclear science and engineering from MIT. We were entirely unable to complete even the first round of turns, so we eventually gave up and just played Apples to Apples instead. Usually in that game the people who know each other the best win, but Ben's lab friends all did terribly and Kathrine and I dominated, despite neither of us really knowing anyone but each other. As she so aptly put it, it probably had "something to do with the majority of robotics-y people being language deficient." Too true.

Supermoon!

2011-03-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

You guys, Supermoon yesterday was awesome. Also, I felt really smart reading about it, because I already knew what "lunar perigee" meant from the Recess movie. We could see the moonrise over the city from our balcony and it was amazing - unfortunately my attempts to capture it on camera were less than impressive:


This one captures the orange-ness of it, but not much else.

This one captures the moon-ness of it, but not the orange-ness or super-ness.

I need to invest in a better camera for when supermoon comes back in eighteen years.

Philadelphia Flower Show

2011-03-13T16:11:00.000-04:00

This weekend my parents came to town for the Philadelphia Flower Show, and it was out of control gorgeous.

It was crazy how many flowers/trees/plants they had brought into the convention center, if I didn't know better I would have thought I was outside.

They had just about everything made out of flowers you could imagine:

A peacock

A unicorn

A literal flowerbed

There were also lots of different flower-based competitions:

The windowbox competition

The front yard competition

The flower hat competition

The daffodil competition

There was even Art made out of flowers:

I have about a million pictures of different flowers, none of which do justice to the beauty of the real things, and I imagine it would be boring to post them all here. So instead, check out this crazy flower hat:

And this dorky picture of me "balancing" a flower arrangement "on my head:"

This was my mother's idea.

Lastly, I got overwhelmed by flower frenzy and bought two miniature orchids.

I will consider myself a successful plant owner if I can make it to Easter without killing them.