| Can't Write, Brain Hurts, So Will Blog For Sanity |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:44 pm] |
First, a moment of silence for Dollhouse. The inevitable has proven itself...inevitable.
That being said, here I am. In Oklahoma. There's no wind sweeping down the plains, but I can definitely hear the Interstate. And even though my room is non-smoking...smell the smoke. Oh well. I just won't stay at this hotel on the way back. I'm finally en route to go spend a week down in Texas with my grandma. I have the gift I bought for for her in Rome in my bag, and we'll probably road-trip down to see the property my parents are thinking about buying. I'll pick some walnuts, too, if they're still there. It'll be a good time.
Amusing things to happen to me today:
1) The official songs for this roadtrip are Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and Coolio's "Fantastic Voyage." This was, natch, before I programmed the Sirius radio (preset 2, Dad, don't worry-- I figured you wouldn't mind because that was one all set to 50s on 5) for my own stations rather than classic rock (and the 90s channel, hence: Coolio).
2) Just as I drove past Six Flags St. Louis, We Like To Party came on my radio.
3) I followed a pipe truck for 10 miles of one-lane construction zones, and then passed him twice, hours apart. Well, maybe that's not exactly cool, but I'll take what I can get.
4) I somehow left "Kickapoo Area" twice. My brain, ignoring the unipoodle of Southern Illinois' Nano Challenge last year, immediately tried to blend a poodle and a kangaroo. The result was something like a hopping mad rich lady after somebody stole her jewelry.
(Did I mention I'd been driving 7 or 8 hours at that point?)
5) I listened to Kings of Leon's "Sex on Fire" twelve times, "Good Girls Go Bad" thirteen, OneRepublic fourteen, and far too many Nickelback songs. Eventually, I gave up on those two Sirius radio stations and picked up my cell phone playlist instead. I never realized I have three different versions of "Somebody To Love" on my phone. Tomorrow, I shall attempt to find different radio stations. I'll reach my destination tomorrow morning, assuming I sleep soon (heh, it's 11:47 right now, which always makes me think of Alias)
Hard to believe this day time four years ago, I marched in my last Veteran's Day parade in uniform. And this day two months ago, I made a road trip to the Midwest. Now I'm headed south.
- Ashley
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| More Finger-Crossing! |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|09:37 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  restless | ] |
I have a job interview tomorrow! I had a really good phone interview this evening and they asked me to come in tomorrow at 3:30! So, cross your fingers, say a prayer, light a candle or something for me tomorrow, if you please!
(I'll post more info about the job if it goes well tomorrow...) |
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| Car - SOLD!! |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|03:26 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  confused | ] |
I sold my car today, and boy do I need the money!! I was really stressed out all day over this and I'm still having a hard time believing it's really taken care of. I'm worried that they'll decide the car was more broken than they realized and change their minds. That would suck SO much! I really hope that doesn't happen.
So, I'm rejoicing, but afraid to get too elated 'cuz I'm worried it won't work out. :/ |
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| Network Maintenance: Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 04:00-06:00 UTC/GMT |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|02:00 pm] |
On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.
Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.
We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!
As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work. |
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| wordless wednesday CHALLENGE!! |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|11:43 am] |
hey everyone! its our first challenge for Wordless Wednesday! i have become recently obsessed with taking black and white pictures. well, less taking, and more changing really. i take them on my digital camera in color and switch them all to black and white to see how they look. it really really does change the look and feel of a picture. This challenge is to submit a photo in black and white for voting on by the participants of all the WW groups. Rules: - Photo must be submitted by January 15th
- Please take photos and upload them at the highest resolution you can for purposes of the prize.
- Photos can be submitted to the WW Livejournal Group, or on the WW Flicker Group
- Photos can be of any subject as long as its work safe (no naughty material people this is in the group rules)
- Photos must be taken by you (also in the group rules)
- You may enter as many photos as you like
- You MUST tag your entries "WW Black and White Challenge" so that i can find them when its time to gather. if you dont tag them you arent entered.
- Photos must be...um....black and white.
Voting:
- Photos will be gathered from LJ and Flicker by January 25th and the voting will begin. (this means i have permission to copy or download any photos you enter in the challenge for purposes of the poll and prize so please dont lock them.)
- I will link the poll post here but the poll will be held on livejournal.
- Anyone and everyone will be able to vote.
- Voting will end on January 30th and the winner will be announced on the 31st
Prize: - The fabulous Prize for the winner will be an 8X10 print of their picture in their choice of a black or white frame with a black or white mat. all acid free and safe for photos of course. i will be matting and framing these not a professional shop but i will use materials that will keep your winning photo safe.
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| Made it!!! |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|03:14 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | abby holloway, ariel, audrey story, blaze, dragon's gift, girl, maggie, nanowrimo, smoke, wraithbearer, writing | ] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Saving Jane - Girl Next Door | ] |
Passed 50k.
Okay, maybe it's more like I saw 50k coming and mowed it down. I didn't spend most of the day writing. I woke up, did some editing, finished out a project I should've done awhile back. I'm trying my hardest to upload it to youtube as we speak, but my internet connection at the house hates me. Then Ariel called me from the write-in at Starbucks because she'd forgotten something at home, so I grabbed my bag (conveniently packed for Texas) and headed over. We did a couple of write-offs that nudged me right over the 50k mark. I got my picture taken and everything.
So let's talk nostalgia.
( Nostalgia Below Cut )
And now, let it be said, that 2009 is the first odd-numbered year where I crossed the finish line for Nanowrimo.
Well, theoretically. You can look at it as winning the contest, or you can look at it as, "Oh, great, she wrote 36k (or 72 words short of it) on a book and now she's only 16k into Nanowrimo and she's behind! Silly human!
Look at it as you will. Wraithbearer WILL cross 50k. I'll just have to dig my heels in harder to make that.
And it doesn't help that I can already feel the book flying away from me. Three separate storylines? An ensemble cast? What the heck was I thinking?
- Lell
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| The crazy day that never ends...... |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|04:44 pm] |
Work has been absolutely non-stop insane today and I thought I'd be stuck at work until 6:00PM for a research conference. I was totally wrong.
I'll be stuck at work until 7:00PM for a research conference, wheee! On the upside, I'm hoping this means I can leave two hours early on Friday for the Culinary Symposium.
I'm hoping R can manage to wrap up the last bits on the old house tonight so we can spend Wednesday and Thursday night focusing on unloading the PODS. |
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| kitty pumpkin |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|11:53 am] |
Oh My LORD Kallys Costume! AWWWWWWWW. yup she was a pumpkin this year and while she tollerated it she wasnt very happy about it. although after i laught histerically and took about a million pix, i left the costume on her to see what she would do and she wore it (only glancing up distainfully at me a few times) for about 30 minutes. then she said "ive had enough of this hat" and tossed it off. if that look doesnt say "why wont you just die?" then i dont know what does. hahahaha
( see the pix ) |
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| Late (But Here) For the Party |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|12:22 am] |
Started Wraithbearer about 12 hours after I finished Trashing Romance, which Libby now claims I need to get published. I've had vague ideas for this story, tentatively called Bearer at this point, though I don't know how long it will keep that name, especially since things keep happening in the story that I don't expect.
1) Three people get murdered in the prologue. Didn't see that coming until my fingers actually started typing the words. And no, I really don't know why they were killed or by whom yet. My fingers said kill them, my brain didn't argue, and now I've got three dead men, one witness, and a scary red-headed enforcer who suspects our witness knows more than he's telling.
He does, but that's hardly the point.
2) I've created three major religions. Not sure what the different parameters are, but there's at least one polytheistic religion (I'm pretty sure the prince believes in this one, as he's already started drawling about Lesser Gods and Greater Gods. All of whom I shall eventually have to name, apparently), one monotheistic religion that may be the source of all the city's problems and a personal stomachache for my main character (literally), and the third religion seems to closely resemble anarchy of a type.
3) On top of the three major religions, I've created quite the political chain of command without meaning to. For now, I'm using generic words to describe specific positions. But when I go back and reread about my Nanowrimo experience on December 1st, I'll look at this post and remember that I need to rename the Barons and Lesser Barons and the like.
4) The wraithbearers are more powerful than I had figured they would be. Which makes my main character--finally got her named!--a heck of a lot scarier and a heck of a lot more messed up when she realizes what happens when she sleeps. I almost feel bad for her, except I decided to write in not one but three stabilizing characters that form an interesting triangle about her.
5) Tattoos are interesting. Especially when they show up overnight and don't seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. Poor Will.
6) My main character has a brother. The sister was enough of a shock, but it made sense. The brother? That adds a whole new dimension. Doesn't help that I'm displeased with MY brother, though. Poor Dorian might suffer my wrath in his turn.
7) I'm about to write my first experience into the wraithworld and another murder. I'm a little daunted.
8) I missed Music Mondays. So here's a song I've been obsessed with lately (yes, I know, I'm jumping on the bandwagon waaaaaay late). I even cut out part of it so that my phone now shouts "Mazel Tov!" at me whenever I get a new text message. We'll see how long that lasts before I go back the classic "Grr! Argh!" a la the Mutant Enemy tag at the end of every Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse episode ever.
Yep. Black Eyed Peas. I do love their "Pump It" song. It's on my "Writing happy/action scenes" playlist and will be for forever, I've no doubt of it. But this song is exciting and it builds. Which: yay!
- Ashley
PS - I'm less than 1500 words away from hitting 50k. Diligence, thy name is Lell.
PPS - Daily dog picture:
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| Call for showcase costumers |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|07:34 pm] |
Anyone want the November 15th slot? :-)
(And just a reminder - the November 15th slot is the last one for the year, as polling for the Rose Awards happens during December) |
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| The Georgia Regency Society invites you to Tea |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|11:10 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  excited | ] |
Hello!
My name is Stephanie Coté, and I am the founder of the brand new Georgia Regency Society, a chapter of the Regency Society of America. It has been brought to my attention that the members of this group may be interested in joining us for our events so I am here to introduce us and invite you to be a part of the Georgia Regency Society.
We are a group of people who have come together through the love of all things from this era, whether it be the clothing, food, culture, music and dance, literature, or just good company. Our first event is coming up in a few weeks and it's my pleasure to invite you all to join us on December 5th, 2009 for a Regency Costumed Afternoon Tea and Lunch at the Sugarplums Tea Room in scenic Canton, Georgia.
For full details and RSVP information please see the events page of our website. If you'd like to RSVP, or have any questions or comments, please direct them to info@garegency.org.
Thank you so much, we hope to see you there!
Stephanie Coté
The Georgia Regency Society
http://www.garegency.org
x-posted to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) garegency, 19th_century, janeaustenfans, teafortwo, oldfashioned, regencyclothing, jane_austen, reenacting, and livinghistory |
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| Do my homework for me, please... |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|02:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  curious | ] |
I'm of a mind to make a day bodice for the Eugenie gown, so I can wear it to Dickens and be respectable and fabulous (a concept I am totally 100% for). Thing is, the 1850s are SO not my area of interest and I derive no real excitement from combing through primary source material for that era to find costume inspiration. I want something simple... I don't want pagoda sleeves, but straight, fitted sleeves. And I think I can get away with this for the era. But I'm not sure.
Anyone out there have suggestions for a non-pagoda sleeved 1850s bodice style? |
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| I'm alive, but my computer isn't |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|01:23 pm] |
Technically, I had a four day weekend. Unfortunately it wasn't restful as I spent the entire weekend working on the old house and there's still a bit left to do. Fortunately we seem to be in the home stretch. There are just a few more things to be moved, a load or two for charity, and another 1-2 car loads of stuff to take over.
Unfortunately my much beloved but neglected Victorian couch suffered another set back on Friday when my father helped me get it down the stairs. He's of the "if it's stuck, push harder" school of thought and now it has a few paint scratches and a broken leg in addition to the stuffing and upholstery refurbishment it's been needing. Still, Maddy (who's LJ I'm totally blanking on) does fantastic work so we'll see if she can bring it back to life. In the mean time unfortunately I think I'm going to have to put in my garage on a tarp until it potentially goes for repairs. I'm giving away my rolling butcher's block and I've already got someone who wants it and will take it away, and take the couch to the new house for us.
In addition to the stress of moving and now coming up on this weekends final deadline, my computer died, followed by the battery on my cell phone. Gah! Hopefully once we're over this last hump the down hill will be as refreshing and good as the uphill battle has been long, exhausting and frustrating. :) |
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| Nano Nanu |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|03:36 am] |
Geeeeeeeeez my hands and wrists are killing me. Of course, this could have something to do with the fact that I just sped by the 45k mark...
On November 9th.
Even in 2004, when I had Smoke and Maggie and their really fun dialogue propelling me, I didn't go this fast. The St. Louis chart is interesting this year. I think they might have to make it bigger because the general mass looks like a big mess of color. Jen told me this morning that the ML e-mail she sent out went out to 1044 people. Wowza.
I think what really helped my word count once I finished the Audrey story was this program called "WriteRoom." I recently made the trek over to Mac from my PC-dyed-in-the-wool ways, and I may never go back. There are so many things my computer can do now! It's CRAZYtalk! But WriteRoom is really neat because it makes my entire screen black, severely reducing my propensity toward shiny things like, um, my blog. And the text is green and kind of blocky, like the really old school Mac I learned to type on back in fifth grade. I still store everything in NeoOffice so that I can write on my laptop when necessary, but I've written the bulk of everything in WR.
And hey, for the next three days, it's free. Score.
I'll set off for Texas today at around noon or so. I intend to make it as far as Tulsa tonight, and hey, there's a write-in. I'm taking my camera with me on my road trip, so maybe I'll get some great shots for my Flickr account. Hopefully I'll be traveling to Atlanta later on in the month, so it'll be an awesome road trip! Write On!
I think I may actually be done for the day now. Or rather, I was done for the day when I looked at the last sentence I'd typed, and there was a huge and terrible pun in it. A completely unintentional one. Now to kick the dog out of the middle of the bed:
He's actually really good at sharing. He has his half of the bed and I have my half. Too bad his half is the half that's, you know, right down the center of the bed. Crosswise.
Oh, he just stretched out further. Goody.
- Ashley
PS - Named my cell phone. Should've gone with Giles because it's got a Union Jack, but somehow ended up with Cordelia.
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| *Cough* |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|06:10 pm] |
Uh, hi there everyone. I guess it's been kind of a while since I last posted. My only excuse is that I was suffering from a touch of burnout post-Costume College (actually, pre-Costume College... Anyone who talked to me for more than 10 seconds at CoCo probably could tell I was barely hanging in there by the skin of my teeth) and I started grad school not too long thereafter. So, things have been slightly distracting for me in recent months.
But, I did manage to update some stuff on the website! The 14th c. purple wool kirtle and this year's Gatsby dress are now up for your consideration.
There's a few things coming up in the next couple of months that should yield some interesting costumes. I'm not talking specifics just yet, so stay tuned! |
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| Dances of Vice Festival III: The Grand Shipwreck Ball |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|08:26 pm] |
The Dances of Vice Festival in New York returns on November 20-22, 2009 in a three-day nautical themed flight of fancy that will be held in several stunning historical locations and feature a number of 18th Century related amusements, including a presentation on 18th-19th Century European fencing styles, 18th Century ballroom dancing, live Baroque harpsichord and classical music, historical costume inspired fashion shows, and many chimerical delights.
Thos interested in sailing away with us this month can find more information about the Dances of Vice Grand Shipwreck Ball at www.dancesofvice.com. |
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| Dances of Vice Festival III: The Grand Shipwreck Ball |
[Nov. 7th, 2009|08:23 pm] |
The Dances of Vice Festival in New York returns on November 20-22, 2009 in a three-day nautical themed flight of fancy that will be held in several stunning historical locations and feature a number of 18th Century related amusements, including a presentation on 18th-19th Century European fencing styles, 18th Century ballroom dancing, live Baroque harpsichord and classical music, historical costume inspired fashion shows, and much more.
More information about the Dances of Vice Grand Shipwreck Ball can be found at www.dancesofvice.com |
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