Fluff, Dreck, and Flotsam

sirzig brought me flowers on Friday. Purple tulips. How pretty!


They're sitting in my kitchen window, and they make me smile every time I look at them. I have spent a fair amount of time looking at them over the weekend, because of my new obsession with cheese making. On which note, I have some cheese-porn for you...


Here are the cheddar and the monterey jack I made last week. They're in the drying phase and almost ready to be waxed and aged. You can really see the difference in how tightly the curds got pressed. Both cheeses started out with roughly the same amount of curds, but the cheddar was pressed with 50 lbs and the monterey jack only got pressed with 8. Thus the jack is much "fluffier."


Hopefully my fancy black cheese wax gets here soon so I can carry out my plan to make goth cheeses... (The pun continues to grow: "My cheeses are clearly goth because after they are de-pressed, I paint them black and put them in my dank basement where they will hang out and try to be cool.") Someone also mentioned the idea of smoking, and while I think smoking my cheeses might be a fine idea, I haven't figured out how to work that into the extended pun.

The mozzarella and ginger ale I took to May Day seemed to go over rather well. This week, I'd like to make another cheddar - this time with craisins pressed in the curds. With Crown coming at me like a freight train, though, I'm not sure if I'll have the time.

So this competition, which should be fun, is stressing me out.

Why? Because it's got two components that I suck at: 1. A time limit, and 2. other people.

I think this will be more fun once I'm THERE and actually playing with fabric, as opposed to doing research and documentation for something that isn't for me (and is therefore less fun because I keep second-guessing whether or not so-and-so is going to approve of what I'm doing). I don't enjoy "timed" research projects - they frustrate the crap out of me. I generally meander through my research letting ideas put themselves together, after long periods of subconscious percolation. (This is also a less-than-useful process when it comes to trying to work with a team.) While the Griffin's Needle competition is a fantastic idea in theory, I'm finding that it really goes against the way my creative process works. *sigh*( Pictures of things I made with string behind the cut. )

Well, my network is *mostly happy* now... At least it's functional, for the time being. I'm still having trouble getting Apache 2 pointed to the appropriate home directory for personal websites, but that is not an "emergency."

And holy crap... I have PRESENTS. I came into my office this morning and my desk was COVERED in presents from my colleagues... I now feel bad for just baking cakes (carrot with butter cream icing) for people. I have coffee mugs and candy dishes and chocolates (LOTS OF CHOCOLATES.) and cookies and boxes of mixed nuts and bags of gourmet coffee.... And did I mention the chocolates? I hope Zig can pick me up after work tonight, because otherwise I'm not sure how I'm going to get all this loot home.

Plus, last night was Flowers-For-No-Reason night, so my kitchen is now happily decorated with orange Alstroemeria! Yay, flowers! Guess who's having his favorite steak with tater-tot casserole dinner tonight? Mmmmm. Steak.