Recently in life Category

Steve Jobs died yesterday. We all knew it was coming, because a guy like him doesn't step down from a job he loves without a struggle. He was an inspirational force of nature, and I took some time this morning to scroll through my twitter feed, watching people worldwide salute his memory and the way his vision and products changed their lives. Last night it was the US responding; this morning, my UK people were just coming to terms with the news.

Tonight I was working late and happened to tune into #ds106radio with Cole Camplese and Alan "Cogdog" Levine. (Side note: I can't explain it with justice; just go read up on Digital Storytelling and ds106 Radio yourself. For I digress.) Five minutes in and I was awash with radio memories from oh so many years ago. Turntables. Mics. Mixing board. Feedback. Dead air. PSA carts. Heavy, medium, and light rotation. Morning segments where we'd just sit and converse between songs. Forgetting to turn the other person's mic on. Forgetting to turn your own mic off before saying something stupid when you thought the coast was clear. Music played from vinyl. Shelves full of albums. And I don't mean playing songs as they appear on some specifically generated list, but grabbing albums from the stacks for choice tunes to play during the course of a show. Finding your favorites, or classic treasures you'd forgotten about, to incorporate into the rotation. Putting the needle down on the vinyl, finding the first note and rotating the disk a quarter turn back, and that feeling of awesomeness when you had the perfect fade in, fade out transition between songs. 

If you do nothing else today, I want you to spend five minutes of your time watching this PSA. Believe me, I'll wait.

I used to think personalized license plates were silly. I'd usually cross my fingers and hope for an issued plate that I could create some sort of mnemonic or play on words for easy memorization. That worked for a number of years but, lately, something changed. My Jeep is the first vehicle I've owned that is actually mine, free and clear. Living in NYC, I never missed having a vehicle--in fact, it's practically a liability with alternate side of the street parking to fight for and generally more vehicles than available space. When I got to Pennsylvania, TheCop and I shared one vehicle foreeeever. And when it died? We got another beater that lasted until too many parts fell off to replace. Repeat ad nauseum.

I'm currently living my life in upheaval. Summer seems to be one of the few times we can take a break, look around, and attend to some of those projects that have been on the To Do List for quite some time. This summer is no exception; projects are launched, chaos ensues, and finally, as projects finish, we settle back into a new routine. The difference this summer is that I'm creating havoc on all fronts--talk about disruptive!

I'm horrified to discover that, somewhere along the meanderings of my life, I've collected some runners along the way. I'd call them "friends who run", but that doesn't really seem to cover the collective insanity that runners embody. They go out running in weather that is too cold, too wet, too hot, too dry. They track their time, they track their distance using cool gadgets like Nike+ (which, by the way, I could totally get into if I didn't also have to run in order to use it). They may actually look normal in real life, but get them into running mode and you find they wear oddities that no other people in their right minds would be seen wearing: lycra, spandex, bibs, fanny packs, water bottles. Their shoes have enough technology in them to launch a NASA shuttle. Or, they don't wear shoes as much as what I fondly refer to as Hobbit feet (although, in retrospect, they really seem to be more gorilla-like. My bad.). They eat protein goop along the run, and can be seen equally running solo or running in packs. 

I'm on vacation this week. I think this is Monday, but I could be wrong. I'm not really worried about the actual day, but it is interesting that one of the consistent things about vacation is that I lose track of time. Traditionally, time is marked by standing meetings, lunch dates, knit night, errands to run and parental duties to deliver people where they should be at the proper when. However, I've temporarily escaped to the warmth of Florida. In a new location, I've been removed from these work and familial obligations and, for a change, I'm on my own. On my own to lounge in the mornings on the balcony, when the sun hasn't reached full force and I haven't had enough coffee to wander far from the villa. Not ready to choose between beach or pool, I'm left to my own devices. Do I knit? Do I blog? Do I read? Do I care?

It is a shock to find out a friend has died. It is an even greater shock to find out on Twitter.

It's been a very busy couple of months in my life, what with conferences, trips to the webs coast, new people, social media dust ups, black eyes, and quitting my job... you know, the usual. Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily events that we don't really get to do all those things we intend to get around to. This time, however, I have some news that really should make the rounds, if only to put the musings to rest.

Let's make the announcement now, shall we?

I'm in New York this week, having come in with several other Penn Staters to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. Since we weren't signed up for workshops today, we took the afternoon to explore the city. Having lived here for a number of years, I felt reasonably certain that, armed with my trusty iPhone and subway apps, I could negotiate finding various points of interest. After a delightful lunch at Burgers & Cupcakes, off we went, Audrey and I focused on knitty city, an upper West Side yarn shop and then Sephora, Joe and George good naturedly tagging along behind us.

Oh, silly me.

Because in a blink of an eye, one moment I was walking down the street to makeup mecca, and the next, I was on the ground, faceplanted into cement. Seriously. Face on cement.

I am nothing if not complicated.