Not munch to report about today. Slept in with Boo, washed and ironed my clothes for the week, chores around the house, took the recyclables to Twisp, shopped for groceries, back home and vegged the rest of the day. My kind of a Saturday.
I have to drive back down to Moses Lake tomorrow so I can be up at 3:00 AM Monday morning and drive the roads. Ugh. How many more weeks of winter are there going to be where I’ll have to do this.
Today is the International Halocaust Remembrance Day.
Today is a good day to remember Sir Nicholas Winston, Gino Bartali, Irena Sendlerowa, Chiune Sugihara, Oskar Schindler, and the all the others whose names may be forgotten, but their acts of bravery and compassion will never be.
Yesterday, while I was scrolling through Facebook, I felt very discouraged by all the divisiveness and vitriol contained in the posts and memes from both sides of the political divide. I myself am a bleeding-heart liberal and proud of that. As a Catholic and a believer in Christ’s message of love, I believed we are all called to love one another and not judge. I know that any of my friends or family that read this will snicker – they often tell me that I’m one of the most militant people they know and that I can be very condescending, but that’s one of my many flaws.
Perhaps, we should stop to consider the opposing view without immediately dismissing it.
Not exactly sure why, but I’m being drawn to the writing of Dylan Thomas. I think, from time-to-time, I’ll post an excerpt or two. Everyone seems to be familiar with his poems “And death shall have no dominion” and “Do not go gentle into that good night“, so I thought I’d post something from his drama “Under Milk Wood“:
“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and nailparings, saliva and snowflakes and moulted feathers of dreams, the wrecks and sprats and shells and fishbones, whale-juice and moonshine and small salt fry dished up by the hidden sea.”
― Dylan Thomas
I know my husband will kill me because he thinks I always want to copy him (and in this respect, he might be right), but I’ve been giving very serious thought about getting two full sleeve tattoos; one arm depicting the Northwest Coast aboriginal myth about “Raven steals the sun” and the other arm depicting an octopus. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be much as far as myths surrounding the octopus in aboriginal lore; the only real story I could uncover has to do with a parable called “the devil-fish’s daughter”.
I am going to design these tattoos to be an amalgamation of Haida-inspired form lines using the primary- and secondary-color scheme of red and black, and meld those design elements with modern interpretations of the same subjects in a modern interpretation and in a muted sepia tone. My idea is to have two separate, but complimentary drawings be superimposed on each other. I want to create something bold, intricate and balanced. This will be a long-term design project, not to mention expensive since a good tattoo artist charges anywhere from $150 and up per hour.
I’m drawing inspiration from one of my all-time favorite books “The Transforming Image” by Bill McLennan and Karen Duffek and the art work of Susan Point, a Salish artist whose minimalist interpretation of the art form I find appealing.
Ugh! This week is going by so slowly. Up at 3 again, drove the roads, checked-in with my boss, spent a couple hours at the gym, followed by an hour at Starbucks studying.
Yesterday I completed my application for Gonzaga’s MBA program; I hope to be accepted and enroll for this fall’s term. Fingers crossed. I still have 18 courses to complete in the next term at WGU, but I’m confident that I can get ‘er done.
The Gonzaga MBA program takes two years for part-time students and I’d have to drive up to Spokane twice a week to attend class at night.
My boss has asked me to take a leading roll in this year’s 12th Annual Columbia River Technician Conference. This is a two-day event that’s held at the Columbia Basin Technical Institute (CB Tech) which is next to the Moses Lake Schoold District Transportation Department (both are right off I-90 in Moses Lake).
This is a beautiful campus and offers vocational training for the region’s high school students.
Every year, one of the three bus vendors is responsible for recruiting companies and teachers to offer training classes that pertain to pupil transportation. We’re a little behind on getting things off the ground, and that’s probably why I’ve been asked to take a lead, but we’ll get a great program put together here in the next couple of weeks.
I’m working on designing a logo for the association and setting up a website. I will start on the promotional material once I have a better idea what classes will be offered. I also need to get bids out for food and make sure local hotels will offer the government rate for rooms. The dates are Thursday, August 11th, and Friday, August 12th (my birthday).
There wasn’t a very good turnout for last year’s conference. I’m going to work on targeting Superintendents more than Transportation Supervisors and shop leads.
This is my first drawing from the photo of the “mammoth” water tender. Since the only picture I have to work off is at an angle, the proportions are skewed. I need to either take another photo straight on, or I need to sketch a new proportional mammoth (I think I’ll do the later).
I have an idea to have this design silkscreened in white onto red t-shirts to raise money for the Okanogan County Fire District #6. I would like not get around a dozen shirts printed for the March 12th firefighter stairclimb in Seattle.
Today is the first day this year that the buses are running on time and I was able to go to the gym this morning for a couple of hours and now I’m at my local Starbucks relaxing for a couple minutes before having to go into work. My boss said I could come in at 9:00 AM this morning and I decided I’d take him up on that.
And school’s closed…again. Today was an easy call, though; there was too much black ice on the road to safely transport students. Just tapping on my brakes caused me to lose control and almost go into a ditch, and that’s a good indicator we should either have a two-hour delay or forego school altogether.
I’ve been told that this winter is so not typical for this region. As I’ve posted before, I’ll be so glad when spring arrives.
On another note, my Probability and Statistics mentor has given me the green light to re-take my assessment, woo-hoo! I’m scheduling my test for later this afternoon. Gawd and baby jeebus, I hope I pass (I’ve been studying for it the last couple of weeks).
The Scott Firefighter Stairclimb 2017 is on Sunday, March 12, 2017. My husband, who’s a volunteer firefighter for the Okanogan County Fire District (O.C.F.D.) #6 will be doing the stairclimb and he’s trying to raise $1,500 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Here’s a link to his fundraising page.
On another note, one of the district’s water tenders has a hand-painted mammoth on the sides and I think this design would look great on a t-shirt to help raise money for the station. I’m going to use Adobe Draw to create the vector-based artwork and then I’ll start working on a t-shirt.
Here’s a couple pictures I took of the tender last year.
https://flic.kr/p/QQrbJe
https://flic.kr/p/R1TFvV
Hallelujah! I passed my assessment for Introduction to Probability and Statistics!
This was my third assessment – I’ve never had to take an assessment more than twice, and the hoops I had to jump through over the last three weeks in order to re-take this assessment were grueling; I essentially had to learn EVERYTHING about statistics and probability and read and memorize so MANY formulas and rules. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to be done with a subject!!!
Now on to my last course this term, College Algebra.
As of right now, I’m exactly halfway through school; I have 61 completed credits, with 60 remaining and I have faith that I can finish these courses in the next term, which ends the last day of August, 2017.
I’m already thinking ahead about my MBA and am in the process of applying to Gonzaga University and will be meeting with a student advisor this week. If I’m accepted, I’ll have to drive the 107 miles each way from Moses Lake to Spokane at least twice a week and take evening courses, but I would like to get my Masters from a brick-and-mortar college.
I’m going to go to Taco Time tonight to reward myself for passing Statistics.
It’s snowing again.
https://flic.kr/p/Qe6S6c
I went all last week without my toiletry bag because I tore my old one apart in order to draft a sewing pattern, and I went to work yesterday in sewing myself a new tote from ticking fabric (my new favorite) and canvas. The ticking fabric itself is not durable enough to make a tote, so I interfaced it with canvas to add structure.
I’ve still got a long ways on this design. I want to find some means to “rubberize” the inside canvas to make the bag waterproof. I’ve been looking online and found an interesting DIY article at instructables.com on how to Coat Fabric with Liquid Latex and create a waterproof fabric. I think I’ll try out this technique and see how it works.
After making myself a tote, I decided to make my mom one (I’ll make Tiago one too, but I need to get some more “manly” material for his). 😉
I’ll be heading back down to Moses Lake this afternoon. There’s another storm advisory warning and I’ll need to be up at 3:00 AM tomorrow and drive the routes to make sure road conditions are suitable for buses. I’ll be happy when spring arrives and I can head down to Moses Lake on Monday mornings.
It only took me four hours to drive to Moses Lake. This has been a peculiar winter; there’s usually a lot of weather zones in the 150 mile drives from Winthrop to Moses Lake. Winthrop’s elevation is 1,768′, and generally when it’s snowing there, by the time one drives down valley to Pateros, where the elevation is 804′, the snow usually turns into rain, but not today; it was all snow from Winthrop all the way to Dry Falls before the snow turned to rain showers. SR-17 between Leahy Junction and SR-2 was a complete whiteout.
I always stop at Dry Falls to let the dogs stretch their legs (and empty their bladders).
Wrapping up another great weekend!
What a day! Yesterday I got off work at 6:00 PM and drove home to Winthrop and pulled in just a little before 9:00 PM. It was raining all the way from Leahy Junction outside of Bridgeport to Methow and then the rain turned to snow and driving was slow going the rest of the way home, but by the time I did get home Boo had bacon cheeseburgers from Arrowleaf Bistro waiting. That’s a good way to start off the weekend.
We woke up to 4″ of fresh snow.
https://flic.kr/p/QRFHV7
Today was the day of the Women’s March. We knew a lot of our friends would be there, but were shocked at how many people showed up to march. The Methow Valley has around 5,400 residents, many who are part-timers, and well over 700 people came out to march.
I am extremely proud of my community. I know there’s a lot of people that don’t support the march, which is their every right, but I do and that’s all that matters (to me). 😉
I want to thank our friend, Dianna Prince, for knitting Tiago and me “pussy” hats. We wore them with pride.
https://flic.kr/p/RnAu7w
https://flic.kr/p/Rfs7gR
https://flic.kr/p/QcoEXP
https://flic.kr/p/Rfp1GR
This march was more than about women’s rights; it was about people coming together that have a shared set of principles – that there are hues to the fabric that makes up this nation; it’s not just white and Christian. I’m a gay man, married to a Brazilian immigrant; our lives have been directly, and positively, impacted by the changes our nation has seen over the last eight years. Every person I know that supports Trump is white and Christian – people that have never suffered from discrimination, unless one considers having to do a business transaction with a gay person “discrimination”, so in their eyes, the status quo has been fine and they want to return to it. I do not.
Just as I suspected, school today, albeit a two-hour late start. Why is it always the days I want to go home early to Winthrop are the days school runs? 🙂
Yesterday was a bit surreal with all the ice; I felt like I was on Hoth (Star Wars fans will know what I mean).
https://flic.kr/p/RjAPTU
I am beginning to see a lot of the “Vote Yes for Schools” signs around Moses Lake. There’s only 22 days until the day of the vote. Fingers crossed.
https://flic.kr/p/RaCJ6g
Last night, I sat down at Starbucks and took my pre-assessment for Introduction to Probability and Statitics and I’m happy that I got 76% (well above the 61% cutoff).
I hope to speak to my course mentor this morning and get approval to take the assessment over the weekend. Statistics has been my albatross this term.
There was a restaurant/deli in the Fauntleroy district of West Seattle back in the early 2000s that I enjoyed going to. This establishment was short-lived (probably stemming from how unpleasantly the owner/operator treated his patrons), but I really liked the business’s name (and logo) and it struck me to do a quick search online and see whatever happened to the business. It turns out all I could find was a couple online articles from the Stranger – nothing else. It’s been at least 15 years since the business folded and I wondered if any other business was using the same same so I decided to do some investigating.
First, I searched to see if the domain name was available – it is, then I went onto the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) to see if there’s any trademark associated with this business name and there’s not.
Now all I’m left with is, do I want to register this domain?
The district’s closed again today; the roads are pure ice here at the Transportation Department. And with temperatures predicted to rise, there may be a lot of standing water on the roadways later today.
I completed Module 8: Designing Studies for Statistics and Probability and only have Module 12: Conditional Probability and Independence to complete before I can retake the pre-assessment. I really want to get this course completed and then complete College Algebra. There’s only 41 days left in this term.
