hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Friday, August 31, 2007

So completely wiped out
It's been a stressful week. I'm glad the week is nearly over and it's the Sabbath now. I want to lock myself in my apartment for a while now.

Today I went to the mall. That in and of itself is a rarity, but I also went in a store in which I'd never before stepped foot.

No, it was not Victoria's Secret (though for the record, I've never stepped foot in there, either).

It was, rather, a men's clothing store, a haberdashery if you will. They were having an up to 60 percent off sale on a number of items, which transformed the store from a place from which I would normally reel clutching my chest to a place where I could (without having a conniption due to the prices) procure a new suit, shirt, and tie for the Feast. (Second tithe, baby!) Long story short, if all goes as scheduled I should have the suit a good week and a half before I leave town.

We had some nice drenching thunderstorms roll through this afternoon while I was out running errands and this evening. It rained yesterday, too--much needed after several dry weeks in a row.

At one point during my traversing of the area, I somehow ended up in the lane between a black guy in an SUV and a white guy in a car. It's not often I even notice other drivers, but these two were yelling at each other. Unfortunately, in the interests of keeping this journal at least vaguely family-oriented, I am unable to reproduce any of their comments. I can assure you, however, that I was praying for the light to turn green quickly.

Much remains to be done, so that is all for tonight.

posted at 8:34 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Yay for the Sabbath
So I just logged on to FOXNews.com and their graphic says "Greece in Flames." Given that it is FOX, I'm rather surprised it doesn't say "Greece Fire" instead.

You'll forgive me for doing a double take when I heard Mr. Armstrong's voice in a spot that aired on the station on Thursday. It was a promotion for a book by a Mr. Flurry, I forget his first name and it doesn't really matter anyway. Nevertheless, I was surprised.

With some reluctance I'm greatly reducing in scale my plans for my landscape stamps. It was my initial goal to write a full page of text to go with each scene, but I'd already scaled that back to a half page. And even that has proven surprisingly troublesome; some of these places that are pictured on stamps even Google Earth doesn't seem to know exist. And then some of the stamps are based on paintings of places that really don't exist...so it's a combination of things making me revisit this. The big ones are a) I can't find the information I need to do the project up in the way I'd imagined, and b) it appears that to do the project up in the way I'd imagined, even if I could find the needed information, would take way more time than I really desire to put into it. SO...I've basically decided to do the following: I'll create simple album pages with nothing but some simple geographical headings (continent, country, etc.) and captions for the stamps that picture places I can confirm actually exist. Then I'll have separate pages for the "generic" stamps that in many cases appear to be based on photos and therefore have to exist, but which have no identifying inscriptions and for which I can not pinpoint a particular location. Several Canadian flag stamps with scenic views come to mind in that category. So again, not what I'd envisioned, but if anything I have a habit of biting off way more than I can chew when it comes to these projects, and it's probably best that I realize that now and keep things very simple before I put in hundreds of hours and get about halfway through and lose interest in it. It'll still be an attractive display--and one that can be converted to Web site form if I decide to do that at some point in the future.

And with any luck I might even be able to get that project wrapped up next week if I don't goof off. Getting it done before the Feast is my goal, and as there will be many other things that need to be done over the next few weeks it will be good to wrap up work as quickly as possible.

posted at 12:07 am | permalink | 1 comment

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Rollin' rollin' rollin'...
There's something surreal about turning a corner while watching a wheel cover formerly attached to your car go rolling off at a somewhat different angle. Yet such is what one of the wheel covers from my car did tonight. Forward motion took it part of the way up a hill, and gravity took it back down. And because I'd watched it gracefully roll away from the car I had a rough idea of where it might have ended up and was able to recover it apparently no worse for the wear. Even after the initial departure of the cover as I rounded the corner, it was mildly amusing to glance up in the rearview mirror as I headed up the hill and see the wheel cover speeding away in the other direction.

Anyway, in the morning I shall try to reattach said wheel cover. Goodnight.

posted at 11:39 pm | permalink | 1 comment