Category: Uncategorized

We didn’t do anything in particular to add or encourage starfish in our tank, but the little (1/4″ or smaller) brittle starfish have proliferated. They are supposed to consume detritus, so the more the better, in my opinion.

They’re wildly light-shy (not to mention camera shy), but after cleaning the tank, I found this guy on the rock and managed to snap a relatively clear photo.

He’s all curled up, but probably at max 3/8″ across in this photo. Most are smaller. When we clean the tank, we vacuum out the sand, and we always end up with scads in the waste water bucket. I always feel guilty about the prospect of flushing them down the tub drain and spend nearly an hour fishing them out and putting them back in the tank. (which, judging by body language, they truly don’t appreciate. ingrates.) I use a pipette to suck them up — when they’re shot back out into the water, they curl up into a ball and drop straight down, so that they can burrow back into the sand. Our fish are fraidy-cats and wouldn’t touch them, but it’s a neat survival instinct.

I played my boss this week, and lost by a measly point, 48-49.

QB
	Alex Smith, SF	-4
RUNNING BACKS
	RB Laurence Maroney, NE	26
	RB/WR Keyshawn Johnson, Car	6
RECEIVERS
	WR Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ	12
	WR Reggie Brown, Phi	6
	TE L.J. Smith, Phi	3
DEFENSE
	D/ST Seahawks	-6
KICKER
	K Rian Lindell, Buf	5
BENCH
	RB Shaun Alexander, Sea	0
	WR Terrell Owens, Dal	8
	WR Deion Branch, Sea	5
	RB Marion Barber, Dal (BYE)	12
	WR Reggie Williams, Jac	21
	K Jason Elam, Den (BYE)	0
	D/ST Patriots	12
	QB Jon Kitna	11

This wouldn’t rankle quite so much if it wasn’t so obvious after the fact that I played the wrong quarterback (negative four?!), and definitely played the wrong defense. I’d sort of been thinking that since Chicago is known for its defense and Seattle prides themselves on theirs, it could be a really interesting game. Instead it was a flat-out romp. Bummer. Also worth noting that, once again, I played the wrong Reggie.

The major bright point in this whole affair was watching Laurence Maroney run his way to 125 yards and two touchdowns! Yay for the New England rookie!

Also, I’m to the shoulder decreases on my vest! Here’s a photo after Monday Night Football:

I bought a new tea strainer for $2.19. It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase in the grocery store. Truly throwing caution to the wind.

I’ve been coping with my rusty, leaky tea ball for a good six years, and now I have a brand new utensil that scoops tea and holds it securely while it brews. 🙂 (Shown above with my all-time favourite tea from the Thayer St tealuxe.)

The best part is that it’s tall enough to fit in my travel mugs and be removed without the aid of additional utensils! And, at this height, you can even use it to stir so that the tea brews faster! Oooh.

Pretty exciting for a saturday.

Last week was incredibly long, mostly due to work craziness. Lots of late nights at the office (not my norm). Kevin tore his hamstring playing football last weekend (poor him 🙁 it looks incredibly painful, especially after a full day of trying to sit in the chairs at work), and so that’s added a lot of carpooling into the mix since he can’t drive. Add in our typical mess of projects and activities, and a touch of wedding (I think we have a photographer!!), and it was just one of those weeks where I wasn’t feeling coherent anymore by late in the day on Wednesday. (I went through a full pad of post-its trying to keep a handle on things — a feat that usually takes several months.)

So, it really made me feel incredibly happy and appreciated when my team’s manager showed up in my office Thursday evening with a pair of Mariners tickets. 🙂 Such a fun pick-me-up. The seats were great:

And the crowd was a lot of fun. There was some group of teenage girls in matching outfits and taking up several rows out in center field that got a wave going (after a few false starts) that lasted *well* over ten times round the park. They were cheering the crowd on so determinedly — perhaps that made the difference? Here’s Kevin shaking his head at the wave that wouldn’t die:

Week three, sadly, did not go as hoped. I was trounced, 44-98.

QB
	Daunte Culpepper, Mia	1
RUNNING BACKS
	RB Shaun Alexander, Sea	11
	RB/WR Laurence Maroney, NE	7
RECEIVERS
	WR Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ	3
	WR Reggie Williams, Jac	0
	TE L.J. Smith, Phi	7
DEFENSE
	D/ST Seahawks	5
KICKER
	K Jason Elam, Den	5
BENCH
	WR Deion Branch, Sea	2
	WR Terrell Owens, Dal (BYE)	0
	WR Keyshawn Johnson, Car	21
	WR Reggie Brown, Phi	11
	RB Marion Barber, Dal (BYE)	0
	K Stephen Gostkowski, NE	0
	D/ST Patriots	1
	QB Alex Smith, SF	13

There were problems across the board. Running through the positions: Daunte Culpepper, with 1 point even against the Titans, is banished from my team. Alex Smith will be my new starter, and I picked up Buffalo QB J.P. Losman for my bench. My running backs still aren’t that strong (top guys score in the mid-twenties), and will be hurt further this week since Shaun’s out with the broken foot. I just plain played the completely wrong wide receivers. (Look at Keyshawn Johnson! Argh!) L.J. Smith played well for being hurt — I’m hoping he keeps hanging on. The Seahawks D sort of fell apart, but at least I didn’t play New England instead… It may be time to consider picking up a new bench D. And Elam did alright, but after this weekend, I dropped Gostkowski for Rian Lindell (also Buffalo).

This weekend I play my boss (who’s loaded up with LaDainian Tomlinson, Laveranues Coles, Donald Driver, etc, and has been scoring in the 90’s). I don’t expect the post-weekend report to be much better next week. At least the Eagles are playing for Monday Night Football!

Life has been all busy recently, and I’ve been feeling stressed, and I decided recently that part of the problem was that I never bought a calendar for 2006. I’d tried to, but I didn’t find one I liked, and then I waited for them to go on sale, but by the time they did I was busy interviewing for a new job and I never made it out. So, in an effort to free up the part of my brain that’s currently devoted to remembering the next three weeks of activities, I decided to make a little one to carry around with me.
The cover is a cutout from my ’05 calendar (I love the tree trunk):

And the inside is printed out screenshots of the Google Calendar that they’ve rolled into gmail.

I suppose I could just use the gmail calendar online, as it’s meant to be used, but for some reason that crosses my privacy threashold. So tiny carry-around calendar, it is.

Thursday was the company meeting, held in the Mariners Stadium. Definitely a “drinking the company koolaid” experience, and now everyone wants a Zune and is excited about Live. 🙂

Choosing to be more constructive with my time than the dimwit behind me who brought the airhorn, I made it through a significant chunk of the back of my new project — a hooded vest with cables.

This is definitely an “as it goes along” sort of project, and there’s no pattern, so we’ll see how it turns out. It’s based loosely on a non-hooded fleece vest for the dimensions. I’m using the second half of my 24th Birthday Yarn (a heathery dark green shade of Cascade 220) from my brother and sister, which is fun. 🙂

And, how neat:

If you put the camera in sunset mode, you get great cable definition on dark yarns. Cool!

And now, football. 🙂 Leading into the weekend, I dropped Brian Calhoun (backup RB, Detroit) for New England’s new kicker, Stephen Gostkowski. Jason Elam only slightly impressed me in week one, and I felt like New England is much more likely to get their kicker in range than Denver seems to be… This will clearly require further shuffling, but Calhoun wasn’t helping anything and so after the Patriots released Gramatica, I considered it worth a tryout. (Plus, my other NE rookie is doing great, so why not??)

I won this week 73-69, and so I’m 2-0. 🙂 The players, and their points:

QB
	Daunte Culpepper, Mia	5
RUNNING BACKS
	RB Shaun Alexander, Sea	14
	RB/WR Laurence Maroney, NE	12
RECEIVERS
	WR Terrell Owens, Dal	1
	WR Santana Moss, Was	7
	TE L.J. Smith, Phi	12
DEFENSE
	D/ST Seahawks	13
KICKER
	K Jason Elam, Den	9
BENCH
	WR Deion Branch, Sea	0
	RB T.J. Duckett, Was	2
	RB Marion Barber, Dal	11
	WR Reggie Brown, Phi	8
	WR Keyshawn Johnson, Car	11
	K Stephen Gostkowski, NE	5
	D/ST Patriots	7
	QB Kerry Collins, Ten	-2

The utter loser of the week was TO, who earned one point before he broke his finger (requiring surgery and a multi-week break — at least they have a bye next week). I really don’t mean to sound cold hearted, but I was hoping he’d make it through a lot more of the season before he managed to take himself out. :-/ At least I have Deion Branch ready to come in next week for Seattle. L.J. Smith did great, but now he’s injured, too. The Seattle D and Laurence Maroney were both solid again, which is awesome, and Elam rose to the challenge and gets to keep his spot next week, though I’m holding on to Gostkowski. Quarterbacks are a major issue for me right now. Culpepper is seriously underperforming, and Kerry Collins on the bench isn’t looking like a good option at all. I’m trading Collins in so that I can pick Alex Smith up from waivers, who’s been getting much better numbers… we’ll see? I also decided to trade Santana Moss (8 fantasy pts last week, 7 points this week) in for Jerricho Cotchery (NYJ) — a pity since I like Santana Moss, but with TO hurt, and Deion Branch still sharing a position, I need a stronger WR for next week.

So. My ring is here!

I waited to post because I needed to get it resized (apparently I have small knuckles? It kept nearly flying off, especially at work with the A/C). I’m completely delighted with the way it came out. There were two rings that I liked a lot in the store, and just when I reached the point of indecisiveness, they offered to combine the pieces I liked of each into a custom ring. So, I have the three stone ring with pear-cut diamonds on the sides:

And, I got to have the side detailing that I loved:

(The platinum and the diamonds both look very orange and yellow in this photo, which should entirely be attributed to the skill of the photographer, not the actual color of the stones or metal. 🙂 I spent ages trying to photograph them, and while these pictures are a marked improvement over my first attempts, they’re still not even close…)

I had to work very hard to limit myself to three photos, but I didn’t want to get boring. If you want to see more, click here and here. 🙂 Yay!

…and in this case, the Joneses care deeply about buying vegetables. So, listening to all of the “organic vs. not”, and “buy locally vs. not”, and “cheaper!” discussion, I decided to go to the Redmond Saturday Market.

I used to go to farmers markets in Boston all the time because there was one outside my office on Wednesdays and Fridays, and another halfway home at Copley on (I think) Thursdays. But, like public transportation, that more or less went out the window when I moved to Seattle. Really, it’s ridiculous not to go, especially given that with the money saved on veggies, you can buy gorgeous fresh flowers! (The ones in the photo were $5. It’s *such* a pity that the Seattle flower sellers don’t do weddings in the Boston area…)

The only shame of the matter is that everything isn’t clearly labeled, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I ended up buying. For example, those are definitely Champagne grapes, and I would have classified the guys in the middle as plums… but the smaller, bluer ones on the left also seem like plums…??

Help?! Can any of the veggie aficionados help determine what fruit I have? It’s delicious…