On the road again

On the road again

Headed to Michigan to visit our friends Dan and Melissa and to go to
Stephanie’s skating competition in Wyandotte, MI. Left the pooch home with our petsitter for this trip; too far for the little dude. Stephanie is also testing for her bronze moves in the field.

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Weekend Update 2010-01-19

Nope, I haven’t quit the 365 photo project, I’m just behind on putting the photos I’ve taken up. I know – three day weekend for me and I couldn’t get it done. But I was working on the project — I want to do some portrait work, and we have a southern-exposure window that I wanted to put a chair in front of so I could take some pictures in natural light. That entailed taking down the Christmas tree, rearranging the library, and moving the trunk from in front of the window. Lots of work, but now I have a place to seat people in pretty lighting.

I’m trying to create some variety and different opportunities, because all my pictures are of knitting and cats. 😉 It hard to come up with entertaining things to photograph when I hate the cold and am hibernating at home a lot.

I’m the knitting cat lady! Yes, knitting and cats. And dogs – wouldn’t want to forget the pooch.
Scarves I'm knitting
Gratuitous knitting photo

Things will also pick up once it gets warmer. This coming weekend we’re going to a skating competition for Stephanie and I’ll have a lot of pictures there, and we do get out a lot more in the spring.
Stephanie took me out last night to a Asian/Vietnamese food place on the east side of town – Sandra Rice and Noodles. OMG. The best lemongrass chicken I’ve ever had, hands down. Simply wonderful. I have leftovers that I can’t wait to get at. We tacked a dessert on to the order so we could use a coupon – rice pudding that was the best afterthought ever. Really delicious. It’s on Pendleton Pike, so it’s a bit out of the way, but definitely worth the drive from downtown for us. Yum yum yum. I wish I were a better writer when it comes to food, but I’m not good at separating flavors and identifying what went into a dish. And I tend to only talk about places I really enjoy, so every food review sounds the same – “Yummy, delicious, best ever.” Not terribly helpful to anyone, other than to let you know what I like.

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Dealbreakers

You know how you find a site that you really like, and you read it and enjoy it and show it to everyone you know? And you go along and after awhile the site changes, and you find yourself enjoying it less and less, and then there gets to be a point at which you go, this is not so much fun anymore?

And then one day someone posts something that you really don’t agree with, and you state your case in the comments, and they churn and rationalize about why they’re right, and finally you give up and say “unsubscribe”? I guess It’s the “it’s not you, it’s me” moment for one of my former favorites – Shakesville.

Even some of the best-intentioned communities can turn insular and unable to admit when they’re wrong, and vicious towards anyone who even questions their ideas, sadly. Granted, I only get the stray, inane comments on my blog, so I don’t have a lot of moderation to worry about. And I know that managing a large community must be stressful. But… I don’t know how to express it, exactly. There seems to be a level of tolerance that they demand towards their own writing that they don’t return to the people who make comments, ask questions, or post opinions on their threads. The level of snide that comes from some of their posters/moderators, particularly deeky, towards anyone that has a thought they’ve haven’t embraced is too much. I don’t want to read that every day.

I’m auditioning Feministe as my new regular feminism reading to keep me up on what’s going on in feminist thought. We’ll see if that’s a better fit.

Continue ReadingDealbreakers