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Sunday, March 30, 2008

I hiked Henry Coe State Park

And I took a ton of photos. You can see them here.




I acquired a TICK on my hip sometime during the trip (probably when I squatted to pee off the trail.) I found it hours later and yanked it out, and it tried to craw away. ICK!

There were lovely amounts of wildlife to see and hear. I heard tons of frogs croaking, I heard a very loud turkey gobblin', I saw a turkey (not sure if it was the same one), Peter saw 5 turkeys himself, we saw deer, and we saw turkey vultures swooping overhead.

The hike was 4.5 miles round trip for me -- 2.9 miles to Frog Lake (along Frog Flat Trail), then 1 mile back along Hobbs road (very steep!), then .6 miles back along Monument trail.

Labels: california, hiking, photography, wildflowers

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Monday, March 24, 2008

I had a dream with that skinny french guy

There's an actor, he's got dark hair, he's french, skinny, and he has been in a Law & Order episode at least once. He was also in a movie called "Black Robe" and another one about a space mission to Mars ("Mission to Mars," maybe.) I think he reminded me of Peter.

Anyhoo, he was in my dream last night. He was emphasizing the importance of sunscreen, so I slathered sunscreen on my face, including the zinc oxide for the nose. Note entirely comfortable.

We were going to Sunnyvale, which in my dream was a beautiful place accessible by a remote foggy road. In contrast to the real Sunnyvale, which is a boring suburb accessible by a huge freeway and several minor large roads.

At one point I was observing some pretty/spooky bushes. The branches were black and smooth and almost sculpted in appearance, like elephant tusks.

Later on I was having a conversation with this french guy, and a third guy. I can't remember what about.

The alarm woke me up mid-dream.

Labels: dreams

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ankiewicz.com has new california photos

I have culled some old websites and incorporated the photos from those places onto ankiewicz.com. You can see them in the california photos gallery. There are photos from the Mountain View/Palo Alto shoreline, Death Valley, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and other beautiful places.

I am slowly adding data to each photo so that there's at least a caption. Some of the pages are a bit long (Death Valley could be culled) but I'm working on that.

I went to the climbing gym on friday. I can climb at a 5.6 level. Not terrible for having been away from the climbing gym for so long, still enough to leave me sore in the upper body a few days later. I'm not very ambitious about it. I just want to stay in shape.

I talked to my little brother on Sunday. Hi little bro! He went to a climbing gym for the first time. (Yeah, your hands and arms will be a little sore. It's a good workout.) They were going to go with my nephew -- I think that would be a great activity to burn off some of my nephew's excess energy. He's thirteen. EESH!

Labels: brother, california, climbing, mountain view, photography

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Saturday, March 8, 2008

Sigh

I tried to install Wordpress on my virtual servers, and encountered a bug that seems to be described here.

I spent three hours testing it locally, and it worked. When I went to install it on my live websites, it didn't work. My sysadmin says he has not been able to fix this problem (whatever it is), either.

GARRRR.

Also, I took a scuba diving refresher course today. I am totally bummed, because the class filled me with panic, fear, and confusion. I do not think I will be able to scuba dive. It was way harder than I remember, and now I feel old and incapable.

Bah.

I was hoping to at least come home and do some happy geeking, but I guess not.

BAH.

Labels: mood, techie

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Friday, March 7, 2008

movies I recently watched

I watched Alien (the first one) last night. Man, that is a great movie. Unfortunately I was distracted by the brokenness of the flash on my camera, so I wandered off after the alien started stalking and killing people, but I saw enough of it to remember how damn good it is.

Sigourney Weaver was, and is, a great actor.

I even like the hysterical woman. She played other hysterical women in other movies later in her career (notably, in The Witches of Eastwick).

Peter thought it was slow. No, man, that's how movies were made before the INSTAGRATIFICATIONLOUDNOISEBOOM era took hold. Details, and subtlety.

Tonight I watched The Sixth Sense. I love that movie too. I wonder what happened to the little kid actor. He must be 17 by now. There aren't many movies for gawky teenagers, I guess. I hope his career revives when he becomes an adult.

Labels: movies

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Wednesday, March 5, 2008

dangit all

The built-in flash on my Nikon D200 is dead. This sucks, because that means all my tons of slave flashes are useless until I get another camera body. OR, I use a tripod (unlikely). OR, I borrow my boyfriend's camera. (More likely).

Dangit!

Labels: camera, mood, photography

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Monday, March 3, 2008

head of the family dream

I had this dream sometime in the morning:

My brother was somehow the new head of the family, but he wouldn't get out of bed to do anything.

I went outside and I was trying to navigate all this technical foo to get to the grassy part of the backyard, but I couldn't get past the technical junk. (Physical stuff, fences, security things.)

There were also robots lookin' at me (security robots shaped like Wall-E). Wall-E is an upcoming robot animation by Pixar, it's the template for 'cute robot'.

The Wall-E's in my dream were kinda sinister.

Labels: brother, dreams, robots

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Saturday, March 1, 2008

ankiewicz.com has a new look!

I am using JAlbum to create image galleries for my website. It's connected to a database and has a place for comments, now. Coming soon: community features.

See the new look and feel here. 0 Comments