ice motorcycles

here is a thing i saw last week while i was out at lake iroquois.

they guy on the four wheeler plows the track.

it's just soup.

ok, so i saw this.

gotta catch some of 'em

ok, so since i started taking the medication i have a lot more energy and a lot more stamina, but still not enough to do big things the way i used to.

and maybe you're saying but flask, don't you do a lot of active outdoor stuff?

well, yes and no.

i had gotten to the point where setting up camp was as active as i could get, and you can set up camp kinda slow, and also i haul my gear by boat, so not a big energy drain if you don't mind taking all day to do it. and yes, i did do some mountain biking and hiking last season, but after most of those outings i required so many days of recovery that i maybe lost ground each time.

and then after i got the smartphone i thought hey. pokemon go is probably a nice way to go out and walk up and down some nice flat streets for a while and build my stamina.

it is, too. i sort of got into it and did some nice walking. i am also still cleaning up things in my house.

but then while i was looking for ways to see more of the pokemon go world on a map and maybe plans some trips, i discovered INGRESS. it is the game pokemon go was built on. that, my friends, is a whole nother game. it is darker, more strategic, and your game actions have effects on the game everywhere else in the world.

it is fun and engaging and i am meeting people (online, at least, because players can be a secretive lot) and i'm getting more exercise.

what i'm NOT doing is as much laundry or dishes. or blog posting.

i will be writing more about this game later, i'm sure.

meantime, if you start playing, i'm going to ask you as a friend to choose resistance.

digital cats

for some reason i decided to play neko atsume. go ahead and google it yourself.

it's awesome if you like to feed digital cats on your phone.

or buy digital cat toys.

so yeah, i play it obsessively.

shorten a song (NSFW)

chestnuuuuuts roasting on an open fire...
jack froooost nipping at your nooooooose...

...because we're CAMPING, motherfuckers.

yeah, camping.

and when i go late fall camping, i like to bring chestnuts, because they really are good roasted on an open fire, plus you can hold them in your hands to warm you up.

no, i don't have pictures. it was cold out.

but i kept singing that.

i kept thinking it was funny.

a season of hammock testing

i told y'all i'd get you pics of the rigorous testing of my woven hammock.

so.

vtiff at first night 2017

every year at first night the VT international Film Foundation screens a set of animated short films. they are like my favorite thing to go to.

many of them are available on the interwebs, so i have found the ones from this year and put them together for you, more or less in the order of how well i liked them.

a couple of them are not available (apparently) but are worth knowing about, so i've given you what links i can.

it's worth your time to watch them on vimeo or youtube, where you can see better than if i make little embed windows, so hold onto your hats because here come some LINKS.

Cravings is mildly cute, and nutritionally themed. while the vimeo version is labeled as the trailer, it appears to be the whole thing, or at least it's what they showed at first night.

Kahānikār is both cute and sad, a story about a little girl living with a grandfather who has dementia, and the telling of stories. only the trailer is available.

The Bubbleologist is a live-action mini documentary about a man who loves bubbles and holds bubble-making world records. i had seen it before, but did not mind seeing it again. if you haven't seen it already, you can see it now.

if you like tapirs (and who doesn't?), you should not miss this animated documentary, Pinchaque. plus it's fun to say "pinchaque".

Little Matryoshka is a charming little film about -what else?- a set of little matryoshka and some other wooden toys. it has a very satisfying soundtrack.

i was completely unable to find an online version, even a trailer, of the delightful little film Pautinka, which is a tale of friendship between an old woman and a spider. the animations of the spider are particularly amusing.

so now we're getting to the ones i especially liked.

A Girl Named Elastika is worth watching just for the animation, which is stop action with OFFICE SUPPLIES. watch all the way to the credits, because the "outtakes" are worth as much as the rest of the movie.

then we have two dog tales, The Present and My Happy End. both awesome.

and if you only decide to watch one, make it Chinti. the animation is stop action made of TEA LEAVES. and because i'm sure you want to know, "chinti" is hindi for "ant". you're welcome.

no hurry to leave paradise

so i was leaving paradise.

and while i left, i started making a song. it goes like this:




and here's the sheet music.

librarian lottery, game 2

in case you only just walked in, i'll tell you how the game is played. when i was getting ready to move to site 13 i went to the library and asked the librarians to play a round.

i went with three books: one i had gotten on purpose, because MB was reading it, and also because i like birds and sciencey things.

i enjoyed this one very much, but it was a bit of a slow read for me because while written accessibly, there's a lot of information in there and i had to keep putting it down to let my brain catch up.

and if the idea of research on live animals bothers you, maybe you want to stay away from this one, because it does talk about live research.

the more we understand the intelligence of other species, though, i think the more likely we are to  appreciate them and maybe care more about their habitats.

enter librarian lottery book 1:

this was a lovely and gentle romance, understated and funny.

also, refreshing treatment of contemporary racism.

BIG WINNER.

this here is pride and prejudice told from the perspective of the household staff. or rather, it's the story of the household staff while pride and prejudice takes place in the background, largely unnoticed.

it works as a stand-alone novel, but for full enjoyment you should at least have a passing familiarity with pride and prejudice.

and then, if you are like me and somehow made it into adulthood never having read that, you may wish to pick it up.

i did.


BIG WINNER.

windmill

last year my brother in law got me a windmill generator. it's supposed to be a kids' project, but it's a cool little project and it should be fun to play with.

my work table was still pretty cluttered with bits of other projects, but i managed to clear off enough space to work.

it's got good directions and doesn't need much in the way of tools.

here it is assembled.














so i took it for a spin!

christmas at my moms'

here are my festively wrapped gifts all packed and ready to go. if you look carefully, you will notice that they are not just wrapped in black, but hand decorated IN black. it's kind of a family tradition.

and here are the fabulous presents under the tree. yes, we call them "fabulous presents". it's also a family tradition.

here are my moms in their new matching shirts.

one of these things is not like the others.

labyrinth

while i was staying on site 7,  i broke down and old fireplace that the ranger wanted gone and i built a classical 3x3 labyrinth on the flat surface on that part of the site.

this is the design:

it's smallish as labyrinths go, but given the width of the path for walking, it was all that would fit into the space. i used a compass to align it to the cardinal directions, with the entrance / exit opening to true north.

here's what it looks like laid out in stones on the ground:

and this is the center:

life skills

a long time ago i used to be a classroom music teacher. and one day every year we had a lesson on HOW TO TIE A TIE.

i taught them how to tie a tie on themselves and on someone else.

i did this because i had a sixth grade language arts teacher who did the same for us.

and when we asked "mrs. ferguson, why do we have to learn this?", she told us that it was an important life skill. even for girls. because, she explained, most of us girls would one day have brothers or boyfriends or husbands or sons or cousins who would not know how to tie a tie because nobody had taught them and we were going to have to do it for them or teach them how.

she was right, you know.

lights for the new year

here's my hat, ready to go out.

and here's my scarf against the floor at Burlington City Arts. they have a really cool interactive light up floor.

and my stepmother gave me an awesome pair of light up gloves.





and here's three of us wearing our gloves at the top of church street.

shirt!

here is an awesome thing my stepmother gave me. i had no idea such a thing even existed.

it's a tshirt in a handsome color and the GRAPHIC!!



so i was all like "whut? how? where did you EVEN?"

and it turns out there's a store in waterbury center called VT 100 that sells all things related to vermont route 100.

how awesome is that?