two week wrap-up
Well, yeah, I'm posting. I'm considering taking an official hiatus from the blog, but I haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll try to commit to a once a week post or something. I've just got too many things to do these days, plus the fact that the gift giving season is upon us.
Anyway, here is a completely random list of things that have happened to me lately. Nothing terribly exciting.
I made my way through the four dvd set of the Fellowship of the Ring. Really makes you appreciate the film when you know the mind-boggling effort and time that was put into the making of it. I was less than thrilled by the film when I saw it in the theater (I'm more of a dialogue fan, and there ain't much). But I absolutely love to see all the background stuff, like the props, models, wardrobe, foley effects, and, of course, the CG effects. They went to so much extreme detail that they actually manipulated the color/contrast effects of almost every scene to give a desired effect. That's why the film looks so different depending on what sort of emotion is being conveyed, and on what realm the characters are in. (Hobbiton is overly saturated and has a golden glow, while Mordor is almost deplete of color, for example.) It's sounds simple, but watching the colorist (using a technique called grading) work, you get the impression that it's an amazing amount of work.
Thanksgiving was ok. Now that the Cronburg clan seems to have abandoned the idea of a family event, it's just not the same. My stepmother, with all good intentions, has started her own tradition of inviting random visiting scholars and such who she meets at work. These folks are from all around the word, and generally are only in the US for a couple of months. This year, we had two Brazilians, a Columbian, and a guy from Spain. These people are always very nive, but it's just not what I imagine of when I think of Thanksgiving. (Last year, I actually skipped Thanksgiving for the first time ever, because I just couldn't face a room full of people I didn't know.)
Work is busy. I'm stuck doing a lot of background work on the national Police Ed. project. It's probably the first thing I've done at MassBike that I just don't have an interest in. Probably because it's less in my control. I work better when I can just run with an idea (doesn't everyone?). But I'm slogging through it all, and hopefully it will generate some interest and I'll have a bunch of other people doing a lot of the work instead of me! Other stuff at work is more interesting, and I've just come up with a new idea that I think will really be kickass. I'm going to create a MassBike Kids Club that will allow kids to join for free and provide them with a bunch of cool stuff on a fairly regular basis, to keep them interested, and provide access to the minds of budding bicyclists. (Whuaaahahahah!) Generally, MassBike is seen as pretty unhip, and I want to change that. We're gonna be so hip (to kids at least) that we won't be able to see our feet!
Ooooh, snow!
My roommates came up with a new game called ladle ball, played in the kitchen with soup ladles and a handball. There are no rules, but it's fun trying not to toss the ball into the cat's water bowl...
I spent Buy Nothing Day hanging around my house and not going outside. Not what I had planned (which was to ride in Critical Mass and then end up at a big Buy Nothing Day performance thing on Newbury Street), but at least I held true to the spirit of the day and avioded the disease of consumerism for a bit. And I know that it's more about avioding the overspending that usually comes with the Solstice time of year. So I'm trying to organize something to hand out to my family and friends that will encourage them to avoid spending money on gifts as much as possible (something like this brochure at the
Center for a New American Dream. Though I'm still waffling on whether or not to send my extended family gift excemption vouchers.
I've also discovered that having a lot of things on my to do list allows me to procrastinate, yet still be productive, as I avoid doing one thing by doing another. (For example, right now I should be working on a logo for the Kids Club or writing my article for the MassBike newsletter, or making Solstice cards, but I'm posting here instead, which was also on my to do list...)
