Are crazy in Alexandria; they swerve in and out of traffic with all the other minibuses and cars, the people crossing and standing in the street, the vendors and the occasional horse-drawn cart. No one slows down for anyone. Pedestrians walk in front of cars who blithely ignore this fact; taxis stop suddenly; instead of lights or brakes people just use their horns.
The conference was fine; I will write about the details later. I was in London for two days; Alex for five; and now back to Cairo, where I am spending a lazy afternoon inside, refusing to go out. This is what the end of a long trip and an intense conference in a complicated country looks like; my enthusiasm for going sight-seeing is limited. I have been sick this week (head cold, stomach troubles); my energy is waning.
More stories later: about smoking shisha on the corniche; about talking to sixty reference librarians at the Library of Alexandria about Wikipedia (and convincing them they should edit the Arabic-language site); about teaching a dozen Egyptian children how to make sockpuppets; about waking up to the sounds of muezzins, honking, and arabic pop. Egypt is hot and dusty and incredibly crowded, less romantic than it should be but complicated.
To another year done, I suppose: next year, Buenos Aires for Wikimania 2009.
See pictures and more pictures.
The conference was fine; I will write about the details later. I was in London for two days; Alex for five; and now back to Cairo, where I am spending a lazy afternoon inside, refusing to go out. This is what the end of a long trip and an intense conference in a complicated country looks like; my enthusiasm for going sight-seeing is limited. I have been sick this week (head cold, stomach troubles); my energy is waning.
More stories later: about smoking shisha on the corniche; about talking to sixty reference librarians at the Library of Alexandria about Wikipedia (and convincing them they should edit the Arabic-language site); about teaching a dozen Egyptian children how to make sockpuppets; about waking up to the sounds of muezzins, honking, and arabic pop. Egypt is hot and dusty and incredibly crowded, less romantic than it should be but complicated.
To another year done, I suppose: next year, Buenos Aires for Wikimania 2009.
See pictures and more pictures.
Money can buy you lots of things, like an MP3 player shipped overnight from an online store the day before a 10-hour flight. On the other hand, it cannot buy you out of procrastination, or an impending sense of doom; and we all know money can't buy you love.
What money is useful for, however, is buying me a ticket out of hell:
It was 102F, according to my computer's automatic weather thingie, at seven o'clock at night. And smoky.
You know it's depressing weather when you fully expect it to be cooler in Egypt:
(And yes, for the curious, that is a tab that reads "how to make sock puppets" in my browser. I am going to be running the most awesome workshop ever. )
What money is useful for, however, is buying me a ticket out of hell:
It was 102F, according to my computer's automatic weather thingie, at seven o'clock at night. And smoky.
You know it's depressing weather when you fully expect it to be cooler in Egypt:
(And yes, for the curious, that is a tab that reads "how to make sock puppets" in my browser. I am going to be running the most awesome workshop ever. )
Dude, there is an American Journal of Potato Research. I am totally amazed. It's tuberrific.
Remember my Wikipedia question about searching within diffs of the same article?
See: http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblam
also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Frana
yay village pump for rocking my world.
Also, the song by Walter Meego that KEXP keeps playing called "Forever" is such wonderful cheesy pop; it makes me a) melt; b) think about a certain acquaintance of mine who has that kind of shirt-tail, acceptable-pecs style of the mildly sophisticated jetsetter who knows frat parties and cocktail parties just about equally well; the kind of boy who shops at H&M and whose clothes always look better than that; the kind of boy who gets numbers and always has his arm around someone's waist. I am not suited to such a boy, but I admire their style from a distance and enjoy mild crushes that make the days go by.
See: http://wikipedia.ramselehof.de/wikiblam
also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Frana
yay village pump for rocking my world.
Also, the song by Walter Meego that KEXP keeps playing called "Forever" is such wonderful cheesy pop; it makes me a) melt; b) think about a certain acquaintance of mine who has that kind of shirt-tail, acceptable-pecs style of the mildly sophisticated jetsetter who knows frat parties and cocktail parties just about equally well; the kind of boy who shops at H&M and whose clothes always look better than that; the kind of boy who gets numbers and always has his arm around someone's waist. I am not suited to such a boy, but I admire their style from a distance and enjoy mild crushes that make the days go by.
Am back home. The beach [which is where I was for the last five days, at the first proper vacation-y family reunion we've had in 20 years] was superb. Family is as awesome as ever; I hung out with babies and old people and everyone in between. The weather, despite it being south Texas, was grand. We got an extraordinary fireworks show [non-professional but better than almost anything I've ever seen] on the 4th; and we ate good food the whole week.
It is hot and smoky still in northern California: bah! What a rude ending to a lovely vacation.
Unfortunately, my travel is rather compressed this year: I fly to Egypt in three days, and am ridiculously unprepared. To work!
It is hot and smoky still in northern California: bah! What a rude ending to a lovely vacation.
Unfortunately, my travel is rather compressed this year: I fly to Egypt in three days, and am ridiculously unprepared. To work!
About to fly to Houston, which I remember as a singularly ugly city. Am posting from new phone which I adore. So far have figured out how to search web, check email, check lj and fb, and edit wikipedia...I could go away somewhere (with phone service), and no one would ever know.
I would give my eyeteeth and all my pocket money right now to be able to search across the text of all revisions of a single page -- so search bounded within one page title but across all diffs. Does anyone know of such a thing?
I am indexing, watching Jurassic Park, and playing with my new Blackberry, which I <3. It's not a terrible way to spend a Sunday evening.
I have not been keeping up with LJ, some personal emails, facebook notes or missed phone calls; and am likely to continue that trend for the next three weeks. Chat is almost always the best way to reach me [except for the next few weeks when you should call, because I won't be online]. I am not dead.
* Today, tomorrow -- shopping for various things**, planning for Egypt, intensive proofing
* Monday: acquisitions for 2 weeks, notes from a bunch of meetings, conference reiteration, ack, packing
* Tuesday 6am: go to S. Texas beach family reunion thing
* Through Sunday: beach family thing, knocking out the book index
* Four days at home: finish book stuff, packing, at work for three days
* Night of the 10th: go to London
* London til the 13th: Wikimedia meetups, stuff, any last last minute book stuff, conferencing
* Egypt: Alex through the 20th (conference, 2 sessions to run); Cairo through the 23 (tourism)
* home
* never leaving again
* answering emails
** shopping list:
* card for grandmother
* baby shower present
*clothes for 2 hot climates, one somewhat more conservative than the other
* toiletries for above
* stomach drugs (call store)
* sockpuppet supplies -- socks, wiggly eyes, felt, glue, etc [I am running a workshop on how to make them]
* new phone & phone contract
* new camera, crap
* money/cash for both trips [not "shopping" per se but whatever]
what am I forgetting?
* Today, tomorrow -- shopping for various things**, planning for Egypt, intensive proofing
* Monday: acquisitions for 2 weeks, notes from a bunch of meetings, conference reiteration, ack, packing
* Tuesday 6am: go to S. Texas beach family reunion thing
* Through Sunday: beach family thing, knocking out the book index
* Four days at home: finish book stuff, packing, at work for three days
* Night of the 10th: go to London
* London til the 13th: Wikimedia meetups, stuff, any last last minute book stuff, conferencing
* Egypt: Alex through the 20th (conference, 2 sessions to run); Cairo through the 23 (tourism)
* home
* never leaving again
* answering emails
** shopping list:
* card for grandmother
* baby shower present
*
* toiletries for above
* stomach drugs (call store)
* sockpuppet supplies -- socks, wiggly eyes, felt, glue, etc [I am running a workshop on how to make them]
* new phone & phone contract
* new camera, crap
* money/cash for both trips [not "shopping" per se but whatever]
what am I forgetting?
I might not make it in tomorrow to Pride in SF -- though it is a historical moment, and I have friends to meet up with who are urging me to go -- but I am feeling proud of this state and the people who make it what it is. It's been a while in coming. (A law banning lesbian and gay foreigners from entering the United States was not repealed until 1990?)
This is not, for me, a personal moment, but rather a momentous cultural one -- though personal enough that the pictures of long put-off weddings make me tear up. This is about all of us: the right to be respected for you are matters for everyone. Stand up: be proud of helping to build a better world.
This is not, for me, a personal moment, but rather a momentous cultural one -- though personal enough that the pictures of long put-off weddings make me tear up. This is about all of us: the right to be respected for you are matters for everyone. Stand up: be proud of helping to build a better world.
of the drugs I am taking for my cold. They are gelcaps striped in three colors. It looks like Willy Wonka took up designing antihistamines.
In other, related news, I can't breathe, and it's driving me nuts. Stupid cold + smoke-induced asthma.
In other, related news, I can't breathe, and it's driving me nuts. Stupid cold + smoke-induced asthma.
According to Amazon's text stats for War and Peace, 100% of all other books have fewer words, while your Words per Dollar are a whopping bargain at 52,888, and Words per Ounce are firm at 17,158.
Compare, if you will, to the Cliff Notes version of W&P, which is much more expensive at only 7,054 Words per Dollar and 8,519 Words per Ounce. The message is clear: go with the classics every time.
Compare, if you will, to the Cliff Notes version of W&P, which is much more expensive at only 7,054 Words per Dollar and 8,519 Words per Ounce. The message is clear: go with the classics every time.
So it turns out I'm allergic to smoke. Or something. Maybe I'm just sick. At any rate, I feel like crap, and I am blaming it on being surrounded by a dozen forest fires. While none are near enough to be threatening to my town particularly, our skies -- like those of most of California -- are hazy. The fire season, it has come in with a bang this year.
In the meantime, if I could spread my travel out a bit, instead of it all being in the next three weeks, that would be lovely. Oh well.
In the meantime, if I could spread my travel out a bit, instead of it all being in the next three weeks, that would be lovely. Oh well.
Welcome to the world, Ms. Ozma Robin --
five days old today, but ready to wrestle you to the floor shortly after birth. Watch out, world.
(And congratulations to mom, who is an awesome librarian and former classmate of mine, and dad, who is also awesome).
five days old today, but ready to wrestle you to the floor shortly after birth. Watch out, world.
(And congratulations to mom, who is an awesome librarian and former classmate of mine, and dad, who is also awesome).
It's the longest day of the year, and I am hanging out in front of my computer.
Things will be better soon; this is what I keep telling myself. I cannot even imagine what the end will be like, at this point. The year will be on the wane, I know that much, and that is somewhat of a disappointment to me; I had hoped to reach this peak of the year unshackled.
----
I wish someone would bring me fudge bars, and we could sit outside in lawnchairs in the heat to eat them, underneath the grape arbor kicking our feet and watching the sunset and the neighbor children playing.
Things will be better soon; this is what I keep telling myself. I cannot even imagine what the end will be like, at this point. The year will be on the wane, I know that much, and that is somewhat of a disappointment to me; I had hoped to reach this peak of the year unshackled.
----
I wish someone would bring me fudge bars, and we could sit outside in lawnchairs in the heat to eat them, underneath the grape arbor kicking our feet and watching the sunset and the neighbor children playing.
Profile
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
brassratgirl- Autobiographical autopsy
Syndicate
