Yes Hooray!

That little project I've been working on for a year or so? The one involving an iPod crashing? The one that had me listen to so many 20-second snippets of songs that I became a virtual "bing" commercial with music-engine overload. The one that had me spend hours and hours and hours and hours figuring out ways to do this more easily only to find half of those solutions just took up more time?

Well. It's done. It's finished. I've got my music back. Thanks to a combination of patience (yeah, right), a program to rename ID3 tags to their proper MP3 names (right click, scroll, select title... repeat x 5,000 times) and the idea to catalogue all the music we already have on the computer, on CDs, or on Aaron's work computer, cross reference, and delete the newly properly named files I didn't need, I cut out hours of work of importing songs I didn't want or need.

And last night I finished. It may not seem like a big deal, but holy crap! This project has pretty much consumed my life for the last week, as well as for a couple of months right after it happened. I am so flippin excited to have all my music back in one place - all 26.1 days worth, 35.7 GBs in 9,601 songs.

Sigh.Of.Relief. Now to finally pour myself a cup of coffee for the morning.

woah flashback

i'm (still) in the (painful) process of importing my music from an iPod that died over a year ago. it's a really lame annoying process, but i've come across some music i kind of forgot about - and it's weird the different feelings & memories that are stirred up in a 20 second clip of music. The following are some random examples: (and they remind me of why Aaron once made fun of me for my music collection...)

1. Sarah McLachlan - (from the cd Afterglow) - I used to be a HUGE Sarah McLachlan fan, and I admit, I might still listen to it on a rare occasion. But just a 20 second clip of this took me right back to a summer where I worked for my grandma in Portland. Every lunch break, I would put on Sarah McLachlan, open up a book from the "Sword of Truth" series (yep, i read fantasy books sometimes), and eat lunch - most memorably the corndogs from gladstone campmeeting. awesome.

2. The Faint - This weird little group sings catchy songs about really really weird stuff. But this music takes me immediately back to a section of the drive from Portland to Walla Walla - the part on the highway between 1-84, and the boring 2-laner.

3. Bad Religion - Takes me back to a drive home from the Denver airport. Maybe because that's the most I listened to this CD?

4. Elliot Smith / Nada Surf - I might as well be back in my last year of college sitting in Intro to Video with several friends and watching the music videos we had all made. My friend Jeff, a huge Nada Surf fan, used one of their songs, and I used an Elliot Smith song. Now I can't listen to either without thinking of that class (and my terrible videos).

5. Cursive (just one song: Art is Hard) - This was on a mix CD aaron made for me shortly after we started dating. I listened to this CD all christmas long, and this song in particular reminds me of Christmas in Sun River, which is actually when I got the doomed iPod, hanging out with family, playing Trivial Pursuit, watching the events of the Asian Tsunami unfold, arguing with my family about Harry Potter, and missing Aaron.

6. Dashboard Confessional - Um, yeah, I totally loved this guy back in the day. It mostly reminds me of England, a trip to Cornwall, a bag of crisps, winning a free curry meal, and pining away for a boy I just couldn't let go of. Good stuff.

7. All American Rejects, The Used - Hello 2nd year of college: A year that featured weird personal choices, a semi-stalker, many superficial friendships, many tears, many car trips in my friend liz's green honda and singing songs by these bands loudly.

8. Modest Mouse - Aaron & I drove all the way to Portland & back in a night during dead week to see this concert. I can't listen to them without revisiting the memories of getting to know Aaron on that drive. And also the strange creature we both saw very very early in the morning that seemed to disappear much too suddenly... Seriously - what WAS that thing?

9. Simon & Garfunkel - It's a strange thing when your best friend mentions a song he would like played at his funeral, and then not too much longer after that dies in a car accident, and has that song played at his funeral. If you want to see me bawl, just put on bridge over troubled water, and watch me go.

10. Weezer - "Blue" - This might be the CD with the most memories. Interestingly, most take place on car trips - probably because it makes such an awesome road trip CD - I can sing every word to every song. It can take me from a trip to Sun Valley when my above mentioned friend first played this CD for me, to basketball trips, to a more recent trip back from Portland with Aaron. I really really love this CD.

oh man, there are just so many more, but I think this list is probably only interesting to me, and I already know all the memories attached, so I think I'm just going to stop writing about it, and get back to importing the stuff.

40 books in 2009

Last year I made an attempt to read more, and keep track of what books I read. This year, I'm hoping to read even more... Dare I say an average of 1 of week? That's only 12 more total... I think I can do it.

Now, before I type the list, let me just say - I am fully aware that many of the books I read are not thoughtful well written pieces of literature. And I (and sometimes Aaron) do judge myself for it. So, when you come across the multitude of chic-lit in this list, remember, I've suffered enough, and please do not make fun of me!

So... here is the list, in order of completion.

1. Chocolat (Joanne Harris) - finished 1.5.09
2. Queen of babble gets hitched (Meg Cabot) finished 1.6.09
3. Three Cups of Tea (Greg Mortensen) finished 1.6.09
4. The Other Side of the Story (Marian Keyes) finished 1.15.09
5. Run (Ann Patchett) finished 1.16.09
6. To Have or To Hold (Jane Green) finished 1.25.09
7. Child in Time (Ian McEwan) finished 2.7.09
8. Anyone Out There (Marian Keyes) finished 2.11.09
9. This Charming Man (Marian Keyes) finished 2.20.09
10. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo) finished 4.9.09 (come on, this feat alone has to make up for most of the chic lit, right?)
11. Murder on the Nile (Agatha Christie) finished 4.21.09
12. Watermelon (Marian Keyes) finished 4. 23.09
13. Murder on the Orient Express (Agatha Christie) finished 5.3.09
14. Mind's Eye (Hakan Nesser) finished 5.6.09
15. On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan) finished 5.12.09
16. Lucy Sullivan Getting Married (Marian Keyes) finished 5.17.09
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling) finished 5.27.09
18. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling) finished 6.10.09
19. Borkmann's Point (Hakkan Nesser) finished 6.14.09
20. The Girl with no Shadow (Joanne Harris) finished 6.18.09
21. Angels (Marian Keyes) finished 7.5.09
22. Rumors (Anna Godbersen) finished 7.16.09
23. The Physik Book of Deliverance Dane (Katherine Howe) finished 8.11.09
24. Franny & Zooey (J.D. Salinger) finished 8.17.09
25. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) finished 8.21.09
26. Fake Liar Cheat (Adam Goldstein) finished 10.4.09
27. AM/PM (Amelia Gray) finished 10.5.09
28. A Year in Provence (Peter Mayle) finished 10.17.09
29. Toujours, Provence (Peter Mayle) finished 10.22.09
30. Motherless Brooklyn (Jonathan Lethem) finished 11.15.09
31. Envy (Anna Godbersen) finished 11. 15.09
32. The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown) finished 11.18.09
33. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) finished 11.19.09
34. Her Fearful Symmetry (Audrey Niffenegger) finished 11.21.09
35. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) finished 11.22.09
36. Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Seth Graham-Smith & Jane Austen) finished 12.7.09
37. Cleaving (Julie Powell) finished 12.11.09
38. Splendor (Anna Godbersen) finished 12.14.09
39. Talk to the Snail (Stephen Clarke) finished 12.20.09
40. Into Thin Air (Jon Krakaur) finished 12.24.09

Least Favorite Book of 2009: The Physik Book of Deliverance Dane - I read this for a book club that I went to once. This book was so ridiculous, so predictable, and the author was clearly a grad-school snob. I was bored and rolling my eyes through it.

Favorite Book of 2009: Motherless Brooklyn - Very entertaining and smart. Runners-up would include the Provence books, because I've been a bit of a francophile this year. There were many others I loved, but, I've probably forgotten that by now.

Quickest Read: The Anna Godbersen books - basically "gossip girl" for the 1900's. Most of these took me just a few hours.

Longest Read: Les Miserables - but I think that's acceptable.

Book I was most looking forward to reading: Her Fearful Symmetry - which, didn't necessarily let me down, but it was not nearly as compelling as I had hoped for.

Absolute worst character name in the history of books: Tedward (this was actually in a book I read in 2008, but I still can't get over it). Seriously. Ted.Ward. Tedward. WTF.

Alright - that's it! Any recommendations for 2010's list?

dream blog

Backstory: When Aaron and I were flying out of San Francisco on our way home from seeing our niece, our plane stayed abnormally low, and actually slowed down after take off - this made me very very nervous. After a few minutes though, everything kicked into gear, and the plane accelerated and finally gained altitude. It was a weird feeling.

Last night I dreamed that I was on a flight doing the same thing. We stayed very low to the ground, and were going seemingly very slow. The pilot said we would have to land, and try again to take off. We were flying over fields in Eastern Washington. When we landed, we landed in somebody's farm. In talking with the farmers & pilot, we discovered that the reason the plane couldn't gain altitude was because of ALL THE LADYBUGS. And then I looked around, and there were ladybugs EVERYWHERE. Spotless ladybugs, none the less. My friends Candi and Jesse showed up to play a game. We took a tour of the farm & the ladybugs. And when it was safe, we boarded our plane, and took off again.

I mean really. Where does this stuff come from?

Training Stats

Training is done! The days of my Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays being invaded by sweat, sore muscles, weird tasting energy items and jogging clothes are over! Just one Sunday left to endure... 13.1 miles of a "challenging" course with SUB-FREEZING weather are ahead. But really, I'm feeling pretty optimistic about it. Here are some stats from the training. Once the race is done, I'll update with finish time & averages.

Weeks spent training: 12 (plus 4 before this to "train for the training"... necessary when running a mile wore me out)

Miles run: 206.22
Best Mile: 8:40
Best 1K: 5:25
Best 5K: 29:23
Best 10K: 1:01:06
Farthest run: 9.15 miles
Number of runs: 59
Total time spent running: 36:11:28
Average Pace over 59 runs: 10:32/mi
Total calories: 21,251 (all immediately eaten back in ice cream or donuts)

JUNE: 3 runs, 5.62 total miles, 13:01/mi (one of those "runs" was a walk to test the nike thing...)
JULY: 15 runs, 36.74 total miles, 11:44/mi
AUGSUT: 17 runs, 61.76 total miles, 10:21/mi
SEPTEMBER: 17 runs, 82.41 total miles, 10:01/mi
OCTOBER: 4 runs, 19.1 total miles, 10:13/mi (to be fair, 9 of these miles were run intentionally at a 10:45 pace, taking that average higher than it would be normally...)

RACE DAY GOALS: Finish the frickin race. I'm not the fastest runner on the planet, but I've certainly improved. I hope to finish at or under 2:15:00, but we'll see! I really will be happy if I can just run the whole race. Wish me luck!

brain surgery?

I don't know if this is real, or was making a point...

But it sort of makes me laugh, and then it makes me a little annoyed. I know that graphic designers don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get advanced education in very specialized areas. I know that the things we do generally aren't saving lives, and making a mistake in our job typically won't destroy anyone's life, but still...

Why are people in the arts (and this can extend to fine arts, writing, and much more, I expect) asked to do work for free? Why are the services we offer so often under appreciated that we are asked to do them for nothing but "credit" to build our portfolios? I know that sometimes this work leads to paying work with the same company, but often, it does not. Because the same people that want you to design their logo, website, and brochure for nothing are the people who take your work for granted. Once you've helped them make a buck, they spend it with a bigger firm, and forget all about the little guy who helped them get there. (Not to mention those who don't pay generally have the strongest ideas of what they want and will put you through about 100 soul-shattering revisions until you have produced the ugliest design you've ever done and won't want to put it in your portfolio, anyway!)

I think there is a place for free design - non-profits, pet projects, passions, and so on. That's where free work works - you generally get to be creative, they appreciate you, and they spread your name around town. But I'm really not okay with for-profit organizations asking professionals to do work for free. Discounted rates? Sure! But free? Come on. I know start-ups are often strapped for cash, but do they walk into Office Depot and ask for free paper? Do they ask for free rent the first 6 months they are in business? I doubt it. So where did people get the idea that the services I offer are worth nothing? I'm no brain surgeon, but I still have to pay the rent, and adding a sub-par piece of work to the portfolio isn't going to do that.

the list

once, when i was little, i made a list of things i wanted to do before i was "old", which i probably thought was like, 35. now that you can round my age right on up to 30, i feel like i need to revise that to things i want to do before i'm...really old...

here's the new list.

1. live abroad for at least a little while
2. make more stuff for etsy shop, and then promote it
3. find new clients for business, and promote that
4. run the whole 1/2 marathon
5. run (or very close to it) a full marathon
6. make more of a difference
7. learn french
8. become less fearful of, well, everything
9. be more generous
10. have one of those...family...things (while on the list, it's purposely towards the bottom!)
11. stop making lists and do shit

alright - off to cut some fabric!