IT learning curves in real time

What did you learn this week?
My week has been an uphill learning curve all the way.

ONE, don’t schedule a window washer if it is forecasted to rain (?).
TWO, there is no limit to the details one has to know in Photoshop CS4.
THREE, my current Rx for pain killers is not nearly enough.
FOUR, turn off the TV before you fall asleep and the ‘air raid’ test signal will not wake you at 2:30 a.m. OK the last one I already knew but last night was a reminder!

The end of last week and the weekend was a physical workout to the max; beginning with a new Stretch & Tone class on Thursday that left me stiff and sore on Friday. Back to the gym for a Zumba class on Saturday needing a recovery day on Sunday. Monday was just ballroom dance practice, no sweat. But Tuesday was the window washing day with my helper Beth. The expected routine was the outside windows on Tuesday/ doing inside on Wednesday but the gathering dark clouds nixed that idea. Beth does all the glass work; my job was to move furniture, open windows, brush out dust, dirt and cobwebs. Doing this Tuesday morning I killed one wasp, three spiders, knocked down one birds nest and countless cobwebs. Has this been a year for spiders or what? As Beth actually washed the screens and glass I tried to keep ahead of her from one end of the house to another. I was done in by noon, Beth worked until nearly 4 o’clock but she is about twenty years younger than me. Next on the summer agenda: shampooing the Oriental area rugs – that will be a MAJOR workout.

Just made a pot of Plantation Mint tea for my late morning pick-me-up. The temp yesterday was lower but the humidity was broadcast as 50%; except when it was actually pouring down rain. Today both the temp and the humidity are rising quickly. Cool tea may help later this afternoon.

For some reason I have forgotten, I was looking at Designer Digital Specials on Sunday and thought “I can do that.” One of those little things that you have no idea how really complicated it can be. In this instance I had tried to make rectangular shapes with rounded corners, “radius-ed corners” in the trade, countless times getting more frustrated with each time.

For some reason I have forgotten, I was looking at Designer Digital Specials on Sunday and thought “I can do that.” One of those little things that you have no idea how really complicated it can be. In this instance I had tried to make rectangular shapes with rounded corners, “radius-ed corners” in the trade, countless times getting more frustrated with each time. Looking to DesDig’s talent blogs I found a tutorial for just that. Of course as you already know “reading the instructions” will make any task easier (‘ya think?).

Finding in DesDig’s blogs a tutorial for just that. Of course as you already know “reading the instructions” will make any task easier (‘ya think?). These instructions were just what I needed and whamo – not only did I learn how to radius the corners but also how to extract a center square from the shape leaving – my big surprise – a frame that imitates slide mounts. Remember slide mounts?
See the July 17, 2010 blog tutorial: Creating a Rounded Rectangle Frame in Photoshop & PSE at http://blog.designerdigitals.com/index.php/C25/

No sooner had I accomplished this task but quilting friend Glenda Alexander sends me a Facebook message asking if I will be her friend. The purpose of her FBF’s is to promote the guild’s upcoming October show, Quilting: A Thread Runs Through It.
See: http://www.durhamorangequilters.com/quiltshow2010.html

Glenda was hoping that I could post some guild pictures including the new tee shirt (sales help defray show expenses), for increased exposure. Certainly I would be Glenda’s friend but for one detail: my Facebook site is out of reach. Years ago when I first found FB I entered a password that has been lost, or the email address was an old one, or I did something in Case that matters, or Something! I cannot access the site no matter what ‘clue’ they offer. So my friends, I will not be posting anything on my site because I cannot find it.

Nonetheless, the question remained ‘what could I do for Glenda?’ Remember the slide mount frames? Looking back at my photo archives to find candid shots from the bi-annual shows of 2004-06-08 I made up a photo-page showing ‘slides’ from the guild’s past quilt shows. The result is nothing short of spectacular (my opinion), considering the day before I had no idea how to make such frames.




Adding to my recent shape-making skills, I added a new podcast to my iPod/touch - that of quilter and crafter Pat Sloan. Her weekly radio broadcasts on Creative Talk Radio are now available for download from iTunes. Her conversations each week with various quilting personalities and teachers is my new tune-in while cycling at the gym. http://patsloan.typepad.com/ That’s for the warm up before Stretch & Tone.


After the window-prepping-workday yesterday I barely got through dinner and headed to bed. Pain killer one seemed to have no effect. At ten o’clock I tried pain killer 2, somewhat better. What I needed was a body massage but I never know these things until nearly midnight. Bummer.

Are we warm yet? The temp has been in the mid-90’s and the humidity rises daily. Found this in my E-in-box yesterday – about "True Southern women."
Getting around in the heat – Southern women know their summer weather report:
Humidity
Humidity
Humidity


“Listen these next few days to your friends to get answers you seek.”

That came out of my fortune cookie Monday evening after the DOQ meeting. Amazing how these messages drop in my lap just at the right time - Synchronicity? I was questioning what book to ready next…reading the third Millennium trilogy book is underway and will not last forever. Next? With a chance glance at amazon.com, found that THE book I have been waiting for was recently available on Kendle2. It is now my newest, most favorite book, well for this year.
Michael Holroyd’s A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families.
From Amazon:
Holroyd’s sweeping group biography traces the lives of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, two stars of the Victorian theatre, and their descendants. Terry was “embodied sunshine,” beloved for her naturalness and grace onstage. In 1878, when she was thirty-one, she began a professional (and perhaps amorous) partnership with Irving, the despotic actor-manager of the Lyceum Theatre, in London, a stutterer “of strange countenance and with crablike gait,” whose power lay in creating an “awful sense of apprehension” in the audience.

This book is not just interesting; it is also funny. The antidotes about Terry and her outrageous behavior is more than a rebellious, wild child. Ellen faked her own drowning so she could leave her parents and move in with E.W. Godwin (at the age of 17, he 15 years older than she). More importantly the book is changing my opinion of Godwin, once the central topic of a masters-paper in my decorative arts graduate studies. Architect, aesthetic and master of the late 19th-century Arts & Crafts movement, his resurrection of medieval decorative motifs and understanding of the trend for “Japonisme” made for a terrific research topic/paper.

Coming to know more about his personal life and the way he treated Terry has convinced me he was the typical Victorian male with attitudes that denigrated women of talent and accomplishment (indeed leaving her destitute with his two children forced her to revive a theater career).

But part of Terry’s fascination is that she knew or met EVERYONE of the age– Whistler painted her as Lady McBeth (above, right), G.B. Shaw corresponded with her for decades, poets wrote sonnets to her, playwrights wrote plays for her, she inspired Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” stories (he photographed her, below) – she was the most celebrated actress of the British stage. She could get away with almost anything and was still loved by her public and the aesthete-elite. Otherwise, her private life was hell.

Lovely to receive a message from Jan Tyler, Seymour Center Director, after advising her we will be ending our term hosting Monday’s dance dates. Jan wrote:
I am sorry to hear that your time at the Seymour Center has come to an end. You have been one of the most loyal and dedicated volunteers we have ever had. We really appreciate all the time that you and your husband dedicated to the program.

DH and I have decided to end our weekly practice session at the Seymour Center after the Labor Day break. For over two years we had Afternoon Ballroom where I prepared a playlist of various dance rhythms so ballroom dancers could dance for fun and fitness. The Great Room is a terrific place for practice and was free to all who came. The downside is that sometimes we had ten couples and sometimes two (?). The attendance during the spring was practically nil; we were away for the month of June while dance teacher Bruce G. hosted only a few people. Upon return in July we’ve had 4-5 couples since but DH is convinced that our dance days must end until the ‘big move’ to Carolina Meadows is determined. Meantime we are seeing Bruce G. on Fridays taking Shag lessons until the Labor Day Dance weekend. One dance at a time.

Yesterday I went to Carolina Meadows Tuesday’s Flexercise class with Noriko. The first few minutes of the class were devoted to collecting feedback about changing the class. The nine participants unanimously declared they wanted it “just as is.” Apparently Michelle, the CM fitness director, is questioning continuing the class and has determined that more residents must participate (?).
My take is that nearly all the women in the class have living spouses; few single widows come regularly suggesting that after being widowed they are just not that interested in keeping fit any longer. All of this underscores the fact that CM’s population is becoming largely older, single females who out number the men by 3:1. That is becoming the definition of a retirement center.

After 2 o’clock today I can pick up ten knives taken to Kitchen Wares for sharpening.
That’s the 1st item for July’s ToDo list accomplished. The second one happens next week when the windows are washed – inside and out. Next on the list will not happen until drier weather, likely August – to shampoo the rugs with the B+D Scum Buster. That will be my workout day for the summer! bb