online JOURNAL

29 September 05
How did I ever manage before owning a digital camera?

I bought my first camera - a Kodak 126 instamatic - with Blue Chip Stamps, back in, oh, the Paleozoic era. Since then I've had a couple different SLRs and a great 35mm pocket camera, I've processed my own film, and I've developed my own photos. I've played around with different exposure/processing/developing techniques and really love how a great photographer can create amazing images with talent, rather than digital manipulation.

For several years I refused to move into the digital realm, insisting it wasn't "real" photography. Then one day, about a year and a half ago, something changed. I bought myself a digital camera*. I've taken thousands of photos with this camera, and now realize I can never go back to film.

Of course, the photos are instantaneous. I know immediately if I got a good shot, or if I should try again. And the photos are free! No more paying for film, paying (and waiting) for processing. No more getting my photos back and realizing that shot didn't come out as planned. No more having to store boxes and boxes of photos. And one excellent side effect I hadn't thought of before buying my camera - I am no longer responsible for gallons of toxic photo chemicals being dumped down the drain.

Photography has always been my favourite visual art form.

*It's a Pentax Optio 555. It's pocket-sized and easy to carry around, has macro capability, 5x zoom, and all the bells & whistles of an SLR save the interchangeable lenses. I'm quite happy with it.

26 September 05
I had a nice weekend despite managing to avoid all of the pleasantly chaotic events going on in this city. I skipped Love Parade for the second year in a row, and instead stayed here to do homework. In fact, I spent all Saturday working on a literary analysis for my English class. (I've since determined I can write an average of a page a day, including editing. Most of this time is spent procrastinating or being distracted. You now know the location of my personal Achilles' heel.)

Saturday evening Frederick, our friend Ann, and I spent a couple of hours wandering around in the dark at the zoo for their annual night tour. We saw several animals, normally lethargic during the daytime, out and active in the cool air. Afterwards, Frederick and I had dinner at the Beach Chalet and serendipitously discovered they are also a damn fine brewery! We tried their Ocean Beach Oktoberfest (a German Oktoberfest-style beer, amber in color, and well balanced between malt sweetness & hop bitterness), and their Golden Gate Park Porter (a traditional medium-bodied dark ale with chocolate notes that fade into a roasty finish), and declared them the best new beers we had tasted in quite awhile. We had dinner overlooking Ocean Beach and counted no fewer than 26 bonfires out on the sand. It was a very nice evening indeed.

Sunday I managed to skip the Folsom Street Fair for the umpteenth year in a row, and instead Susan and I headed to the spa to relax in the sauna and have pedicures. I then picked Mom up from the airport where she declared she would never again travel to the Gulf coast anytime during hurricane season.

I am now (finally) finished with my English paper, and will use the next few hours to catch up on homework for my other classes. Unless I get distracted by ... oooh, shiny!

22 September 05
Last week my mom flew to Houston to visit her friend. Yesterday I heard hurricane Rita was increasing in intensity, so I called Mom to encourage her to come home early. She said she and her friend were currently in Shreveport, Northern LA, and she was trying to contact the airline to get an early flight home.

Mom calls me today to let me know she's back in Houston. WTF?! Apparently her stupid fucking friend is shrugging this whole hurricane thing off, saying they'll be safe at her home. She didn't drive Mom to another airport in another city before returning there. Her "friend" was commenting on all the gridlocked traffic heading out of Houston. Now the roads are too crowded for them to leave (and get to a safer place in time), and apparently the airports are either closed or all flights are full.

I'm really hoping that a lot of what we're hearing is overreaction to Katrina. As of this morning, NOAA is saying there's only a 30-50% chance Rita will hit the Houston area. In the meantime, I sit and wait. And if I ever meet this friend of my mother's, she's getting a punch in the face.

19 September 05
Our DSL was down for three days. I feel so isolated without an Internet connection; I keep thinking I'm going to miss something important because our friends are so used to emailing instead of calling.

But now that our connection is back, I can share with you A Day (or so) In the Life of Gina's Hair:

Lots and lots
of braids.

Oh my! What
interesting hair.

Nice and clean.

New hair!

14 September 05
Over the years my diet and my shopping habits have gotten better and better. Now, whenever possible, I eat lots of veggies and whole grains, and buy organic, sustainably-grown foods.

That having been said, I bring mostly non-perishable foods to Burning Man. You don't want to eat much when you're out there, and you want to cook even less, so packaged foods is the way to go to avoid having lots of stuff go to waste. About the only time I shop in the processed foods aisle is getting ready for BM.

This year I ended up with a box of taco-flavoured Hamburger Helper. It didn't get eaten on the playa, and was just sitting on the kitchen counter. We were in the mood for something nacho-like the other night and decided to give the Helper a try. I used some ground seitan instead of hamburger meat, threw out their instant "rice" and substituted some leftover Mexican-style brown rice, and even added a sauteed onion and soy cheese. I thought all of these changes might make it a bit more edible, but boy was I mistaken.

Hamburger Helper is vile! I think my comment was, "People eat this crap on purpose?" Ugh, what was I thinking?

The sad thing is, I guess most of America really does eat like that.

9 September 05
I really am trying to do my homework today, but I keep getting sidetracked. For instance, I just finished writing letters to my previous employers requesting letters proving that, yes, I have previously worked in the medical field. Having such proof should assist in getting accepted to nursing school when I apply next month. Although that was something I needed to do, so I don't really know if it counts as getting sidetracked. Although journal updates certainly do count...

There have been a few Burning Man-related messages coming through on mailing lists this morning, and I suppose that's really what has me procrastinating. The hardest part about coming home from the playa is being separated from your campmates. And this year we had such a great camp -- we were able to combine friends from two different social groups, and everyone got along fabulously! People enjoyed hanging out with one another, yet there was no drama at all.

My experiences at BM this year also made me feel closer to my friends. It was the first time since 2000 that Susan and I had camped together, and I had forgotten how much fun she is out there! So full of enthusiasm and wanting to be part of everything, her energy is wonderfully contagious! Plus, it was amazing having our friends be there to share in the excitement of our engagement! And I don't think I had ever seen Frederick so happy or so animated as he was Saturday night and Sunday.

Such wonderful memories...such great friends. It makes me feel all warm & fuzzy inside :)

7 September 05
I think the initial shock is now wearing off, and soon we'll begin the planning. The funny thing about having a wedding is that I have never been the "wedding" sort of person. I am into neither the traditions nor the hoopla surrounding them, yet we both want to have some sort of a celebration so that we can share that experience with our friends.

It's funny, I've felt very much in love for some time now. About six months into our relationship we made a commitment to spend the rest of our lives with one another. But since becoming engaged, I feel even more in love than ever before. Neat!

Now I just have to shake this "playa hangover", get my head back into the real world, and get some homework done!

5 September 05
Burning Man, Burn Night 2002 - Frederick and I began dating.
Burning Man, Burn Night 2005 - Frederick proposed to me. I said "yes".
Best. Burn. Ever.

28 August 05
I am a self-proclaimed grammar nazi. I spell out words in my SMS messages and cringe at apostrophe abuse. One of the things I find attractive about my significant other is the fact he is at least as good a speller and grammarian as I.

I was recently loaned a copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a book about (you guessed it) punctuation and grammar. Earlier tonight I began reading it, nodding in agreement and completely understanding the author's plight. "Oh joy," I thought, "I don't need to think twice about what's written here because it must all be correct! Right?"

Wrong. Page 23 mentions the "non-case-sensitive internet". Yup, "internet".

Internet is a proper noun, and as such is subject to capitalization [1, 2]. The book has a typo. Or does it? The author sneaks jokes into her grammatical examples; maybe this was her way of pulling a fast one, considering the context.

Or maybe I just think too much.

28 August 05
I hate waiting.

A few campmates arrived on the playa last night, and my spousal equivalent is on his way as I type. Me, I won't be arriving until Thursday due to my school schedule.

I'm glad I skipped Burning Man last year. I was burnt out and really needed a break. When we first decided to return this year I wasn't very excited. But as our plans fleshed out and we gathered together a great bunch of people, I was feeling better and better. Now I'm really excited about this year and cannot wait to be out there!

I will use the next few days to get ahead in my schoolwork. Very soon I will be covered in playa dust.

22 August 05
Our house is a disaster.

The month-long series of home improvement projects we began in July has turned into over two months of work, with no end in site yet. We are told, "Yes, we'll install that next week," and silly us, we believe it. At this rate things won't be done until the middle of September, and only then can we begin unpacking all the items we boxed up during the work.

I spent yesterday evening and this morning putting my office in some semblance of order, and I've just cleared off a bit of space on my desk. Now it's time to fill that space with textbooks and finish my homework.

I miss having a clean, organized home.

19 August 05
Well, that was a quick summer vacation. I had four weeks off from school and spent virtually every day doing something or other - sometimes fun things, sometimes working around the house. I still have a list of things to do and things to write about, but school has already started again. (Why does school start in mid-August? That's wrong.) Too little time!

I spent about ten hours today having my hair braided. I've gained about two pounds of hair, and my head and neck are sore. I like the braids but I think I'm already regretting not using brighter colors; the magenta I picked out looks too normal. Hrmpf.

The next week will be filled with Burning Man preparations. After taking a much-needed year off I'm going back to the playa again. And I'm really looking forward to it this time! We're camping with a great group of people, including several BM virgins. Plus, Frederick and I will be celebrating our third anniversary out there! We'll be camping with SomaFM at approximately 2:05 and Amnesia, if you'd like to come by and say "hi".

I've also discovered the joy of Flickr (although the misspelled name bugs me) and am posting a bunch of assorted photos there.

11 August 05
Yay, I'm back home after a whirlwind week in Downtown Canada! I saw several of my relatives, travelled around the area, swam in a couple of different lakes, and enjoyed the warm weather while I could (have I mentioned lately how much I hate the fog?).

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's a visual description of my trip:

Ottawa and environs

Parc Omega

the Carleton County Gaol

29 July 05
Where does the time go?! When I last posted, I still had a week of school left. Now Summer session is a couple of weeks behind me, and my brief hiatus is packed with so much to do and not enough time!

I've been working like crazy around the house. In the past couple of months I've refinished the wood and painted the walls in the dining room, we've had the upstairs hardwood floors refinished, and now we're in the middle of decorating our offices. Yes, for the first time in my life, I have my own office! It's green (so very green) and once it's fully decorated it will be fun and cheery.

Last week we spent a few days at Harbin Hot Springs where we enjoyed the sun, came face-to-face with a doe & fawns and a pair of skunks, did some hiking, and I went naked for the first time ever in public. Yeah, me, the person who normally undresses only to shower, felt more embarrassed being the only person swimming in a bathing suit than I did after taking it off. That really surprised me.

At Harbin I also discovered that a plethora of nekkid people are Not Sexy. It has nothing to do with the way an individual looks, but rather, with nothing left to the imagination it ceases to be exciting, and there is nothing left as "turn-on". People dressed in just the right way are much sexier than when naked.

Next week I'm off to the Great White North! I have a rule where I need to leave the country at least once per year, and this year I'm heading to Ottawa to visit relatives for a week. I haven't been there for six or seven years, and it's been 15 or more years since I've spent more than a weekend there. I'll be staying with my favourite cousin Paul and his boyfriend Ian, and I'm sure there will be much silliness involved.

6 July 05
*yawn* I'm bored and unmotivated. I have a difficult time getting things done when there is no deadline to meet. Since I don't have any pressing deadlines, that translates into nothing to do right now. I'm trying to get the energy together to do some cooking, but I'm not sure what I want to make. I have some blackberry coulis in the fridge, fresh mint and basil; maybe I'll put together a nice desserty thing. Mmmm, dessert.