I just started a new class.  This one is preventive conservation.  I'll learn how to care for objects and reduce and manage the unavoidable deterioration of them.  It'll be a great class, and I think it will help a lot when I'm designing exhibits, because I'll have at least a little bit of ammo when I have to do battle with the conservator who ( Read more... )

I love robins.  Not the creepy caped crusader, "Holy Sheet Metal, Batman!" kind, that kind can go to hell.  I mean the ostentatious little bird kind, the one that has the outrageous red breast just screaming out from an otherwise ordinary exterior.  It says to me, "I am just an ordinary bird, but an ordinary bird with great expectations."  Robins ( Read more... )

It's been almost a year since I finally gave up the ghost on my poor LiveJournal.  I had a job where I actually had to work, unlike Japan, where it was all I could do not to fall asleep and drool on my desk everyday.  What else did I have to do other than busily compose Live Journal posts about the latest goings on in my super exotic Japanese life ( Read more... )

Me: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/28/michele-bachmann-links-sw_n_192493.html

Me: I'm so sorry babes

Mike: will someone please tear out her tongue!

Me: as a proud minnesotan, i think that's your right and your duty

Mike: book me ticket!
Mike:  haha!! this article is even better! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-young/democrats-block-ba ( Read more... )

The Smithsonian Institution is a funny place to work.  It's just a regular old boring office one day, and the next you're in the middle of an Inauguration hurricane.  It's just your standard daily grind one day and the next you're watching the installation of the new Secretary of the Smithsonian by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, who is Chancellor ( Read more... )

So, I may not have told you, but I'm studying for the GREs. I'm going to take them in about two and a half weeks and this happens to be the week that I'm studying how to do best on the analytical writing portion of the test. It's a lot of dry stuff, this kind of writing. Evidently, so Mr. Kaplan, Mr. Barron and Mr. Princeton Review tell me, the ( Read more... )

I promise I am not *trying* to reincarnate my LiveJournal as a political rant specifically bashing Sarah Palin.

Hey, for better or worse I'm going to turn back into the apathetic ne'er-do-well you all at least claim to love in 26 days!  But until then, this was freaking hee-larious!!

Why Some Women Hate Sarah Palin

By Belinda Luscombe Thursday, Oct ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Click to view

We'll just call this The Summer That was Lost. Moving on.

As promised to Jenny, here are Mike's and my two "Unofficial" Songs, with their lyrics. These mean more to us than Blues Traveler's Just Wait because (like I told Jenny) they evolved. They weren't chosen which--though it is beautiful and though it is fitting for us and though it's a ( Read more... )