That which Rolls

I’m practicing my Photoshop layer mask skills for a demo. I know this is no True American Dog but I’m having fun.

Source Files: Green Soda in a Glass courtesy of Catzie on Morguefile.com & the Octopus was taken by Earl53. 

A few weeks ago Brian and I found this red and blue leafhopper.

Last weekend I found this colorful bug. I think it’s some kind of beetle larvae. I’m not really a naturalist or anything though so don’t take my word for it.

And there have been tons of stink horns the last couple of weeks.

I taught my first ever class yesterday. It was less scary than I expected, but it was also a pretty bumpy ride due to some technical issues and probably partly due to the fact that I haven’t taught a real class before. I’ve taught short workshops but it’s not the same. I’m trying to teach these students a much deeper understanding of the topic.

I overestimated my abilities on the mac platform. It’s been a while. I need to rehearse demos before I do them to make sure they will work the way I plan. No one wants to see me flounder around trying to figure out why something isn’t working.

But we dove in to the deep end. The students were great. They picked it up fast. A few of them were a little frustrated by the technical difficulties we were having BUT it can only get better from here.

I will probably post some demo videos for them of the things that didn’t go well so there’s less confusing clutter involved.

Last week was portrait day at work. We have a photographer come to campus and shoot pictures of any faculty or staff that are willing to comb their hair and sit on a stool. Someone thought it would be a good idea to have a department photo done. I really didn’t do this on purpose. Luckily there were some other much nicer shots. I would share them but they’re not the least bit funny.

I’m going to be busy for the next 3 months or so. Really busy. But I still want to keep this blog going. So with no time and nothing to talk about except for the anxiety and utter exhaustion I expect to come along with my decision to accept the opportunity to teach a class this semester, you can look forward to posts of utter garbage.

I will not be thinking hard about them. I will not be spell checking. I may not write more than a sentence. Perhaps I will revive my early haiku style, though now I hesitate to revive the drunken haiku style because my web reputation is so important. People will not hire me if they think I get drunk and make up lame haikus to post on my even lamer blog.

This weekend…
I didn’t do a lot of stuff I meant to do. And I didn’t do stuff I would have done if I didn’t think i should have been doing other stuff.

I watched a lot of Mad Men. I found an elegant stinkhorn that was a little past it’s prime.

Brian and I road our bikes up the lane to the woods and thought about where it might be possible to build a little bike-able loop trail.

I went to a family picnic where we played a pool version of dodge ball. Apparently my throwing muscles are out of shape because my shoulder is really sore right now. Dodge ball implies rules though. Mainly the rules were… throw stuff at other people. Try to hit them.

I was no longer in the pool at this point. I was out nursing a horrible injury sustained while retrieving pool toys to throw at other people’s heads and faces despite printed instructions suggesting this was a bad idea. I’m just going to post a thumbnail here… you can click through if you want to see the close up gore.

Then we drove home past “Breen’s Breen’s Market.” This is what happens when a designer isn’t given the context in which the design will appear.

And today it rained. I went to visit my cousin & aunt and uncle for a little while. I found out that he also has freaky migraines sometimes. We discussed freaky migraines and aura and all kinds of other stuff, like melting bread machines.