Monday, April 26

interesting sights (& sites) while on sick day travel

Being sick is not fun - especially when it means you miss Spring Barrel Tasting weekend in the Yakima Valley.  :(  I've been at home sick in bed since Thursday night...finally got out of bed today - but only to see my doctor to make sure the antibiotic looks to be doing what it should be.  (Exciting life I lead, huh??!)











That said, the trip to see my doctor was made a bit more interesting when we passed an arm of a giant windmachine heading to the Puget Sound Energy Project in Vantage...it was so large it nearly spanned the length of two trailer beds!















The driver smiled as we passed - the follow caution car had radio'd up to him that we were taking pictures.  Looked like they were getting a kick out of our interest.  LOL  :)












Apparently the Wild Horse Renewable Wind & Solar Energy Center in Vantage, WA, is really pretty cool to tour.  I looked it up tonight, thinking another time when I feel better it would be worth a trip back.  Here's a brochure on the place and here's a video that shows the view from on top of one of the turbines:


Saturday, April 24

yea!! Carrie Underwood in Yakima, WA @ the SunDome!

totally excited - just found out we have Carrie Underwood tickets to her concert at the Yakima Valley SunDome this December!  they are on sale today; check out the SunDome site for more info!

"objection from a former sailor"

Woke up hacking my lungs out (I'm at home sick instead of at Spring Barrel - where I'd much rather be! sadness), so I decided to catch up on my Twitter/Blog feeds this morning (much luv to our local TW community!)...ended up running across this funny from @BlogSunnyside that I couldn't resist sharing:

Saturday, April 10

congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez!!

Just a quick shout out to two of my dear friends who tied the wedded knot today:
congratulations on your new lives together, Jay and Erin Sanchez!
You are a sweet pair and I pray for many many blessings in your lives together!

Wednesday, April 7

fun w/ friends @ Martini Madness!

I've been so remiss in keeping up my blog this past month - sorry y'all!!  I've promised recipes, posts on life happenings, etc., and it just hasn't happened. No excuses. So I'm just gonna jump back in...

In March I had the opportunity to attend a super "fun-raiser" event with several current (and new!) friends in support of our local Yakima Valley Museum. (Amazing how one can go from strangers to awesome buds after a couple dirty martinis...LOL!) The event, called Martini Madness, was themed all things "Mad Men" and early 60s, from the attire to the hair, to the cigar girls and live music!  Being a country gal from a couple decades later, it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what to wear, but half the fun (for me anyway) ended up being the research of the decade in prep for the night...

After I realized the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was from 1961, I latched onto Audrey Hepburn's iconic uptown sophisticate look (it helped that I had a black dress and realized I wouldn't need to go shopping for something to wear just for the night!):

Then I brushed up on my makeup techniques by watching my favorite You Tube artists - Pixiwoo - do their take on Audrey's look:


















And I also went through so many You Tube tutorials on Breakfast at Tiffany's hair I can't even begin to tell you which ones!  I can say there are enough out there that you can easily get a good sense of how to do the look. Instead of a tiara like many of them show, though, I actually just pinned an old gaudy, bobbly, pearly necklace around the top bun. And for the pearls around my neck? That was my one splurge for the event: a $10 strand from my favorite store for random costume jewelry - The Avenue, of all places!

I must say, for the effort it took to pull myself together, it was worth it - we had such a great night.  Ended up at Carmen's Comedy Club in Selah afterwards and laughed so hard the remainder of the evening.  So our final look?  Here ya go (courtesy of my friend's camera/FB page)! (I'm the gal on the right...)











(Those are peppermint stick "cigarettes" from the cigar girl - hehe!)

Hope to see you at the next local event!

And I promise - more new posts and the recipes I'm experimenting with in the kitchen very soon!

Tuesday, March 2

new favorite: I wanna be this couple someday!

Be sure to watch all three videos of this sweet and talented couple of 63 years: Marlo and Fran Cowan - they are something else!





Thursday, February 25

would you still have a job, if this was you?

Image (c) The Associated Press  (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)
"House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, far right, speaks while colleagues play solitaire on their computers as the House convenes to vote on a new budget for the fiscal year in the Capitol, in Hartford, Conn."


Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford, and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire.  The guy sitting in the row in front of them is on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking baseball scores.

Confirmed true by www.snopes.com, November 2009.

Wednesday, February 24

Thursday, February 18

what is RED all over and $57,362 per house?

Why, it's Obama's $5 billion for greening-of-America-to-create-jobs stimulus money, of course!

According to this article, the Green Energy program is 98.5% behind on its goal to weatherize 593,000 homes and create 87,000 energy jobs.  At it's current pace, the program costs $57,362 and 10 employees PER HOUSE...to re-caulk windows and replace weatherstripping.

(Reminds me of the joke "how many people does it take to screw in a light bulb?"...except, I'm not laughing.)

If I was 98.5% behind at my job, my sorry rear-end would be on the street! 
If I wasn't able to make 98.5% of my personal budget projections, anybody reviewing my notes would think I needed a refresher course in remedial math!

If I can't get away with it, what's their excuse?

RED TAPE.  Apparently the government is full of it...  really?!  who knew?!  I guess not Pelosi-Reid's budgeting committee, nor the two Nobel Prize winners: head of the country, Obama, and head of Dept of Energy, Steven Chu.

Yeah, right.

And as I lay in my bed sick at home, I think to myself:  "and you want to manage our healthcare????"

Quick, help me think about something else - that last thought just made me feel sicker...

cvo

Wednesday, February 17

winged hero slays angry apples...

Being sick is the pits.

So while my body tries to get well and turn from its current pale shade of yellow back to its normal rosy glow (come on red blood cells! let's rally!)...I'm trying to make the most of my time cuddled under blankets with Dallas (she hasn't left my side) by tinkering with a free trial version of a program I wish to own and to actually be skilled at someday: Photoshop!

It's been a great distraction between nasal irrigations, gargling salt water, downing fluids and pills, and basically not having much of a life at all this week. ;)

So welcome to my nerdom, where brave, winged rescuers on horseback are always victorious...


(click picture to see enlarged)

...and are always on guard to protect us from the fierce, saber-toothed, angry apples...

(click picture to see enlarged)

Ha-ha!  ;)

If you'd like to practice along with me, just download Adobe Photoshop CS4 30-day trial here and check out these tutorials at Tutorial9.net and o0FullAperture0o to create your own epic storybook graphics!

I'd love to see your creations...please include a link to them in your comments below!

Here's to hoping tomorrow's a stronger day...I'm off to see the wizard...

cvo

Tuesday, February 16

what chefs do when they're bored...

My dad forwarded this email to me today - thought you might enjoy it as well.  Isn't this amazing food art?  Definitely some creative chefs behind these masterpieces...

(and let's try this again...)

pick-me-up lines

So the latest on me is that I had a fabulous Valentine's weekend, busy with going to an awesome baby shower at our neighbor's and a trip through wine country with my folks (an early birthday present for my dad so I could be their DD on the the Red Wine & Chocolate weekend), but it ended with a crash when I went to bed sick on Sunday night.

I've been home-bound with this horrible, good-for-nothing, cold ever since.  :(  Blech!!!  And I'm about to start some antibiotics...joy.

One of the only reprieves to keep my mind off being sick has been watching some of my favorite YouTubers and their funny videos.  Here's another terrific one from EdBassMaster that I've called "pick-me-up lines"...because it's done just that for me to today!  Hope his characters put a smile on your face too (and when you get a chance, you should check out some of his other vids on his channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/edbassmaster)...

Thursday, February 11

new favorite: hot spot computer art program

Feed: marketing: Fast Company
Posted on: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 2:27 PM
Author: Cliff Kuang
Subject: Infographic of the Day: Your Computer Use, Visualized Like a Jackson Pollock

 

Anatoly Zenkov

Very cool heat map art of mouse-trails on your desktop after a hard day's work (or play?); tool (toy?) by Anatoly Zenkov and available on a Mac or PC.  

Kind of reminiscent of Jackson Pollock, huh?  I love it!

View article...

Tuesday, February 2

ewwww... Purell, anyone?


South Australian Department of Health's new advertising campaign urging flu shots.

Thursday, January 14

modernized retro

Feed: marketing: Fast Company
Posted on: Friday, December 11, 2009 7:45 AM
Author: Cliff Kuang
Subject: Friday Fun: It's 1978. Here's Your YouTube User Manual.

 

A thought experiment in retro aesthetics.

RetroFuturs

Okay so remember those user manuals that used to come with European electronics in the 1970s? (Stay with me here.) What if those were still around? And what if Web services like YouTube and Facebook all had them? Here's what they'd look like.

Created by Stéphane Massa-Bidal, they're actually available as posters from RetroFuturs.

[Via NowhereElse]

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

RetroFuturs

View article...

Enclosures:

4174195658_49742b6147_o.jpg (12 KB)
http://www.fastcompany.com/files/imagecache/listing_image/files/4174195658_49742b6147_o.jpg

new meaning to "crayon art"

Feed: design: The Design Inspiration
Posted on: Monday, January 04, 2010 5:06 AM
Author: The Design Inspiration
Subject: Crayon Sculpture Artist – Herb Williams

 

Herb Williams was born in Montgomery in 1973, and then received a BFA in sculpture from Birmingham-Southern College. In 1998, he started his unique creation, that is, creating original sculptures out of individual crayons that may require as many as hundreds of thousands. He received The Joan Mitchell Foundation Museum Purchase Grant in 2004 and the Next Star Artist Award in 2008.

Herb Williams is one of the only individuals in the world with an account with Crayola. His works have got highly laudation by numerous news papers and museums, and have reached many countries as America, China, England, Canada, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Croatia, and Japan. Are you curious about how great his works are? Let's have a look at them together.

View article...