Celebrating mutti's birthday

You know what I’ve just realised?
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I’M A GREENY! no joke either. We were walking down the street last night in Kyneton and I started rambling on about how the shops don’t need to have their lights on… which they don’t because honestly, who is out on a Saturday night…in Kyneton?!
One day I shall make a law that every shop has to have the lights out (if not open) at 7:00pm
And mum and Aaron always say to me that I am one yay for me.

Also we are moving on the 10th of October! argh, so soon! Still trying to convince mum to let me have a granny flat (hehe) would be schweeet.

bye for now x

   Thats right, sell your home and move your family into a box. It’s the cool thing to do, all the cool peeps live in boxes!  Sooooo….If I asked you to do this, would you consider it?  How about If I show you the box first? Wouldn’t want to swindle you out of your house! Without you getting a preview of your new box home! 

Ta-Dahhhh! Your future home!

What!!!!! What do you mean your not interested? Look at how sturdy that box is, and how spacious it is! Not to mention being on the cutting edge of home fashion! Living in a box is sooooo retroooooo!  Yeah, I understand your sentiments. But, let’s not dismiss this box just yet. Gimme one sec, and I will be back with your box after a make-over.

BARK's All Terrain Cabin

  Change your mind?  Too Small! Well okay, hold on!

This is probably more your style! (ya posh, picky bastards)

Pretty snazzy for a box if I do say so myself! Yes, It’s the coolest thing to do since rollerblading. Sell your house and live in a box!  There are roughly 17 million of these babies floating around, they come in 20′ and 40′ all are 8′ wide.  They are durable and able to withstand rough travel conditions and stacking. refrigerator containers make an Ideal living space as they come insulated.  Fast to build and affordable compared to typical home construction.  This is one groovy box, someone sign me up!  I found several good examples of these container mods at this website:http://designcrave.com/2009-06-22/10-brilliant-boxy-and-sustainable-shipping-container-homes/

  With endless design capabillities the container home is definitely apart of our near future.  Some of the focus thus far has been for smal bachelor pads for University housing. Fort Bragg just added several of these homes in a rather large array for what appears to be barracks.  I personally lived in a small shipping container while deployed to Iraq, was it great? Better than sleeping outdoors in triple digit weather!  As the economy and housing market continue to suffer. It makes new home buying for those of us with less than perfect credit scores a fairy tale! Look on the bright side If your credit hits bottom(as it is with me). Then there’s nowhere to go but up! 

    Alas there maybe hope for us yet. Most cargo ships haul the containers to our docks in the US and then leave them there, as it’s cheaper to just buy new ones than haul back the empties.  The good news in all of this is that you can buy a 20′ used container for around a thousand US dollars. The cost effective building and materials will hopefully drive down the cost to a minimum. Maybe then the bank could afford to give me a loan for one!  Till then, i’m stuck in renters hell!

Comecei a me dedicar ao desenho faz uns 2 meses, postarei aqui minhas realizações e as técnicas usadas.

Greeny

A imagem ao lado é de um desenho simples, feito a mão e escaneado. Antes de ir para o Photoshop, ele foi vetorizado usando a ferramentq trace do Corel que suavizou as bordas que estavam falhas.

Foi aplicada apenas três cores: verde para o corpo, preto para os olhos e fundo, e branco para os dentes e alguns detalhes.

A controle de Hue/Saturation ajudou na definição do tom de oliva.

A ferramente Burn foi usada para criar as sombras.

A borda foi feita usando o filtro Strained Glass.

Hello! What a great weekend This picture was taken out at Brittany’s parents house in the middle of no where, and well past the point of legal limit. It’s ok, we slept in a tent Haha.

So yeah, this past Saturday was Brian and Brittany’s bachelor/bachelorette party. Brittany’s parents happen to own a nice amount of land and have more than enough wood to burn. Justin organized all the groomsmen to to pitch for a keg of Yingling and that’s the winning recipe for a great night. We all pitched a tent and spent the night. I know it kind of goes against tradition to have the bride and groom celebrate the final party of freedom together, but they had a joined party because, let’s face it, they both enjoy a good kegger and those are cheaper than strippers.

Another exciting activity of the day was catching my first-ever fish! I had an excellent teacher, and am now a fly fishing master. Errr. Well, I am something, at any rate. haha. It really was a lot of fun though, I never thought I would be real into fishing, but I think Greeny (Professor fish catcher) lured me into loving it by having me fish in a very populated pond. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, only with fishing poles, and the fish lived. haha. I really liked it all though, and even braved holding a blue gill. Obviously I know exactly what I am doing. I wasn’t prepared for the little microscopic teeth in there, even though they don’t hurt. I dropped the poor guy a couple times before I got a good hold of it. All together I caught four fish before I was a bit too drunk to comfortably stand near a body of water and be sure I was not going to randomly fall into it. Or get pushed in. I hope to go on a real fishing expedition later on this summer when things die down a little bit. I just need to get a fishin’ license.

Fish, unfortunately, are not the only inhabitants of the pond. Justin and Greeny discovered a snake near the water that pretty much scared the crap out of me. (Fear of snakes > fear of spiders) but it really didn’t get close enough to pose much of a threat to me. Greeny was more of a threat to him, I think he was trying to behead it with a blunt stick (he claims he was trying to capture it, haha) But it was a heartwarming site, Justin and Greeny trying to vanquish the evil serpent with a smile on their faces

And, of course, the party wouldn’t be complete without my almost-sister-in-law, who came by with her husband and gave me the final invitation she made for my bridal shower. I swear I almost cried. I probably would have except the booze generally keeps me from crying. It was really beautiful, and it was obvious she put a lot of effort (on my behalf, of all things!) into it. It really just makes me that much more ecstatic that I’m going to get the sister I always wanted and never knew was waiting for me in just a few months. I don’t think I could have hand-picked a better family to marry into.

Seeing the shower invitation really made things even more real. Even through my fuzzy beer brain I was mentally hyperventilating. Not in a bad way. I can’t believe how well everything fell into place.

Marylin Monroe said this famous quote that you see all over the place, but rarely gets credit for it: “I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when their right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

I think she was a brilliant woman, and agree with that phrase with my whole heart. I wouldn’t appreciate Justin as much if I wasn’t hurt in the past, and the relationships that I dreamed up in my head over past flames was never what was really going on in real life. Some good things really do fall apart, but if you keep your head up and trudge on through all the bullshit you’re going to find something that makes you look back and laugh at yourself for being broken up before. Hindsight is 20/20, but presently my eyes are finally open to the present(s) in front of me.

via: The Cagle Post

Hope you like this jokes!

That Explains the Radiation Suit

Greenpeace employee to college girl: Hey! Are you pro-environment?
College girl: No, sorry, post-apocalyptic.

Chicago, Illinois

Overheard by: rabbit

For several years, the Spirit of Adventure Trust has been working with the Sir Peter Blake Trust to help clean up New Zealand’s coastlines. We put our forty trainees ashore on a remote beach, and spend a couple of hours collecting and cataloguing any rubbish found. This data is sent back to the organisers who collate it all, and a break down is available on-line. Voyage 546 was a bit different. On the 3rd and 4th of April, a new group called Sustainable Coastlines had organised a huge clean up of Great Barrier Island. As the Spirit of New Zealand was in the vicinity anyway, we were invited to take part. School children and adults were shipped in to Tryphena harbour from all around Auckland, fishing boats played their part collecting the rubbish and taking it away. We were asked if we could handle Katherine bay, and said ’sure’.

Thus began the largest beach clean I have ever been involved in. Katherine Bay comprises more than 20 nautical miles of shoreline, and our 40 trainees and ten crew trawled through a sizeable portion of it throughout the day. Among other things we collected were a massive motorway traffic barrier and half an aluminium boat, along with the more usual piles of plastic, glass and metal fragments. Broken buoys and huge piles of netting from mussel farms were also in large number, posing a huge danger to the fragile marine eco-system.

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New Zealand prides itself on its clean, green, natural reputation. It is quite shocking to consider the reality – that one virtually uninhabited island off the coast has so much rubbish, the majority obviously carried there by the currents from Auckland. Unfortunately, by the time I got back to the SoNZ, most of the rubbish had been collected by another boat, but I am trying to get access to some photos that others in the crew took. I will post them here when I do. Sam Judd has also promised to put more information on their website, and I’ll update this with links if they do.

Hey all! Before I begin, as promised, I have the bird CD link for you, and I will soon be adding it under my “Budgie Products” page, as well.
To buy the CD disk itself:
-  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013L6CA2/ref=s9_subs_c2_s1_p15_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1HPV6DH1ZTH5JGX5J490&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463383371&pf_rd_i=507846 
Or, if you would prefer the cheaper option of just getting the mp3 album and burning a CD yourself like me…
- http://www.amazon.com/Music-Birds-Love-While-Gone/dp/B001A3CI74/ref=dm_cd_album_bb 

So, there you go!  My budgies love this CD.  The first track is always their nap time song, and later on are their party/dance/sing along songs. 

Now, you might being wondering about the title of this post — “The Jerkface Call.”  Those of you who have budgies, you have almost certainly heard this call, and those of you who are planning on getting budgies, expect to be hearing it a lot — at least thirty or more times a day, most likely (if you have multiple budgies).  The jerkface call is the “ark-ark-ark!” call that you hear.  It basically means “shut up, jerkface,” “cut it out right now!,” or just plain old “JERKFACE!”  My budgies do it constantly, especially around 10 o’clock in the morning, right when they get up in the morning, and occasionally right before bed.  Greeny used to go on tirades of jerkface calls at Bluey right when he woke up, but now it seems to be more of Bluey’s initiative to do so.  However, this call is nothing to worry about — most of the time.  The casual everyday jerkface call is pretty much all good fun with my guys — they key word being casual.  This call has also been used as an aggressive warning; one of my cats likes to watch the cage, and one day got too close.  Greeny exploded into defensive mode, using this call, and the cat ran off.  A minute later, Greeny was happily preening himself and singing along to his music.  (Bluey, however, this whole time, could have cared less about the cat.  He had his mirror-and-bell toy to play with.  He was a busy guy.)
Basically, as the owner, you learn the difference between your birds’ calls, the connotation of them, and the attitude of your bird at particular times based on their calls.  There are other calls, of course, such as the contented warble (a softer call when the bird is calm, relaxed, and happy), I just chose to write about the “jerkface” call because its a bit more amusing (the casual call, at least.  Its distinctly different from the aggressive call due to its lighter tone in comparison.  The aggressive jerkface call is much, much more harsh-sounding in pitch and tone.)

That’s all I have on that for now; the hand taming process has sped up significantly.  By now using a clicker when I train them, they are learning much faster.  What I do now is similiar to Chet Womach’s “Power Pause” routine.  I bring my hand near the bird, but not right up on him, and leave it there until the budgie is displaying relaxed/calmer body language.  Then I click the clicker and give the budgie the reward that he wants the most: I take my hand away.  After a short pause, I go back in again and do the same thing, only bringing my hand a little closer each time.  I repeat the process multiple times, and eventually the budgie may even accept a small pat on his side or back.  This process must be repeated daily, even multiple times a day to reinstate what is being taught to the bird: hands are okay. 
This process, as well as just chatting with my birds at any moment I get every day, has increased my relationship with Bluey and Greeny as well.  They love to hear me talk to them and try to get as close to my face as possible, when they feel like it, when I stop by to chat.  They also like to tell me about their day occasionally before either eating or hopping up onto their swing.  Bluey is much more animated in his chirping away, whereas Greeny is a bit quieter and prefers to stay in one spot, most of the time, while chattering away to me.  Bluey, being younger, is much more easily distracted and loses interest in conversation to his favorite mirror-and-bell toy about half the time.  He loves to go “surfing” on his toys and rides the bars of his cage like they’re an elevator.  Greeny just prefers to hop from perch to perch.

Well, that’s all I have for now.  The other pages should be up shortly.  If you have any questions, just send me an email I’ll be glad to try my best at answering them, else if I can’t, I’ll look up the answer for you. 
Until next time,
Cheers!
- Dr.BirdBrain

Well, Greeny has gotten over his millet phase with the introduction of oranges (his favorite fruit, apparently) and sunflower seeds.  Bananas weren’t as big of a hit.  Millet is only used during hand training sessions now, which, for the most part are going fairly smoothly.  Greeny is fairly comfortable with hands; he barely shies, if at all, and will sit and chat away or preen on my finger.  Bluey, on the other hand (no pun intended), is rather troublesome.  Being the younger of the two, all he wants to do is play with his toys and eat.  Whenever I bring my hand near him, he immediately flies off to his safe spot on top of his olive green, fuzzy birdie hut (a huge hit, especially it being winter, they can stay warm, as well as joust with their beaks on top of it as much as they like).   
Anyways, my hope with this pair is that Greeny will learn, and then Bluey will look up to him, since Greeny’s the older one, and Bluey will then learn from Greeny that hands are okay. 
On the topic of flight feathers, Greeny had an amusing fail the other day — I wish had the video camera out.  He likes to exercise by flapping his wings rapidly while holding onto his perch with his feet.  Well, he is rather interested in trying to fly, though his wings were, I’m guessing, clipped before he learned how to fly, and thus never learned (not a good combo, but his cage is such that he can’t hurt himself; he’s nice & safe).  The other night, when he was exercising his wings, he let go, but took off backwards and fell right down to the bottom of the cage.  He was quite all right, and it was a rather hilarious sight to see.  It looked rather like a helicopter spinning out or something. 
Yesterday, after coming home from visiting my sister, both Greeny and Bluey had to tell me all about their experiences with the lady that looked after them, as well as the other pets.  For a good 5-10 minutes, they stared at me and animatedly chirped and squawked out the whole story while I sat next to their cage.  They’re funny little guys.
I gave them little mist baths today, Bluey enjoyed it more than Greeny.  Greeny wasn’t too sure about it, but Bluey loved it.  He would play hide and seek with the mist bottle behind his green, fuzzy hut.  Whenever he ran out, he would put up his wings and chirp and preen, before running back behind the fuzzy, then running back out into the mist spray.  He was having a great time.
Well, that’s all I have for now.  The hand taming is going along fairly smoothly, and next time I’ll have up the link to a good bird music CD.  Bluey & Greeny love the CD that I got for them– it’s specifically made for birds, and is intended to be played when you aren’t home, so that your bird doesn’t get bored.  Even when I am home, I still turn on their CD for them from time to time, and they like to dance to the soft, relaxing music. (Its perfect for birds due to the combination of bird sounds, people talking, and gentle music (too hard of a beat can be bad for smaller birds).)  I believe that the CD is called “When You’re Gone: Music That Birds Love,” but I am not sure.  As I said, I’ll be sure to have that link up for you on my next post.

Until next time,
Cheers!
-Dr.BirdBrain

The last fortnight has seen several petrol price increases, just at the time when all the gas guzzling SUVs and people movers that have been sitting in their garages for the last year were starting to find their ways on to the streets again. All those people that thought last years record prices were a temporary blip need to take note, and start to prepare for much worse to come. Oil will become far too scarce a resource to waste powering a vehicle to move one person. And this has got to be a good thing for the environment, as less car use means less polluting emissions.

So it has been interesting to watch a number of developments over the same period of time, developments both political and scientific.

First, our own city council appears to be more dysfunctional than ever, with an amazing article in the Wellingtonian last week.

Confusion reigns over the Basin Reserve flyover. Some city councillors believe it will definitely be built, others think it is yet to be voted on, and a public opposition group is gathering strength to fight it.

“It is council policy that we support the flyover,” says Cr Andy Foster, while Deputy Mayor Ian McKinnon says ‘…I don’t think we voted on the flyover.”

Meanwhile, in the States, (or at least two of them), legislators are trying to make up for the poor planning of their cities’ cycle ways. Every cyclist knows that annoyance of having to stop for a red light or a stop sign. Yes, we are officially vehicles, and must obey the road code, but the energy needs to restart after stopping are huge compared to those of maintaining speed. This is fine for cars, in which you simply put your foot down and the car accelerates, but on a bike you are supplying the motive power. Another problem that I personally experience, is that a lot of traffic lights are sensor activated. They register the weight of a car waiting, and change to allow that car to proceed. I (and my bike) weigh at a tenth of even the lightest car – not enough to trip the sensor. So I either wait (sometimes minutes) for a car to pull up, or go against the traffic light. Traffic planners have their parts to play in this, but where they fail, maybe a change to the law will help.

These are the questions raised by newly-proposed legislation in Oregon [and existing legislation in Idaho]. The statute, proposed by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, would allow cyclists to treat stop signs as yield signs [give way in NZ terms!], requiring them to yield to traffic with the right of way, but otherwise allowing cyclists to roll through stop signs if they have the right of way…
[and in Idaho]
…A person operating a bicycle or human-powered vehicle approaching a steady red traffic control light shall stop before entering the intersection and shall yield to all other traffic. Once the person has yielded, he may proceed through the steady red light with caution.

I mostly cycle to work before 7am, there is very little traffic around. I have clear visiblity in all directions approaching most intersections, it would be really lovely if I didn’t have to come to a full and complete stop at every stop sign.

Lastly, frogblog has an article about a laser projector bikelane. I agree with the comments that lights and reflectors would be a good idea too!, but it is astounding the number of cars which do not realise how wide a bike is. Any and all visual reminders are welcomed.

With the fantastic weather over summer, the bike lockup in my building is chocker every day. Hopefully, the number of people choosing this great means of transport can only increase, and our city planners get finally understand our needs – and that when 79% of people say they don’t want something, they should not build it anyway!

…Ms Prendergast said a new Mt Victoria tunnel should be a high priority, regardless of what submitters to the study say.

This cartoon from Mike Moreu pretty much sums it up.

Santa's dilemma

Vince Young of Texas celebrating after the 2006 Rose Bowl

All the TV guys and the pundits just know that Oklahoma is going to beat Oklahoma State this week. And how do they know this? Because they believe the football gods will ordain it in order to usher in the new era of the college football playoff. An Oklahoma victory would force a 3-way tie for the Big 12 South and presumably make such a mess of things that, as a nation, we will have no choice to but to make the transition. I wouldn’t be surprised if Congress got involved. (After all, all this bailout stuff is really hard.) People get giddy talking about it. They talk in superlatives reminiscent of messianic prophecies referencing future realities of certainty, peace, the end of hardship—yes, the playoff system would make all our problems disappear.

And I’ll never understand. Although our present system is less-than-ideal, there are so many reasons to leave things the way they are and drop this whole nonsense.

1. Epic. Why do we watch football in the first place. You can tune into Sportscenter for the highlights and see the whole weekend’s results in a matter of minutes. We watch because we’re drawn into the epic struggle; with so much at stake with each snap and handoff. As people, we long to be invited into the epic and, sadly, “The Game” is as close as many of us are going to be. But from August to January we’re able to experience something close, at least. A playoff system totally removes college football’s king-of-the-mountain approach to sport. The season the way it stands is very masculine. It’s the only pure competition left in which crowning a champion is easy: you must beat all comers. The playoff is wimpy.
2. Regular Season. A playoff completely removes the epic feel of each Saturday afternoon and makes it more like a weekend basketball game during which Dick Vitale is forced to manufacture his own excitement … constantly. Think about it, only the most ardent fan tunes into college basketball before February. And even then it’s due in large part to the perennial bubble watch. College football is the last frontier of pure competition. The college football champion must “bring it” every game. There are no off days—at least off days without recourse. That’s great drama. That’s great life.
3. March Madness. A friend of mine once said, “You like March Madness don’t you. Wouldn’t you want to have the same thing for football.” My answer is simple. “Yes. And I’ve already got it.” March Madness last three weekends in March. The format is win-or-go-home. The college football season currently lasts, what, 12 weeks from August to late fall with a bonus bowl season … all without Dick Vitale (and a little something extra, also without Billy Packer and Mike Krzyzewski). It is also something very akin to a win-or-go-home format. Why would I want to give that up?
4. Conference Champions. A playoff would render conferences stupid and meaningless. You’d see traditional rivalries slowly go away—a lot like college basketball. Instead, everything would point toward the end-of-year playoff. And, by the way, you’d still have teams complaining that they didn’t make the playoff field regardless of whether it’s twelve teams, eight teams, or four teams.
5. Tradition. Is nothing sacred. Inter-league play in baseball is weird—even after several years. I think every NBA team actually goes to the playoffs. Same with hockey except there’s no one watching. No more Jim McKay and Acapulco Cliff Diving. OK the old bowl system is gone. It was either archaic or timeless, neither of which matters now. But is it asking too much to leave one of our national pasttimes the same for my children and grandchildren; something to tie the generations; some constant? I think college football is a good place for that.

so, ok, lo confieso, me dan celos, y muchos.

No puedo reclamar nada, lo cuál lo hace peor, y objetivamente entiendo la situación, pero eso no hace que me agrade o la acepte, a lo sumo que sobrelleve el asunto.