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12:20:2002 Entry: "Ann : Diary"

Diary

Cable: this is great! No dialing up, no fearing of getting disconnected, no re-dialing up hoping for a good line, no getting cut off before I can even make a connection, no having to retry five times before I can even get online only to be cut off after a minute. I still have to get used to it. I'm online thinking, "I better sign off, I've been online a long time tying up the phone lines." No I'm not. (pretty soon the answer to that will be "what phone lines?")

I've been trying to render a Bryce file since the last week in June. The file itself will probably take about five days to render (on the older G3 Mac...no need to tie up a new computer), but circumstances are such that it gets almost to the point of completion, and something goes wrong. First it was my main computer crashing, which meant I needed to abort the render on the backup computer so that I could use it. The second time was when Stan was vacuuming upstairs a couple weeks ago and accidentally hit the surge protector of the computer, causing everything to shut off. Third time was myself running a test print off that computer (which is where my formerly broken printer is), which caused some system error causing Bryce to restart. Yesterday, I was at the "Antialiasing 38%" stage, which meant I probably would've been done by this morning, had it not been for the thunderstorm. We haven't had a thunderstorm like that all summer. And we needed one badly. But why did it have to happen yesterday? Why couldn't it have waited just a little longer? This will be the fourth time I start rerendering the damn file. It's like a cursed canvas.

Last night I got to be the whacky aunt to my niece, Hanna, age 9. Took her and her parents to my art exhibit, gave her a shirt that either I or my mom made about 20 years ago out of leopard print fabric (she's in a leopard print phase). Also showed her a bunch of nail polishes and she got to paint her nails a very strange color. Stan said I made a good impression on her. Age 9 is a good age, it's probably the easiest to deal with girls that age.

We have started collecting Monarch eggs. Stan finds them in the field at his job, but there haven't been too many around our house yet. We found one caterpillar in the milkweed in back, but it seemed sick as it wasn't eating much--usually they eat voraciously when they're an inch long. I feared it had the dreaded tachnid fly larva inside (which devours the poor Monarch caterpillars from the inside out), as so many that we find at that age in our yard are infected. We released it back outside because I just couldn't bear to watch it die that horrible death. But Stan found two more mature caterpillars by his job, and they're now chrysalises, having just turned yesterday.

Our new cable internet installation also came with a lot of other channels on the tv...digital cable too. I didn't even realize we were getting the digital cable...not that we can really take full advantage of it with our analog tv, but the extra channels are sure a plus. Last night after Stan's sister and family left, we were so wiped out, all we did was watch VH1 Classics. It's sort of like for old farts like ourselves. Saw a T Rex (20th Century Boy) and Bowie (The Jean Genie) "video" (I guess they didn't call them videos back in the 70s) which was rather yummy. Sometimes they'd play an old Mowtown tune with scenes from the swinging 60s as a backdrop. Most of the videos, though, were from 80s hairbands, but at least it was worth the laugh.

3 Comments

I'm glad you're enjoying it! When I got DSL, I was stunned. First of all, I started getting telemarketer phone calls, which was startling, lol. But best of all, I didn't have to worry about times and overages and such. What a relief -- and fast!

My sister plays wacky aunt to my kids, and totally gets into torturing me by teaching them odd things. :) I love it. An aunt (or uncle) is a wonderful thing for a child.

Posted by Suzanne @ 07:21:2002:07:31 PM CST

I wish I had an aunt or an uncle when I was young...only had some great ones who were all old and I never saw them much, ever. I was deprived in many ways.

It's strange, I have this overwhelming urge to spoil her with stupid things like nail polish. I've never had that emotion before. Now this October we'll get to visit Stan's other sister's family (a half-biological sister) and she has 5 kids that I've never met. Yikes!

Posted by Ann @ 07:22:2002:09:07 AM CST

Great, the cablething :)

Posted by Nico @ 07:22:2002:02:01 PM CST

By Ann @ 20:24 PM CST:12:20:02 ..::Link::..