Leaking brain August 27, 2006
Posted by irishmadness in Arts and Crafts, Music, Work madness.1 comment so far
Not literally, of course, but I’ve been using regression analysis to adjust data (with some help from Aleta on the analysis) all afternoon. None of the Excel formulas are especially tough – almost all are pretty simple – but trying to remember the logic behind them so I can tell if I’m messing up is starting to fry my brain.
But I’m getting a lot done, so I can’t complain.
In other news, I got accepted into a journalism leadership training program that requires a pretty stiff application process and I got a scholarship that covers most of my costs. (Without the scholarship, I wouldn’t be able to go, so that’s almost the more important part of that news.) It’s in less than two months, and I should be getting my homework in the next week or two, which needs to be turned in two weeks before the week-long session starts. I’m psyched, and my mentor was turning cartwheels. 
As we roll into fall, choir has kicked into high gear for our fall concert. We still haven’t started Christmas yet, which concerns me a bit. But we’re also doing easier stuff this year because of the fall concert. Tomorrow we’re having a vocal workshop with a college voice professor. I’m looking forward to that, since I’ve never had any formal voice training.
I’m also gearing up for the holidays by spending a fair amount of time on crafts. Yesterday I was working on cross-stich for a Christmas present, and today I’m knitting a birthday present. I’ve also been contemplating Christmas card designs. Instead of a variety this year, I’m going to stick with a few designs I can make in quantity, to save both time and money.
I even managed some cleaning the last couple of days, though I still have a long way to go. There are two or three projects that will take a chunk of time, but also account for most of the chaos in my apartment. I’m going to try and tackle those in the next two weeks. Then I can concentrate on the smaller ones.
I also need to start running again, or at least walking. That’s on tap to start this week.
This and That July 2, 2006
Posted by irishmadness in Music, Writing.add a comment
• I’ve been spending time the last couple of days ripping RealAudio files of liturgical music to MP3 format so iTunes can load theminto my library. I’ve got 125 of the rougly 550 files I downloaded done, and my library actually exceeds 4G of space, something I never thought would happen. I haven’t listened to any of the files, and I’m sure I’ll end up disabling some of them either because they’re repeats of songs I already have (I think I’m up to five versions of Amazing Grace so far) or because I don’t like them. I wasn’t listening as I downloaded, so I’m sure some are moldy oldies. I did get a nice version of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus,” so I’m psyched about that.
• Since I’m only on-call today, I’ve been trying to catch up on my writing. I got almost 1,300 words written at the coffee shop, but I need about 4,000 to get completely caught up. I’m still a little short. Fortunately I’m off tomorrow and don’t have choir. I’m also off Tuesday, but I’ll be scooping slush all afternoon and evening at the park. At least I’m experienced. At any rate, if I can manage 2,500 words each of the three days, I’ll be more than caught up. The good news is that River is coming well, and I’m getting quite a lot of it written.
• I got the Mac equivalent of FrontPage (iWeb) and have started redesigning my Web site. It won’t be done for several weeks, but I think it will much better, as well as easier to update. Mac programs just tend to be better at design-type stuff.
• Last weekend, I spent four days helping Aleta paint and do other projects at her house, and it looks really good! She picked perfect colors for both her and the space, and I can’t wait to see what it looks like once the new floors are in. (Hopefully before my next visit up!) I also learned how to use a power washer and refined my painting skills. Unlike when my parents had us help paint the outside of the house when I was a teenager, I manged to stay basically paint-free except for where I wiped my hands, and that was done knowing I didn’t care if the clothes got painty. One shirt was so old – my friend Jessa gave it to me for my 16th birthday – that it was falling apart at the seams and was going in the trash at the end of the weekend no matter how clean it stayed.
• The painting project has me considering colors for rooms when I buy a house (18 months to 2 years), so I stopped at Lowe’s yesterday and picked up all sorts of paint chips and suggested color combinations. They have different brands than Home Depot, so I got different ones than up at Aleta’s. On initial glance, I got about a dozen that are worth considering for various rooms. Once I have time to try my own combinations – hopefully tomorrow – I should have a few more possibilities.
