The Happiness Thread

Some good binoculars do wonders for the Moon. A good lay person's telescope will get you Saturn's rings, Venus' phases and Jupiter's moons. I also have wielder's glass that I tape over some small binocs to see sunspots and I was ecstatic that I successfully chased a hole in the clouds to see Venus transit the Sun.

There was a beautiful full Moon here, it comes up right outside my living room's large picture windows. But the clouds rolled in before the eclipse. That was OK, I'd seen several before.

My luck with solar eclipses however, that has been awful. But I'm determined to see the solar eclipse that will cross N America in 2017.

 

Oh, I can't even afford HAIX (most models are around 200e / $275 over here) and I found Kat's boots (similar in style / quality) at a -50% discount (old model being sold out, might've been a 70% discount), but if we're being completely honest, they're worth the money, at least for our purposes:
Plenty of times I've had an amp, cab or some such fall on my toes while lugging my band's gear to gigs and more than one horse has stepped on my foot while I've been grooming them, and shoes get pretty beat up at IPSC competitions 'cause most of them take place at sand/gravel pits. Also, when we go hiking off-road with Kat, some of the terrain is pretty rocky, so thick, hard soles and ankle support helps a lot. Oh, and once my foot got run over by a car. Driven by my dad.

I paid 145e / $200 for my tacticools (water-proof, breathable lining [I can literally stand ankle-deep in water and my feet stay dry], aluminum toes, textile midsoles to prevent punctures if you step on nails, needles etc, side zippers, shock-absorbing soles yaddayadda), but, then again, they're pretty much indestructible: I've worn them for 5 years without maintaining them at all, and they're still like new (except the leather over the aluminum toe has worn a bit). All my other shoes before them lasted 1-2 years max. If only these weren't too hot for summer use, I'd wear them round the year.

I feel a little weird discussing footwear in such detail. I guess this is the male equivalent of shoe porn...

Maybe the ultimate tacticools would have Kevlar/Spectra/some such lining?

 

Good tacticools is part of any good strategery.

 

just happened to catch this on the internet while talking about a book of the same name in my editing class... heheheh

 

I'm at my grandma's house, and found a pretty book of German paintings! Also, I got to not go to school today!

 

There is a double rainbow stretching across my picture window right this minute.

 

Is it two parallel arcs that are more red on top. I think that's mine. Can you please send it back to Louisiana? Thanks

 

If I can't be barefoot I almost always only wear flip flops...LOVE them. I have foot claustrophia, I think. Even heels need be sandals. Closed toe pumps, no way. I could never cut it in the corporate world.

The school I was holding out hope for called with an offer of acceptance for my daughter! I'm so relieved. And four nights into Passover and I'm down almost 3 lbs.

 

@sunsplash, I am so glad to hear that. It was obviously needless stress for any parent not letting them just pick their preferences and getting which ever one was highest on the preferences they asked for.

 

Good thing you don't live this close to the Arctic Circle then I remember flip-flops becoming a bit of a fad when I was in junior high. We were in Crete with my friends, so of course I wanted to wear them just like everyone. I think I managed a couple of hours and then it was back to sneakers. I want to be able to run, I guess, or go wherever I want. Although, I knew this horse merchant who was always barefoot during spring, summer, and autumn, no matter where he went. His feet must've been like concrete.

That's awesome!

 

Happy Easter! Rejoice!


And if that's not your thing, happy Sunday! Hit the snooze button and enjoy it!

 

Snooze button? Who sets the alarm on Sunday?

Happy Easter to you too.

 

Ahem. I wake to the "alarm" every day. The TV switches on at 5 AM every morning, and the radio twelve minutes later. The sooner I get moving, the better my day is.

 

You have the TV and radio on at the same time?

 

Happy Easter to you too, @Garball. Have a wonderful, blessed day.

Uuuum meee. lol
If I didn't I'd sleep til noon. As good as that sounds, I hate losing half of my day to sleep.

 

I hit the snooze bar on the radio. The eight-minute snooze intervals mark the progress of getting ready for the day.

 

You do know success is staying on for 8 seconds, not 8 minutes?

 

I have to do that too. I'd do great if I was a bear. No problem sleeping through winter.

I'm happy 'cause T and I got a new toaster (a gift from the father-in-law). For one, it browns the bread perfectly, just purr-fectly I'm telling ya! Ah, Swedish engineering at its finest. Plus, when it's done toasting, it hardly makes a sound. The old one sounded like a fat kid jumping on a trampoline whenever it popped the bread out (sometimes it threw them on the floor). Which it did in like 10sec intervals so the bread had to be toasted several times.

 

This is great. I just had another revelation for my novel. I'm trying to introduce different aspects of the world, the bad part of it. I just figured out one of the main characters can reveal some key things by explaining to my main character why he's broken up with his girlfriend, why she isn't right for him, why she doesn't see what's wrong with the world, or care about the things he cares about, why it doesn't matter to her but it does to him. This is perfect, better than showing scenes of the problems.

Yay, I'm happy.... [leaves to write the scene]

 

I love it when scenes do double-duty like this.

 

I think having revelations on how to tie things together is just about my favourite part of the writing process.
My secondary POV character has been wandering around allowing me to do all sorts of interesting world building, but I was getting worried that what he was doing wasn't relevant enough to the main story and that I'd have to scrap a load of stuff.
Yesterday I figured out how to make the problems he was experiencing into some useful complications for the story climax. His subplot mostly feels relevant again. Yay.

 

Yesterday I realized that I never really set challenges for myself to overcome, because all that was given to me by professors and other authority figures. Since I'm out of college, I'll have to challenge myself just to see if I can do it and after setting down some challenges for myself, I feel very pumped about it! Here are some of the things I plan to accomplish

#1- Beat Dragon's Dogma and Skyward Sword. I want to teach myself to not give up just because something is difficult, which is what I've done with these two games.

#2- Write something from beginning to end. Here, I want to teach myself to keep going, even if it looks like Twilight. I'mma Dan Brown the [censored] out of this first draft! If they could do it, then so could I! Unfortunately, I'd look terrible in a turtleneck shirt, so I won't be wearing that when I write.

#3- Learn a complicated new computer program that I've never used before. I want to teach myself that if I want to learn something I've never used before, I have to start from the very beginning, and not make assumptions.

These are the three things I plan to conquer. I'm done sitting down feeling sorry for myself, it's time I do something for myself.

 

@Link the Writer congratulations you just conquered #2 by writing a post from beginning to end.

 

Was it like Dan Brown? How would he have written it?

 

I think he would have used less numbers, but I'm not an editor or anything.