• 12:23 PM
  Cakes, coolant, commuting

I'm in a cake decorating class. I'm not going to show you my first cake but here's the second.

No, I can't think of a good explanation why two kinds of flower are coming out of the same stem

I also got a commuter bike a couple weeks ago, and I've biked to work every day since. Here it is:

Though it now has big fenders and a rack. And a lock and a standard seatbolt, in case you're considering anything stealy.

That reminds me, I saw Kraftwerk, in person. Here I thought they were in cold storage, maybe packed in their original styrofoam containers on a shelf in Germany. Nope, though it's really just two of the guys plus their technicians. Totally amazing. (not sarcasm - I am trying to be short-winded, I want to lie down.) I always wanted to see Kraftwerk, and now I have a band T-shirt for them that I got at an actual Kraftwerk show. This pleases the wide-mouthed idolizing teenager I still keep in contact with, somewhere in my head.

Hmm, who else is a seminal electronic musician I always wished I had seen? Skinny Puppy? Oh look, they're playing here next month. I have tickets. I am listening to their new album right now, which I've seen panned by many industrial musicians, but is better than I ever could have hoped. (For me, that is. Those that panned it may just not like SP anymore. That's cool, and it's okay if they want to continue dry humping 1992's sound. I'll just describe their musical activities in a childishly offensive way in my online journal. Touche!) Good year for bands that haven't toured in forever, huh? What's next, Fluke? Leftfield? Oh please oh please.

God dammit I have a lot of pictures to go through. Okay, more, these from when I went up to Vancouver to cheer on Helen in the marathon.

Canadians don't want you parking here unless you're gonna buy some folksy tables

Canadians don't like Billg@microsoft.com? And why do I like these mostly blank banner-aspect photos anyway?

I finally got to go in the Canadian ball of Science. Here's Helen and me enjoying one of the many incredible displays of applied research, the wavy mirror

Finally, I installed an air conditioner in my room. Fresh from reading The Darwin Awards, the potential for death during this process was at the forefront of my mind. I knew I had to put a large inconvenient metal box mostly out my second story window. "Mostly" being a very important adverb. I didn't want to drop my new A/C to its destruction, so I needed some way to secure it so it wouldn't proceed out the window any faster than I wanted. However, the window was going to have to close around it in order to secure it. Oh, and also the design of the steel windowframe was incompatible with the AC design.

A trip to Lowes, three pieces of poplar ("the way you pronounce that word makes it sound like a synthetic material" -H), wood glue, C-clamps, a jigsaw, drilling, and a handful of 2 inch number 8 countersunk woodscrews later, I had a shim for the windowsill to make it work. Sort of an A/C adaptor. I was still paranoid it was going to slide out, so I nailed a bunch of non-slip mat to the doodad. Safe enough yet? Nope.

I wanted to belay my actual unit as I was pushing it out the window. Alone and at midnight, as it was, I had no one standing on a ladder outside holding up the opposite end. What do I have lots of in my house? Audio cabling and velcro ties, that's what. So I used a dead 20 foot spectroflex instrument cable, tied a bowline (A bowline is a standard rescue knot to make a loop that does not tighten when you yank on it. thx boy scouts), and velcro tied the side of the loop such that it was impossible for the box to escape. Now what to fasten it to? Not me - that's just begging for a darwin. Visions of the heavy air conditioner flying out the window and dragging me with it came easily to mind. Okay, how about something heavy? The bookcase? Vision of bookcase crashing down on me. no. Maybe something long that I could wedge somewhere? Vision of brookstick coming free from doorway and bludgeoning me in the back of the head. no. Fine, I'll just HOLD the stupid thing.

Actually it was extremely easy. The nonslip mat holds the metal case much more firmly than I could've hoped. The combination of shim and window frame hold the unit at exactly the right angle for proper drainage. The only minus is that my window frame is metal - I can't screw fasten the sash lock, or the little wings that block the part of the window that the conditioner doesn't fill up. Another trip to Lowes, perhaps, for funky brackets and daintier screws.

On the music front, Kris and I have a new microphone (R0de NTK), new compressor(FMR RNC1773), and preamp (FMR RNP8380). What are we doing with these near-professional grade pieces of gear? horsing around, naturally.