Haven't posted in what seems ages. That's at least partly because I'm now immersed in three shows simultaneously. Their openings are fortunately spread months apart, but the major design phase on all of them is happening right now. On one show I'm about to enter the 'horse-trading' phase, the necessary negotiations to make the wildly overbudget ( Read more... )

In my childhood I recall Easter Saturday dedicated to coloring Easter eggs, using those dye kits produced by PAAS since … since forever. My mother would have a series of empty jam jars lined up on the kitchen table, one jar for each of the color tablets supplied with the kit. She also taught me to place a flatware knife blade under each jar as ( Read more... )

Suddenly it's April 8 and I almost forgot there's a birthday happening today. Here's sending birthday wishes to that master of the baking kitchen icejohn2 !
Hope your day has been fun and has included a few special treats!


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Recently mrdreamjeans posted about how we've become accustomed to speed-dialing on our phones, rather than memorizing or looking up numbers in a printed phonebook. That made me think about Pass Words … I've got dozens of them active (for amazon.com, for union business, for any number of internet transactions, etc), and wonder how people manage to remember all ( Read more... )

Why the silence ( Read more... )

OK, last year I somehow forgot today's birthday-bear's birthday …. a mistake that Artful Otter has attempted to rectify herewith.
So, here's sending celebratory good wishes to the hunkiest clergyman I've ever encountered (and possessor of a furry decolletage worthy of worship), the one and only dewittarHope your day is full of treats, not to mention a ( Read more... )

It seems the Otter was out with his blue corgi Azure and suddenly realized it was the 26th already… time to do a bit of conjuring (somewhat difficult to do without a blue dog in hand), so here's pulling out of thin air some birthday wishes to one of my newer Lj buds, huxbear ! Hope wherever this finds you, you 're having an especially good day ( Read more... )

Though I've been admittedly lax about posting on LJ of late, it's hard to ignore a rare triple birthday - so here's sending birthday wishes to three of my Lj friends: mrdreamjeans, texwriterbear, and pbehr - each of whom are having a special day today. For the occasion the Artful Otter was inspired to head for the kitchen and whip up some celebratory cakes. All three are ( Read more... )

That's the title of an amazing documentary I just saw - it's been at the top of my movie list lately. It's about this inventor/entrepreneur in San Antonio who, around 2009 became obsessed with re-creating a painting by Vermeer - from scratch. He actually did it - a labor that took him around ten months just to execute the brushwork. His object ( Read more... )

My desktop Mac was bought in June 2011, so by now it is probably considered antediluvian in age. At present it's in the campus computer repair lab. I just got word that several of the hard drive sectors are kaput, and my iPhoto app is sitting on one of them (translation: f*cked!). So now I'll have to take my Mac 'Time Capsule' backup in to see if ( Read more... )