I found Wayne Levin Photography in my internet wanderings last week. There are more whale pictures on the site. Check out the “Fish Schools” series, too–really cool and a little sinister. But then, I’m pretty terrified of the ocean. I like whales, though.
I Think We All Feel This Way:
And I loved this shot–“Good bye! Good luck! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!”
Photos from the NY Times. You can read the complete Inaugural Address on their site, too.
UPDATE: Just saw this headline–Obama Orders Halt To Prosecutions At Guantanamo. He’s not wasting any time!
Tuesday Project Roundup: New Blog Format, New Storage, New Skirt, New President
It’s a good day!
First, notice the new blog format? The archives are now a lot easier to go through.*
The new storage, built by my dad and furnished with boxes from IKEA**:
There are quilt fabrics in the top half of the stack in this close up:
The skirt I mentioned last week:
And, of course, OBAMA! I have Mr. Isbell’s laptop open streaming the beginning of the ceremony as I write this.
*The images in the archives were lost, sadly. But I was unable to search them for particular posts with or without images before. We’ll just say 2009 starts a new phase in the blog.
**I highly recommend the elderberry flower concentrate from IKEA foods–“Fladersaft.” Mix one part concentrate, two parts gin, and three parts water, and serve with a lemon slice for a delicious elderberry sour apertif.
*
Just 24 Hours More
Boing Boing pointed me towards the online portion of the Harper’s Index for this month–it’s all about Bush. And while I appreciate that he didn’t bring about a Dr. Strangelove-like “nucular” winter–which I fully expected when the war(s) started–these just reminded me alll over again how really and truly bad the last eight years have been:
- Days since the federal government first placed the nation under an “elevated terror alert” that the level has been relaxed: 0
- Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU: 50
- Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists: 98
- Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003: 3/4
- Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35
- Chance that an Iraq war veteran who has served two or more tours now has post-traumatic stress disorder: 1 in 4
- Minimum number of detainees who were tortured to death in U.S. custody: 8
- Percentage of EPA scientists who say they have experienced political interference with their work since 2002: 60
- Minimum amount that religious groups received in congressional earmarks from 2003 to 2006: $209,000,000
- Amount such groups received during the previous fourteen years: $107,000,000
- Rank of Bush among U.S. presidents with the highest disapproval rating: 1
- Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term: 37
- Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin: 37
There’s more online, if you want to get worked up even more. But guess what? Tomorrow will have happy news!
Friday Unrelated Information
1. Wow, how about the captain of the jet the landed in the Hudson yesterday? That’s one hell of a pilot.
2. The ability to embed video on this blog continues to elude me, but if you go here, you can watch an announcement by my favorite singer Neko Case: For every blog that posts her new single, her record label will donate $5 to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary! I’m playing along–this link will download the song directly and get a $5 donation. http://www.anti.com/media/download/708
(If you don’t want to download, you can also hear the song on the info page. It’s the number of blog posts that gets the donation, not the number of downloads.)
3. I have a shelf being delivered tomorrow that my dad built, so I can spend the long weekend stacking fabric and sewing. Yay!
I Don’t Mind Winter When It’s Sunny And In The 40’s
So I can post these pictures from an exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, Massachusetts) without complaining too much about the cold. (I can’t complain at all after reading about Shackleton.)
There are 14 images from the show online, with informative captions, and they’re worth a look. For example:
And the caption:
Painter George Marston joined explorer Ernest Shackleton on two voyages, the 1908 Nimrod expedition and the ill-fated 1914 Endurance expedition to Antarctica.
In his painting Aurora Australis, he uses the southern lights – the southern counterpart of the northern lights – to frame an iconic view of polar exploration at the turn of the 20th century, showing the rough shelters and sled dogs.
Lacking a canvas, he painted the scene on a salvaged piece of tea crate
Also, who knew there was an Antarctic equivalent to the Northern Lights?
Thing #24: Learn How To Dance
Before I thought of the 29 Things, I had already planned to take some sort of Continuing Ed class with Mr. Isbell in 2009, just to get us off the couch and away from re-watching old seasons of The Office. Once I realized I’d like to know how to dance going into the next decade, we signed up to learn “East Coast Swing.” Our first class was last night.
We picked swing because it was a more convenient night than the general ballroom dance class, and because I thought the music would be better–you’d expect big band swing standards from Duke Ellington, Glen Miller, and Tommy Dorsey in a swing class, right? Well, that wasn’t the case. Although we’re not really dancing yet, either, just going through the steps, so I guess we wouldn’t have done good music justice anyway.
Despite my disappointment in the music (Bad 90’s swing revival stuff? Really?), it was fun, and when I got home I learned a lot about the history of swing. And now I want some saddle shoes:
This will so be us in a month.
Tuesday Project Roundup: Project Overload
Currently working on: Navy corduroy skirt using this pattern* (and the FANTASTIC buttonhole feature on my new machine).
Currently planning to work on:
-Quilt top
-Tan knit t-shirt
-Striped knit t-shirt
-Navy floral blouse
-Brown Japanese rose-print dress
-Vintage orange floral dress
Currently wishing I had another two weeks off to sew.
*That isn’t my photo in the link; it’s the designer’s. It’s been too dark for pictures here, hence no modeled shot of the plaid blouse from last week and no pictures of the pile of sweater pieces that are growing at the rate of cave formations. And no pictures of the failed cowl that was supposed to be so chic because, well, FAIL.
Happy Birthday Jack London
The Writer’s Almanac tells me that today is Jack London’s birthday, so I got some more details from Wikipedia: Born in 1876, he worked in a cannery, sailed as a pirate and as part of the California Fish Patrol, went to the Klondike with goldrush fever, got scurvy, bought a ranch and a yacht, amassed a library of 15,000 volumes, and died in 1914 of a morphine overdose.
I didn’t realize that he died so young–I guess children’s copies of The Call of the Wild don’t get into a lot of detail about death from alcoholism and accidental overdoses.
Friday Unrelated Information
1. The URL tells you all you need to know:www.
2. I’ve been thinking about quilts–Thing 4 on the 29 Things. To practice quilting and binding a big quilt, I am thinking about making a doll quilt. For Toby. To sit on when he looks out the window. Because I am a crazy cat lady. (Although I think I would be crazier if I made a doll quilt for actual DOLLS.)
3. I’ve also been thinking about storage solutions, so this is appropriate: Translate your name into an IKEA furniture name here.