Wandering through E-Space

Just wanted to take time out and say, "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" Stay safe, folks! hmmm...updates coming soon (I hope!) ;)

So a couple of days after I find out that Blogger will no longer support FTP publishing, I find out that my current host for my comments, Haloscan, will be ending their service this Friday. Yay. :p No matter, I decided rather than switch to another commenting system (before Haloscan, I was using Enetation) I decided to go ahead and use Blogger's commenting system. (Why didn't I start with Blogger? Well, when I first started my blog, Blogger didn't support comments) Haloscan is allowing its members to switch to a new service-but it is a pay service, so I think I'll decline-after all, not many people comment on my blogs, so why pay for the option? Ah, well-haven't switched my publishing yet-that will be an adventure over the next few weeks! ;)

Grrr...so I didn't post at all in January-my streak is broken! :( However, today I got an email from Blogger saying they will be discontinuing FTP support in March. (that's how I publish Wandering ) This is just a test to see if my blog is still publishing, so this entry probably will not show up on LiveJournal or MySpace... To top it off, my comments don't seem to be working! Argggg.... Changes are a-comin'. I don't know if I have time to adjust!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! (or Happy Hanukkah or Happy Solstice, or Happy Festivus, etc.-which ever your holiday was, I hope it was wonderful!) Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!!! :) See you on the flip side!

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Mine was eventful. Blew a fuse Thursday night, had to get the circuit breaker fixed (thanks to my awesome landlord, that was taken care of the next day) While fixing that, he noticed some roofing had broken loose-yikes! Looks like there will be roofers in my immediate future. ;) Overall though, I had a good Thanksgiving. :) Plenty of leftover turkey! I love turkey! Saturday I went downtown for Winterfest. I hoped it would help me get into full Christmas mode. ;) I've got pictures, will have to post a couple soon... Started decorating for Christmas! This is my favorite holiday. I love Christmas lights-had to replace a few this year (which is why after Christmas sales are awesome! I have backups-lights don't work? Just head down to the basement, instead of the store! ;)) I'm no where near done, but at least the is a tree with lights in my window. :) *heehee* Okay, so I never wrote about how I felt when Brett Favre signed with...

Oooh! I'm so excited! Halloween's tomorrow! I'm actually going to try to give out candy at my own home (normally I help Perseph and Paul on Halloween night-but Perseph is currently on a road trip! :)) I have no idea how many kids I'll get-I'm thinking about being a total nerd and Tweeting the events through the night. We'll see. ;) Until then, I have a few pictures to share: My pumpkin! which will soon be turned into a jack-o-lantern... Some porch decos! I hope my bat lights survive the wind!! And this I took last week-it's totally cool-but would be much cooler if I had a telephoto lens: Can you see it between the trees and the telephone poll? It's the moon-less than 10 percent full! When I first spotted it, I actually thought it was a jet trail (since there were several in the sky) The full size image is much clearer, but, well, that's a pretty big image!! ;) Happy Halloween!!!

They did it!!! The Twins are the AL 2009 Central Division Champions!!!!!!!! The first team to win after being 3 games behind with only 4 left to play. Those are my boys!!!!!! Now, it's off to New York. Man, that tiebreaker game with the Tigers- 12 innings!!! I was jumping up and down-my emotions were all over the place as they were behind, ahead, behind, tied, AHEAD!!!! The Twins landed in N.Y. at 3:05am-first pitch is less than an hour from now... It ain't over yet!!! GO TWINS!!!!

Holy smokes! It's the last day of September, and I haven't written anything in this blog all month! Wow, and I thought only 2 posts a month were bad... I've just been busy, I guess. It's not like I have nothing to write about-I think of entries all the time-just don't have the time to write them all out! I have quite a few things I've starred in my rss-reader that I'd like to write about. *sigh* Let's see, what has happened this month? Well, St. Rocco's for Italian Band, the Tippit reunion. I actually went to the movies (btw, 9 is pretty awesome!) Worked on cleaning my Dad's telescope (the mirror really needs to be re-silvered-but that's another story that I didn't get to this month...perhaps I'll write more about that later). Hmm...what else? I participated in Case for Community Day again (7 years running!), love my tv shows (well, duh), my flowers on my porch are still blooming-my petunias have taken over my marigolds!! ...

So I'm sitting here at work, catching up on some older Lino at Large podcasts that I missed... Lino was playing "20 Bible Questions" with Lou-Lou was asking, Lino answering. Lou's usually pretty good at guessing-but he was having a hard time with this one: a thing that Jesus never touched, made of wood. It wasn't until close to the end, when Lino answered yes to 'is it from the Old Testament?' when I realized the answer was "Noah's Ark". ...however, I didn't just think it. No. I blurted, "the Ark!" for all to hear. Lucky for me, most of my coworkers had left for the day and those that remained had headphones on-just like me. *whew!*

Perseids, Day Two: Observation time: 11:30pm-2:00am. Number of meteors spotted: 70. Considering where I live, with the level of light pollution (not counting the moon), I'd say that's pretty good. :) I started out sitting in my lawn chair again, but quickly decided to grab my beach towel so I could lay down in the grass instead. I'm really glad I did-I had a much wider view of the sky, so I was able to catch more meteors from behind than I would have in the chair. The backyard test? Well, when I first saw this place, and looked at the backyard, I thought it had potential-not a huge backyard (although bigger than the one on Hampshire), but the grass was well kept-enough room to spread out, and there are no trees(although plenty of trees in the surrounding yards), so there'd be a wide view of the sky. I first thought, gee, I bet I could watch the Perseids back here...turns out I was right!!! Yeah, there's some light pollution, plus the potential of lights from...

I ended up seeing three meteors last night-two were definitely Perseids, the other a stray from one of the lesser showers. I was facing East/North East at the time, with Cassiopeia to my left, and the rising moon to my right. The Perseid meteors I saw ripped through the sky from left to right (N to S), the other meteor I spotted was more West to East (from my POV). I started out around 10pm-took a lawn chair and my handy can of OFF!, and sat outside for a bit. Not for very long, though-because it was very cloudy. Whatever break in the clouds that I had seen earlier quickly disappeared, frustrated, I went in about 10:30, and decided to give it another hour. 11:30pm I headed back out-it was still quite cloudy, but there seemed to be more breaks in the clouds than before, so I decided to sit it out. After about an hour (and a couple of close calls with a skunk), I went inside to grab a light sweater. (not that it would help with the skunk, but I just wanted to add that. Good think t...

Gah!! It's hot-very hot-hot and muggy. We were spoiled this summer-cooler temps, not as muggy as it had been. Even when I went up north, it was unusually cool. Blah to those who whined about the temperatures never being above 90 degrees!!! I am happy with cooler summers-75 degrees, with the lower 80s tolerable for a time. But I digress... The summer has flown by so quickly!!! Mt. Carmel came and went, the week of many actives flew by. Jerm and Allison got hitched! (Yah, I've got lots of pics, but I need to put new batteries in my camera-wedding shower, staff picnic, retirement party, baby shower, wedding from said shower-I used my camera ALOT in the last month!) And now the Feast is upon us! Oh, my-not only do I need to pick up batteries for my camera, but I could use a couple of extra reeds for my clarinet as well!) I've spent the last couple of evenings (ok, more like later at night) on my back porch reading and enjoying the breeze (strong wind) and other nighttime sounds...

Yikes!! Is it August already?!? The Feast starts next week!! Boy time flies. Right now I'm having issues with the month-I keep thinking it's a month later than it really is-at the end of July, I thought it was the end of August-and for some reason, I keep thinking it's September already. Do I really want the summer to be over this soon? NO! (although I am a big fan of the fall... ;) ) Got some updates-I totally meant to post reviews from Torchwood: Children of Earth but, man, that mini really drained me-as my friend Arthur said, it made Battlestar Galactica look like a picnic on Sunday! (I thought it was very good...just emotionally draining) So what has happened since the last time I posted? A wedding shower (followed by the wedding! Duh!), a staff picnic, a retirement party, a babyshower...now the Feast is coming up...arrg...I've got alot to say, but not enough time to post it! ;) Gah, I'm reverting back to my once-a-month only posts-gotta stop that!!!

Yes, I've been back for what, 2 weeks now? I just haven't had time to update this blog. I got back late Tuesday, then the following weekend was Mt. Carmel-so this past weekend was the first chance I've had to rest since I got back, and I didn't really do a lot of resting. ;) Anyhoo, since I'm terrible at breaking my trips/events into multiple posts, I thought I'd give a breakdown of my trip: Things We Did: (in no particular order) -overnight camping trip to Snake River, first day I was there -played disc golf at Inner Grove Heights (first time a tornado siren has ever been a hazard. ;) ) -had a Doctor Who marathon (well, duh-we try to have one everytime I visit) -campfire/bonfire (to go with the S'Mores) -made S'Mores! (to go with the fires) -Ladies Starbucks run (me, my sis, Shan, and Angelz-the kids thought we were going to a bar. LOL) -went 4-wheeling (at Snake River and Willow River-rode from Willow River to Sturgeon Lake) -became a God-Mother (y...

It's my vacation time!!! I can't wait to get to MN! I just added a Twitter account, but I don't know if I will be updating it much. I will be updating my facebook status occasionally. :) If I get the chance, I might post to my blog, too. Not hitting panic mode quite yet-that's for about midnight tonight when I realize that I'm running out of time! LOL. If you are interested in following me on Twitter, here I am: http://twitter.com/romana1977 . :) Everyone have a fun and safe 4th of July!!!!

Editorial: Dear Governor Strickland : Join Ohio's librarians, and citizens, in rallying against a proposal that could close many libraries in the state. Ohio Governor Proposes Halving State Support; Many Libraries Could Close : Library aid would be cut by $227 million over two years; librarians react with new Twitter icon.

My friend Peter posted a link to this video on Facebook, and I just had to share: (original link here: The Sideways Tornado ). It gave me goosebumps!!! Tornadoes have been on my mind lately (with all the activity this weekend, no wonder!) I've always been fascinated by thunderstorms and tornadoes-no wonder this was one of my favorite books growing up: (I loved those Lets Read and Find Out books!!!) No, I am not a storm chaser, but I wouldn't mind playing one on tv. ;) Growing up in MN, while not exactly what you would call 'tornado alley', we certainly had our fair share of tornadoes. Tornado drills were the norm (hey, do they still test the sirens on the first Wed. of every month at 1pm?), and I can remember having a set plan to get all of our outdoor toys inside the fastest way possible whenever a tornado siren sounded. Here's a picture I took with my cell phone almost 2 years ago. My sister and I were on our way back to her place from the Cities when we got a ...

Marcon starts tomorrow!!! Yay!! I'll be there-I never did get around to making my Sarah Jane costume from the Hand of Fear , but I did manage to put together a couple of costumes from the Sarah Jane Adventures . They aren't perfect, but they'll do. As with all of my costuming-I start out basic, and try to improve them as the cons go by. ;) Now if only I could find a pair of boots that'll fit my freakin' huge calves! ;) My goal this summer is to set up my sewing machine so I can get working on a couple of 'classic' SJ costumes! My badge will say 'Romanadvoratrelundar'...I'm not sure if I remembered to include the "-DWC". I'm also considering adding 'Romana1 on Sarah-Jane.tv', which I eventually did to my Chicago Tardis badge (I really should have done that at the beginning of the convention!) I'll probably be totting around good 'ole Krismutt , dressed as K-9. :) I'm adding something to the K-9 costume-not...

Betcha didn't think I'd ever get around to this, did ya? Well, who could blame you? My track record for posting events/trips in parts isn't exactly spot on. ;) As it is, I started this 10 days ago, and haven't had the time to finish typing it up!! Brian and Bill, setting up our tent So, since this was the first Relay for pretty much everyone on our team, we came up with a list of items we should have on hand for next year: (I do realize this might be a better part 3 post...? Who knows? By the end of this entry I may have decided it would be. Our campsite, with sign) Most items are intended for the campsite: 1. more blankets (it gets chilly at night!), sleeping bags (so the boys can camp out!) 2. travel pillows (not everyone can walk all night-I had to take a nap, and I think having a pillow would've been nice) 3. reclining lawn chairs (another rest aid!) 4. at least one change of shoes and socks (this is more for me-since Brian already planned for that!) 5. Chap...

Happy May Day!!! Eureka is coming back to SciFi in July!! It's moving to Fridays: http://video.scifi.com/player/?id=1090958 ...wouldn't new day and time indicate that it would be in a different time slot? It's moving from Tuesdays at 9, to Fridays at 9. Oh, well, maybe that's just me. ;) Yay, Eureka is returning!! Also, I should have posted this long ago, but, tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!!!! www.freecomicbookday.com Check out the website to find a participating comic book store near you!! Coming soon: Relay update #2!