4/13/06
So much to catch up on
We got some crazy news today....My sister-in-law is pregnant. It's a total surprise. She always vehemently was against having children. It was a point of contention btwn her and my brother (he wants lots) so while he was doing the happy bum dance all around the living room (_\_)(__)(_/_) she was in the bedroom crying her eyeballs out. She seemed better about it today. She called me to let me know. I was so happy for her. It will turn out. Plus it gives me an excuse to crochet all kinds of baby stuff for her lol.
Chicken came up last weekend again. With her bf Eric. He's okay I guess. Kinda blah. I mean, he's a nice guy, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't seem like the kind of person I see her with. I only got a small dose of him tho so I'm reserving complete judgement until later. All i know is I want her to be happy. I want all my friends to be happy. I'm happy. And I'm with the man of my dreams.
I'm such an emotional wreck lately tho. I cry at the drop of a hat. I'm hoping some of it is PMS and not just wedding crap cuz otherwise you won't want to see my on my wedding day.
oh! When chicken came up we had the best time Friday night @ Sultana's . It's a crappy hole in the wall bar. We went up to talk to Robbie about DJing the wedding. He wasn't there. But fish and Julia came up (with Julia's fiance) and Gordon joined us later...it was great! There are a few people I miss from high school. And these were some of them. It was like a mini reunion, but better.
Monday Kevin and I finally went to the eye doctor. D.O.C. I've never been to a chain like that, but lemme tell you, they were great! I am so comfortable with getting my eyes checked. It's the only doctor I look forward to going to. And our doctor wwas a little old guy about 70. He amazed me. He could tell by my glasses whether I was near or far sighted (i'm near) My eyes are in great health (as are Kevin's) and I got some contacts and replaced the lenses in my frames and Kevin had to get glasses. He was so heartbroken. He's always prided himself on his perfect vision. Unfortunately he's almost 40...this happens. He's just a tiny bit farsighted. I think the glasses look HAWT on him. I'll take a pic to share tonight when he gets home.
Last night we had our first fire of the season. I was so happy. I love bonfires in our backyard. We just get some beverages (usually beer...but pop or water or anything we're in the mood for) and start the fire and turn on the radio and just listen to music and talk for hours. I can honestly say it's about the best part of being a homeowner. It relaxes me so much. All the wedding stress and anything else stress just melts away when I'm in front of the firepit. I can't wait until this weekend when we have another one...maybe Saturday...cuz Sunday we're prolly going to the drive-in if it stays as beautiful as it was today (i actually had to turn the A/C on for an hour to cool things down!)
And today Kevin's Aunt Sue came by with a couple wedding gifts for us. I'm so excited. I wanted to tear them open right away, but I'm waiting for Kevin.She did see the scarf I'm making Jayson tho and totally complimented me on it. Made me happy. That thing is going to kill me lol.
I started talking with an old friend on myspace. I was nervous at first, but it's working out good. And I have chicken to thank for it. myspace totally brings out the high school jitters in me cuz I'm nervous if people will remember me or want to talk to me. I'm slowly getting better cuz I'm realizing alot of them feel the same way. I can't wait until after the wedding when I can devote mega hours to it lol. (like i need more time there)
I have a ton more to say but this is already all over the place and rambling. I hate when I blog like this. I so want to have meaningful blogs that enlighten you on me and my life....instead it's likea newsletter or a daily log. Oh well. You get the idea.
4/5/06
Raise the minimum wage: Act now
Hey--
So far, almost 90,000 people across the country have signed on as citizen co-sponsors to increase the minimum wage. Your name can put the number of Americans demanding a better minimum wage over 100,000 -- and 100,000 Americans demanding specific legislation is something that even the most out of touch Republican leaders cannot ignore.
If you sign on, we're that much closer to making it a full one hundred thousand:
http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/fairwage/fubris
Here are some facts:
* Someone on minimum wage earns just $10,700 a year. A single mom with two kids who works full-time for the minimum wage is about $6,000 below the poverty line.
* The minimum wage has been the same since 1997. Since then, Republican leaders have raised the salaries of Senators seven times. Salaries of lawmakers have gone up by $31,600 -- almost three times the entire yearly income of someone on minimum wage.
* The real value of the minimum wage is more than $3.00 below than it was a generation ago. To have the same purchasing power the minimum wage had 40 years ago, it would have to be $8.50 per hour.
* The minimum wage is the lowest it has been in over 50 years relative to the average wage.
* Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour would mean an additional $4,370 for a minimum-wage worker. That adds up to more than one year of groceries, over 9 months of rent, a year and a half of heat and electricity, or full tuition for a community college degree.
Support the Fair Minimum Wage Act
http://www.democrats.org/page/petition/fairwage/fubris
Thank you!
So much to share
About an hour into it we actually ran out of white bread and had to go get more (we brought 5 loaves!!!) so I took the car and ran across the street to Busch's grocery store. I cleaned them out of bread and when I was coming back...the car ran out of gas! Kevin's fault. He said we needed to stop for gas but didn't. I stalled in the driveway leaving the parking lot...and it was raining...i had to wave cars around me as I frantically called Kevin on his phone to tell him what happened. While waving cars around me and waiting for Kevin, this blue pick up truck pulls up in front of me and starts trying to push me back. I don't recognize the car so I'm thinking "OMG someone is taking pity on me and being a good samaritan and getting me out of the way" so i put the car in reverse and they push me back....all the way around a corner and almost into a parking spot. The truck then leaves, so i open the car door and try to start pushing the car back into a parking spot when the truck comes back and starts pushing the car back into the spot i was trying to get into. So i jump back in the car and steer it in. Once it's done I wave and say thank you and sit to wait for kevin. But the truck isn't leaving. So I figure "i'll get out and thank them" when i start walking to the truck is when I can finally see that it's Kevin in the drver's side. So i grab everything up and get in the truck. I yell at him for not telling me it was him. I thought it was some random crazy person in a blue truck being nice. Turns out it was the assistant manager from Shanahan's truck he borrowed.
After the charity event we went to the nearest gas station to buy a gas can and gas and they actually loaned us their gas can. So we got the car running, returned the gas can and the truck and made our way home....but in the process we discovered Kevin's phone was missing. Now I used it to call him when the car died, so i know I had it then. We looked in the car, we went to the parking lots, we even called the store...nothing...I even prayed to all the gods and goddesses to please help us...can't find it anywhere. So yesterday Kevin cancelled the phone and he's going tomorrow to get a new one to replace it. We might be switching phone numbers if the new phone is cooler than the one we have lol.
Monday we went downriver and took Kevin's nephews to see Ice Age 2. BIG MISTAKE! They are 6 and 4(almost 5) ... Tyler is 6 and Zach is 4...we took Zach to see Star Wars back in June and it wasn't too bad...well that's cuz we outnumbered him. With even numbered us v. them it was chaos. We picked them up and they were all over the place all excited about going to the movies with their Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jazmyn. Maybe if we had gone to a theatre further away they would have calmed down a bit, but the theatre is only 5 minutes from their house...so we got there with 30 minutes to kill. We figured we'd take them in the games room...BIG MISTAKE! Tyler grabs EVERYTHING and neither of them have any clue on how to play a video game. We finally get them to play a driving game (which they have no clue how to play and won't listen to us trying to teach them...all they do is move the steering wheel around and end up crashing into everything) That takes us to 15 minutes before the movie. Enough time to get 2 kids popcorn things for them (popcorn, gummy bears and lemonade) and pop and popcorn for us....yea right...like we had time to eat or drink. From the time we got in there it was "No Tyler...Zachary stop...sit still...don't go over there....sit back in your chair....Zach NO!....Tyler settle down...." and...well...you get the idea. I felt bad for the people around us that had good kids. Obviously Tyler and Zach don't know how to act in a movie theatre. It makes me wonder if they've ever been. Now, one on one, (or one on two as the case may be) we prolly could have handled it. Just tyler or just Zach...piece of cake! But the 2 of them...CHAOS! So this is something we will NEVER do again1`! At least not until they're about 10 years older lol.
After the movie we took them straight home. Then we went to a nice relaxing sushi dinner @ the BLack Pine Tree (15% off sushi mennu on MoOndays!) and came home to a nice quiet house with NO KIDS! It was lovely!
Today I've been working on Jayson's wedding scarf thingy. Each row is about 2 hours and I have to make it at least16 I'm thinking...1 for each year we've been friends..hopefully it will turn out nice enough.
Nothing else to tell...CHicken comes up thursday so I have to spend all day today (wednesday) cleaning the house making sure it's presentable. I'm gonna try and move a couch into the back room for her since we still don't have a bed...that way she can have a room to go to and won't have to suffer staying up late with us lol.
And now it's 5am and I really need to get to sleep. Man my blogs are boring. Sorry!
3/31/06
WOW! so many people I know could use this!
I just read this on a myspace blog. how cool is this?!?
Device warns you if you're boring or irritating
29 March 2006
NewScientist.com news service
Celeste Biever
A DEVICE that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed.
One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Failure to notice that they are boring or confusing their listeners can be particularly damaging, says Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's sad because people then avoid having conversations with them."
The "emotional social intelligence prosthetic" device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show. If the wearer seems to be failing to engage his or her listener, the software makes the hand-held computer vibrate.
“If the wearer seems to be failing to engage the person listening, the computer vibrates”In 2004 El Kaliouby demonstrated that her software, developed with Peter Robinson at the University of Cambridge, could detect whether someone is agreeing, disagreeing, concentrating, thinking, unsure or interested, just from a few seconds of video footage. Previous computer programs have only detected the six more basic emotional states of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust. El Kaliouby's complex states are more useful because they come up more frequently in conversation, but are also harder to detect, because they are conveyed in a sequence of movements rather than a single expression.
Her program is based on a machine-learning algorithm that she trained by showing it more than 100 8-second video clips of actors expressing particular emotions. The software picks out movements of the eyebrows, lips and nose, and tracks head movements such as tilting, nodding and shaking, which it then associates with the emotion the actor was showing. When presented with fresh video clips, the software gets people's emotions right 90 per cent of the time when the clips are of actors, and 64 per cent of the time on footage of ordinary people.
El Kaliouby is now training the software on excerpts from movies and footage captured by webcams. This week she plans to gather the first on-the-move training footage by equipping a group of volunteers, some of whom are autistic, with wearable cameras.
Getting the software to work is only the first step, Picard warns. In its existing form it makes heavy demands on computing power, so it may need to be pared down to work on a standard hand-held computer. Other challenges include finding a high-resolution digital camera that can be worn comfortably, and training people with autism to look at the faces of those they are conversing with so that the camera picks up their expressions.
The team will present the device next week at the Body Sensor Network conference at MIT. People with autism are not the only ones who stand to benefit. Timothy Bickmore of Northeastern University in Boston, who studies ways in which computers can be made to engage with people's emotions, says the device would be a great teaching aid. "I would love it if you could have a computer looking at each student in the room to tell me when 20 per cent of them were bored or confused."
of course the usage is noble...but wouldn't that be a fun gift to have yourself? I'd love it cuz I know i bore the hell outta people. Comes from having no physical contact with the outside world most of the time. My only contact day in and day out is with my cat or my computer. All I do during the day lately is crochet and wedding stuff. Nothing else matters to me right now lol. I'm such a loser.
3/22/06
STUPID COMPUTER
So...I'm too lazy to retype the whole damn thing right now. I need sustenence. So let me just concentrate on the PTK part.
To consolidate the PTK sage in one post...I found a PTK..an adorable orange kitty that just showed up on our door one day...after being around for awhile we took it in, fed it, watered it, and tried to nurse it back to health when i saw it was injured..tried to find it's home..and eventually couldn't afford to keep it here (plus it wasn't fair having to keep it locked in the backroom until we COULD afford to take it to the vet) so we took it to the anti-cruelty society. They gave it all it's shots, fixed it, and sent it to a Pet Smart in Utica to be adopted out...which happened after about 2 weeks.
So, in the meantime, this other orange cat starts coming around the house. It tries to jump in my boss's car one day when he stopped by, so i picked it up and asked the boys who are playing next door if it's theirs. "nope" they say "it's theirs" and indicate the house next to theirs on the other side.
Well, then the house goes up for sale. And the cat comes by more and more. Soon we notice the house is vacant. (i never saw the moving vans honest! and I'm a nosy neighbor) and the cat is coming by more and more...it's even eating the food i set out for it...so i let it in and give it food and water and it sleeps here for hours. Eventually it leaves...but this morning @ 5am I'm awoken by a horrific meowing screaming coming from outside. It also waked up kevin and kaguya. I go running downstairs and then outside with a light trying to find the cat. I search everywhere but cant' seem to find it. I'm terrified it's hurt or trapped. after searching for nearly 20 minutes I can't find anything so I reluctantly go back to sleep.
But once I wake upand come down to the computer room, there's the kitty outside the patio doors looking to come in. It sees it's food and water bowls still there. So I let it in. It explores for awhile, eats, then lays down to sleep (where it has been for the past 2 hours) So I get the # off the sign in front of the house the kitty is from and call to find out if the owners abandoned it or what....turns out they gave it to the neoghbor kids. That's right. The kids whose cat i originally heartlessly stole and gave away.
So I guess it's just gonna be a 2 home kitty...1 during the day and 1 at night. It bothers me that they've got it being an outdoor kitty cuz I don't agree with that in principal, altho one of my best friends swears by it cuz she hates litter boxes. I just worry about things that can happen to it...especially when next door to us lives a huge ferocious rotweiler. But since it's only my PTK....
And now to grab something to eat, maybe watch a little mindless TV, crochet a little, then back to wedding invitations. I should be able to crank most of those out tonight and all of them by this weekend.
And just got a call from my mom...tomorrow I'm going to a hockey game with her *YAY*
3/21/06
our new PTK
Feline Friends
March 21, 2006
If you think your cat will warmly welcome a new feline family member, you may be in for a surprise.
For the first few days, consider confining your new cat to a single room. Allow your cats to sniff at each other under a closed door. When you think both cats are ready, have them meet face-to-face under your watchful eye. Allow the cats to stake out their territory and determine what areas they are willing to share. And stay out of minor tussles--they're part of the getting-to-know-you process.
synchronicity.
Truth be told the ptk hissed at the door and then at me when it saw Kaguya's paw reacing under it. And of course we won't let them interact until we know this one is FelV free ... if we keep it. We might have to take this one to the anti cruelty society as well. That makes me sad. But we can't very well afford to take it to the vet yet. Especially since I pretty much burned the bridge of Kevin's mom helping us at all with the wedding (read my wedding blog) I'm still upset over that but there's nothing I can do about it now. *sigh*
I hate to leave the cat back here alone but I'm officially starving. I need food. I have a headache.
And Tim Curry's eyes are hazel