Conjectural Knowledge

MLKjDAY

2011-01-17T23:35:00.005-05:00

Today is the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a National holiday. And every year on this holiday I think about how far we've come as a country (not to say that we don't still have far to go mind you).

What, you ask, have I experienced in my tame life to reflect back on today? Nothing. And that's the point. When I was 18 and getting ready to go away to college for the first time my grandmother and I had a conversation I'll never forget. She took me aside and in all seriousness asked me if I was worried about living in the dorms.

"I'm more worried about what my roommate is going to be like than anything else," I told her.

She nodded sagely, (ok side note, I've been waiting my whole life to use that phrase; my granny never nodded sagely in her life, she just nodded like a normal person. Cut me some creative slack), and said that's what she meant; was I worried about who I would end up with, if they would be different.

"I'm more worried that I'll be the different one," I told her. To which, she looked confused. Was the fact that I had only worn pajama pants that year and had taken to painting all over my shoes was not considered odd enough? But then she said something that had never even crossed my mind.

"No, I mean do you worry about if your roommate will be black?"

I think I must have just stared back at her. Probably blankly.

Now, mind you, my grandma wasn't a racist in the typical Ohio sense of the word. She never said anything offense, treated everyone with equal respect, everything you would expect of a nice catholic lady. But she was raised in a different time and acting with respect and politeness is not the same thing as being comfortable with someone who is different than you.

And that's how I know that we've made strides. Because I live in a time when it would never cross my mind that living with someone who didn't look like me was something I should worry about. My grandma was just trying to help, to reassure me that my nervousness about going away to school was natural, and she had no idea that I would never think that way, that I'm fairly certain I can't think that way. I know this story doesn't seem like a positive one to tell on MLKjDay, but I think it just goes to show what a child can grow up to be and think if they aren't surrounded with negative ideas. I never ever knew she felt that way, and because of that, I grew up with a clear mind.

An idea that isn't expressed quickly disappears. That's a theory that goes both ways. If inequality and hatred aren't expressed, passed from one generation to another, they will disappear. But if love and hope aren't expressed they'll disappear too. Hopefully as time goes on things in the world will work the way they did in my family, with each generation taking another small step past tolerance and into a acceptance.

P.S. My grandma lived to see me travel the world with the hopes of spreading ideas of equality, love and peace, but unfortunately not long enough to see not one but two of her granddaughters going to Africa with the PeaceCorp this year.

Driving home in the snow

2011-01-07T21:06:00.000-05:00

I'm sure I get a lot of cross over from my facebook friends to my readers here... since it is the same 3 of you who look at both places. So, I'll just paraphrase. There was a snow storm so traffic was at a stand still for a little bit. So, I taped my camera to my steering wheel and pressed the button all the way home. Go go gadget car camera!

Exercise is Hard.

2011-01-05T00:07:00.000-05:00

Exercise is harder at night in a somewhat urbanish setting. But I figure if we go in groups and carry a big stick what can the poor mentally unstable residents of Mt. Washington really do to us? The wind, that's another matter all together. Then again, 22 isn't so bad.

Mt. Washington really consists of only one street. Two blocks of one street.

Most of it is taken up by the Kroger... oooo Kroger!

The rest is as follows: Tattoo parlor

Mr Lock and it's strip mall of bars, banks, dance studios and pizza joint

And the water tower and library.

And of course, no night time trip is complete without light squiggles!

My Trip to the Museum

2011-01-03T00:17:00.001-05:00

Well, I guess it was more of 'My Day as a Fake Parent.' Including lunch, museum, ice cream, six round of Disney Princess Memory and dinner. God knows I have so much more respect for single moms and families where both parents work now. There were TWO grown-ups and only ONE child who could walk and I'm still exhausted. I ache in muscles I didn't even know I had!

I burnt the 2010 out of myself

2011-01-01T21:27:00.000-05:00

New Scandinavian Cooking Year's Eve

2011-01-01T21:06:00.000-05:00

New Year's Resolutions

2010-12-27T00:25:00.000-05:00

Along with the traditional resolutions of exercise more, eat better, keep not smoking and try to be a general better person I feel like I should get a few more specific, task-oriented goals.

So, I'm considering:
Continuing and actually sticking with Project 365. Perhaps without striving to be overly artistic I can present an actual day in the life of me
Blogging everyday- or at least whenever feasible. Things like book and movie reviews, follow up on crafts I do, that sort of thing.
Getting some pen-pals- because I'm horrible at keeping in touch with my friends.

What are you resolving to do? Any suggestions?

Some Christmas Stuff I Made

2010-12-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

Although, no one really seemed to like them :(

I Need Your Help.

2010-12-16T00:24:00.000-05:00

Hey Guys,

I need your help. Things are getting really tight around here. Even without the holidays, I can't quite get to all my bills this month. The second job hunt is still going, but I really need an extra push.

I don't have a lot of skills, but I take some ok pictures. There's a week left before Christmas.
I'm offering to take free portraits of you, your family or your pets (or your cars, or your shoes, whatever!) in exchange for donations to the 'Save Laura's Electricity Fund'

Here are a few samples from the last year; if you like the, please call me and set up a time for weekend or after work even. I'd really appreciate it!

Getting my Christmas stuffs together

2010-12-10T22:22:00.000-05:00

Most of the presents are going to be missing this year because of buget issues, but there are still a few that I'm mishmoshing together. Nothing like homemade, right?

Some of them I'm not even making but just re... well re-somethinging.

I can't claim to be the most creative person in my family, I fall pretty short. I know, some of you are always looking out for my ego, and will probably protest that. So as part of the Christmas stuff I'm working on, I wanted to show you these paintings my grandmother did of my brother and I and my sister that I finally got digitalized for my dad.

How can I compare to talent like this?

Yes, we were that blond.

No, the eyes aren't messed up, she was a bug eyed little thing.

Halloween Flash Back

2010-12-07T23:29:00.001-05:00

I kept meaning to do a post about Halloween, both to show you my awesome gun I made and to finally give a definition of Steampunk to those of you who are out of the loop.

Then I woke up and it was December. So, go ahead and google steampunk and have a look at this gem that just showed up on facebook:

Ada the Witch Queen-Batman-Airship Captain!

I can just hear her now, "I'm Batman, get off of my derigible before I hex you!" (you have to imagine the Christian Bale Batman voice, no one else fits as well)

Check your Happy at the door, because this is going to make you overload.

2010-11-29T21:03:00.000-05:00

Someone find me Matthew Ranzetta and help me get him to Vegas. 'Cause we'z gettin' married.

Found (as usual) through The Official Star Wars Blog, these babies are just what I need. Awesome covered in awesome with a side of AWESOME!

By Australian graphic designer Matt Ranzetta. He, for some reason unknown to me, apparently didn't realize how awesome these are and is unprepared to sell print, but.. oh well I'll just tell you what he said:
"I never anticipated people would show so much interest, let alone want them hanging on their own bedroom walls. So at the moment, I'm looking into the possibility of selling prints individually and as a set.

For now, if you are interested either keep checking back here for updates or simply email me - matt.ranzetta@gmail.com with 'star wars prints' in the subject. I'll start a little mailing list and keep everyone updated."

So, there you have it. A reason to be happy.

2010-11-17T20:11:00.001-05:00

Sorry, this video cannot be embedded.

Why My Family is More Awesome Than Yours

2010-11-12T22:09:00.001-05:00

We don't do candles....

The 'Am I Old' Test

2010-11-11T23:35:00.001-05:00

Want to know how to tell if you're old?

Ask yourself this. "By the standards of the place in which I live (or grew up) could I legitimately be someone's grandmother?"

For New Richmond the answer is a resounding yes. It was a stretch last year, but this year is entirely more possible. I have a feeling it gets more and more logistically sound from here on out.

Happy Birthday me!

I have power!

2010-11-09T15:47:00.000-05:00

I have the power to buy books!

Ok, that might be an slight exaggeration.

I have the power to suggest purchases!

Look at the books the system is getting because I asked so nicely!

Night of the living Trekkies by Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall

The Word Made Flesh : Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide

Cooking for geeks : real science, great hacks, and good food by Jeff Potter.

The Geometry of Past by Caz Hildebrand and Jacob Kenedy

Eureka!

2010-11-07T19:44:00.000-05:00

The key to happy is singing boys! As long as there are all-male acapella glee clubs out there, I'll never be TRULY unhappy. Straight No Chaser is going to be in town this week. ON MY BIRTHDAY. Who wants to buy me tickets?

My favorite acapella song? Do you really have to ask?

Sunday is for Deep Thinking

2010-11-07T18:16:00.000-05:00

Or it might be for hangovers. I haven't quite decided yet.

But I wanted to start a new weekly blog post, so here's your deep thinking question:

Where do you draw the line between low self-esteem and pragmatism?

The Internet-based Awesome Has Been Stacking Up

2010-11-05T23:22:00.001-04:00

I'm a few weeks behind on my attempts to be happy. There has been lots of cool stuff, but no initiative or oomph. Here goes:

1. These SWEET Star Wars pancake molds from Williams-Sonoma.

2. I googled 'awesome font' during a conversation with Deno, and found these two AWESOME head based fonts: The Beard font (which has been making the blog circuit apparently, but no one knows who made it :( ) And the Skullphabet designed by Mark Conahan.


Awesome, Right?

3. This cute birdhouse from Daily Danny, which is awesome in and of itself, not just because I used to have that exact same Fox and Hound Little Golden Book. Library craft anyone?

4. From way back at Halloween- this awesome Banksey look-a-like costume from a fella named George Schnakenberg.

5. Snickers Salad. Yes I said it. Apparelty it counts as a salad. Apparently I'm the only one on the planet who hasn't heard of it. Dana from MADE fixed that. I'm going to make it for staff meeting.

6. I found this on The Brothers Brick page, but I guess it was originally by Dave Kaleta whom I might just start stalking now. It's just one of many LEGO pics I have saved up for the next few weeks.


Remember, this is Copyrighted to Dave Kaleta

7. This giant clothespin sculpture by Turkish artist Mehmet Ali Uysal appears in Park Chaudfontaine in Belgium. It was hand delivered to my reader list by MAKE.

8. I made them order this book for me at work. I'm pretty stoked that they actually listened to me. The Word Made Flesh by Eva Talmadge and Justin Taylor

The Word Made Flesh - book trailer from Tattoolit on Vimeo.

9. Amy sent me this totally awesome Mexican Day of the Star Wars Dead print that she found on Neatorama, originally by California-based artist José Pulido. There is a whole series here.

10. And finally from Nature comes this amazing video of an CT scan of a barnacle-encrusted lump from a 17th century shipwreck. See if you can guess what it is.

Tonight's Happy

2010-10-28T23:39:00.002-04:00

Season one of LXD is streaming on Netflix. AND season two started up on Hulu.

So, in honor of one Episode 9, one of the best, my happy is:

The Cheer Jackpot

2010-10-17T21:22:00.001-04:00

Want to get happy fast? I have the answer.

New Scandinavian Cooking with Andreas Viestad.

I tried to find a good clip that sums up why I love this show so much.
The best one was the very first one. It gives you great insite into Andreas.
He's cooking outside- check.
He's twitching around- check.
He's looking at you like this food is really turning him on- check.
He's making bizarre food- check.
He's swimming in his speedo- check.

In this clip he's making vegetable soup. Sounds innocent enough, right? Wrong! This soup is an awesome blend of: raw green pepper, roasted red pepper, over boiled carrot, baby cucumber, splash of beer all in the blender. No additional cooking necessary, just topped off with a raw egg yoke and served in a drinking glass. AWESOME!

Several other videos are available at their website newscancook.com such as this one about making colored fish cakes- ground pike colored with beets, because kids love pink food! Or this one about pickled rosemary halibut- that's jarred raw fish with red onions lightly cooked and kept forever. How about this one- deer and rutabaga stew cooked over a campfire (note the dead deer hanging in the background) with some sort of stranged condensed cheese whey caramel.

Hosted by the very strange and fidgety Andreas (pounced Anders) Viestad, every episode is a mini lesson on the culture and history of the Scandinavian people. Everytime you try and find this show it's not there. It just shows up on CET and PBS whenever you least expect it and most need it.

Anders takes his show on the road literally. He sets his kitchen up on mountains, beaches, ffords and ferry boats. I love this man. He brings my cheer level to top notch.

If you don't watch anything else I linked to in this post, watch this two part series. I wont tell you what it's about, it's just awesome!

Part one
Part two

And remember, you all love cheese AND bacon, so don't judge.

I'm downgrading from cheer...

2010-10-13T21:54:00.002-04:00

We've moved into, lets find a reason to get out of bed. I'm running out of awesome.

1. This totally awesome and very creepy artificial reef being built off the coast of Cancun:

2. This Pumpkin Spice Latte Cheesecake recipe from Sprinkle Bakes:

3. The fact that I get a mileage check sometime soon and might just keep afloat!

4. Booturtle's Darth Fairy Costume. Check out the Death Star Wand. That's awesome:

And finally:

5. Castle does Steampunk:

Update**
6. Watching bad 90's movies in bed I happened to hear Ryan Reynolds voice coming out of my computer. Lo and behold, a 90's made for TV miracle.
Ryan Reynolds in the original Sabrian the Teenaged Witch

I should also mention, coming soon to a computer near you, my weekly update on Why I'm Going to Hell.

I'm not cheered yet

2010-10-07T19:47:00.000-04:00

But everyone's done a great job of getting me going on my way. It's no one's fault I have to find the money to invest in a new wardrobe because mine is no longer appropriate... because my job title changed.

Here are today's happy thoughts.

1.This awesome video, with an even more awesome song from the amazing Jeremy Messersmith, which I found on the Craftzine blog

2. Amy reminded me that I got a copy of Zombies vs. Unicorns yesterday. It's edited by Holly Black, who we all remember from Geektastic... because you read it when I told you to... right?

3. Continuing with the unicorn trend, Kat send me this Adult Swim game- Robot Unicorn Attack

4. This recipe from The Geometry of Pasta by Jacob Kennedy and illustrated by Caz Hildebrand

The Geometry of Pasta from Pan Marketing on Vimeo.

5. Finally, these Ninja Bread Men cookie cutters from Fred and Friends

Cheering Up

2010-10-06T22:20:00.003-04:00

Do you need some cheering up? I need some cheering up. I've had a shit week. Scratch that, a shit summer. I was minding my own business, getting my pathetic wallow on, when I read this post from The Bloggess about saying screw it and being frivolously happy.

Frivouls might be out of my reach, but I can enjoy the internet.

These are the things that caught my internet eye this week.

1. This puppy from Katie Sokoler's blog Color Me Katie. It made me happy.

2. This video I found in the same post by TheBloggess- Lisztomania by Phoenix featuring the cast of every John Hughes movie ever. (Except Home Alone... or Maid in Manhattan... or Drill Bit Taylor... Poor John Hughes, he really lost it at the end.)

3. This shot of Joshua Jackson and Random Girl with No Eyebrows from Fringe. I don't particularly like Fringe, and I've never really liked Joshua Jackson much (although the Pacey Con video he made for Funny or Die during Comic-Con was pretty awesome), and I really hate the Girl with No Eyebrows... But everytime I scrolled through Hulu looking for something new to watch, this picture was there, catching my eye. Judge not, as I can't explain why.

Yes, I had to google how to take a screen shot... seriously, stop judging me.

4. Picking a new background image for my blog everyday. Go Blogger for finally getting something right.

5. The entirety of Better Book Covers, especially this one:

Also known as: Joy of Cooking by Irma S Rombauer

6. Number 6 is a late add on, but totally awesome, posted on facebook by my friend Nick:

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

I plan to pick three things that make me happy every week. Be prepared. And maybe send me the things that make you happy... so they can make me happy too.

Banned Books Week 2010

2010-10-01T09:22:00.000-04:00

Banned Books Week 2010

Or How Censorship Affects Our Everyday Lives.

I don't have time now to tell you my epic story of censoring (but suffice it to say we will not be celebrating Banned Books Week in Clermont County) but there's only one day left in this year's Banned Books Week (my most favorite ALA holiday!), and I wanted to get my proclamation out. Now, mind you, the proclamation is set up to be delivered by a library, not an individual, so I had to do some text editing, but if I missed any bits, just pretend they make sense.

_________________________________________________________

WHEREAS, the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms; and
WHEREAS, privacy is essential to the exercise of that freedom, and the right to privacy is the right to open inquiry without having the subject of one's interest examined or scrutinized by others; and
WHEREAS, the freedom to read is protected by our Constitution; and
WHEREAS some individuals, groups, and public authorities work to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries of materials reflecting the diversity of society; and
WHEREAS, both governmental intimidation and the fear of censorship cause authors who seek to avoid controversy to practice self-censorship, thus limiting our access to new ideas; and
WHEREAS, every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of American society and leaves it less able to deal with controversy and difference; and
WHEREAS, Americans still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression, and can be trusted to exercise critical judgment, to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe, and to exercise the responsibilities that accompany this freedom; and
WHEREAS, intellectual freedom is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture; and
WHEREAS, conformity limits the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend; and
WHEREAS, the American Library Association's Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year as a reminder to Americans not to take their precious freedom for granted; and
WHEREAS, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, that I, Laura Settle celebrate the American Library Association's Banned Books Week, September 25-October 2, 2010, and be it further
RESOLVED, that I, Laura Settle, encourage all libraries and bookstores to acquire and make available materials representative of all the people in our society; and be it further
RESOLVED, that I, Laura Settle encourage free people to read freely, now and forever.

Adopted by Laura C. Settle
October 1, 2010
New Richmond, Ohio