Category Archives for Life in general

Posts about my life.

GenCon, Day 2 (Or, The Crafty Nerd battles her social anxiety)

Today has been… a day, we’ll put it at that.  There were good parts, there were bad parts, and there were absolutely exhausting parts.

It’s no secret to those who know me well, but for those who don’t know me, I deal with some bad social anxiety and can get seriously awkward as a result.  For the most part, it doesn’t bother me, unless I’m in situations where there are lots of people/lots of noises or I’m an unfamiliar place.  And, well, GenCon hits all three.  I don’t know my way around too well, there are way too many people everywhere, and more often than not I have to REALLY work up the nerve to ask a favorite author or webcomic artist to sign something for me because I feel bad bothering them.  I know, I know, they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t want their fans to talk to them or flail about in their general presence, but still.  Social anxiety is irrational.  And it was incredibly irrational today, that is for sure.  I ended up retreating back to the hotel room mid-day to hide and recharge my batteries, so to speak.

My day was fun, though, I won’t deny it.  I ended up at another instance of the Enterplay My Little Pony trading card game, and ended up with more swag – I have only bought one pony related thing so far this trip, haha.  I got a trading card folio and this card:

2013-08-16 11.10.10-2Yes, this is one of the more rare Rainbow Dash cards for the trading card series – rumor has it that one went for $700 on eBay recently.  (It’s going for around $180 at the time of this writing, which isn’t $700, but still!)  I’m ridiculously lucky to have gotten this – the guys at Enterplay are amazing.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll likely say it again, hah.

After the pony panel, I wandered around the exhibition hall before having a slight meltdown/freakout because I couldn’t work up the nerve to ask Jeph Jacques (of Questionable Content fame) to draw me a picture of Marigold, so I ended up going back to the room and just sat there for a while, overwhelmed and overtired.  (I didn’t sleep much last night, which probably contributed to it.)  Bryan, wonderful husband that he is, ended up going back and getting me the sketch.  I am very thankful that he is so patient with me.  Thankfully, sleep and quiet did the trick, and I braved the exhibition hall for one last round of goodies before getting dinner and camping out in front of the room where An Evening with Patrick Rothfuss was scheduled to happen.

I am ridiculously glad I got there early.  Apparently the event was sold out – and since I got in line early enough, I got to sit right up front.  It was amazing.  Patrick is just so… I don’t know how to explain it, except it feels like he’s just one of the gang, an awesome person the likes of which I’d love to just hang out with.  And it felt like we were hanging out, him and around 200 other people, myself included.  He talked candidly.  He cussed a lot.  He talked about feminism and sexism in fantasy novels, and he read stuff to us from when he wrote a humorous advice column back in college, he told us about his writing processes, he talked about tons of other stuff which I cannot remember, and then we all sang “You Are My Sunshine” together.

And then I had him sign my iPad.  Which I will post pictures of tomorrow, when I am actually near my iPad and my phone.  Apparently it was not the first electronic device he had signed.  Awesome.  He is now, officially, my most favorite author.  Not only are his books amazing, but he is frigging awesome.  Sorry, Anne Bishop, but Patrick has dethroned you.

And entirely unrelated to anything – there’s a guy sitting not too far away from where I’m parked in the lobby with my laptop who has been playing the Game of Thrones theme on his guitar for, well, about an hour.  I am not kidding.  I’m pretty sure I never want to hear that song again.

Until tomorrow, everyone!  I’ll be dressed as the 4th Doctor, which I am incredibly excited about.  I am also excited about the fact that I have enough stuff to post about to fill the site for a week straight.  😀  And we’re only halfway through the con!

 

The Crafty Nerd Goes On Vacation: Part 1

No no no, not a vacation from posting – although I did unintentionally take one of those, and I’m sorry!  I’m going to stick to a schedule from now on – Wednesdays and Sundays will be my posting days, with an occasional Roundup here and there.  And since today is a Sunday…

WE HAVE A POST!

Now, I really am on vacation – back in my home state of New York, in the lovely Adirondack Mountains.  Bryan’s grandparents have a cabin here, and I’ve been coming up here with Bryan and his family for about six years now.  We’re close to Lake George, which is a very touristy place, but far enough away from all the busy-ness of the town, which is wonderful.

2013-07-26 17.09.25I mean, come on, look at this beautiful view of the Hudson River.  Absolutely wonderful.  I’ve been looking forward to this all summer – and I am incredibly happy to be here.  All my classes are done for the summer, work has entered a lull (I taught a ridiculous amount of page layout and design workshops during the early part of last week, and that’s it for my teaching schedule for the rest of the summer), and it’s the perfect part of the summer to take a vacation.  So here I am, parked at the kitchen table in my pajamas and my Escher-inspired Doctor Who sweatshirt, with my laptop, writing this post while listening to the birds tweet outside.

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Music and Scooters: Yes, they do mix. Carefully.

So, when most people think of scooter riding, they don’t usually think “wow, having some music would make this ride even better!”  Most people don’t generally think of convoluted ways to add speakers to their scooter, either.  (I mean, come on, motorcycles have radios, how come Scooterlou didn’t come with one standard? Heheh.)  Well, I guess you could say I’m not most people, heheh.

I will preface this with a little bit of explanation – I absolutely LOVE music.  Almost as much as I love reading books.  I try and find some way to work music into whatever I’m doing – I listen while I’m at work, while Bryan’s driving somewhere, while I’m cleaning the house, while I’m typing blog entries… In fact, I think I just managed to crash my PS3 by trying to see if the Google Play Music site would work on it.  (Apparently not.)  Music is just a part of who I am.  And once I finally got over my general nervousness about riding Scooterlou, I thought, “There’s gotta be some way I can listen to music on this thing.”

My first attempt at making Scooterlou musical was a weatherproof speaker that ran on batteries, and connected to my phone through Bluetooth.  There wasn’t really a good place to actually put the speaker, so I ended up resting it on the floor and bungee-cording it to my basket.  I’d tested the speaker out in the house, and it got pretty loud, so I figured it’d work fine!

Boy, was I wrong.  When Scooterlou’s engine gets going, she’s pretty darn loud – so loud that even when I had the speaker cranked up as loud as reasonably possible, I could barely hear it when idling, forget about while I was actually riding.  It was a bummer – I spent a chunk of change on that speaker, and while it does come in handy in other situations (like when we’re giving the scooters baths, or when I’m in the shower, or if we ever go camping again), it’s not the best idea for scootering.  I resigned myself to someday spending a ridiculous amount of money on a sound system for my little Honda Metropolitan… and then I came across this.

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One of my new friends runs a scooter shop (it’s Wick’s Wheels, for any locals who are interested), and one day I was poking through the helmet selection when I stumbled upon this wonderful thing.  It’s a helmet – with Bluetooth speakers and a mic.  While I’d never ever be brave enough to answer the phone while riding my scooter, the fact that it can connect to my phone (which has a lovely unlimited data connection and can hook right up to my Google Play All-Access Music collection) was what sold me.  MUSIC ON MY SCOOTER.  It was finally going to happen in a safe way!  YES.  So, I bought it.  And after having to return the first one because the port for the plug to charge said helmet was a little messed up in the first helmet, I found out this is exactly what I need.  It doesn’t need to be loud enough for everyone on the road to hear it.  I’m the only one who needs to listen to Daft Punk’s Get Lucky on repeat ninety million times. 😀

So yes, scooters and music can, and do, mix.  Carefully.  🙂

Random Nerdy Adventures!

I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting the blog horribly over the past week.  Blame Python.  More accurately, blame three days of intense Python-learning for a class.  I feel pretty darn nerdy, though, cramming so much Python into my brain in so short a time!  And I just finished and submitted the final exam – while my brain is reeling from cramming so much code into it, I do feel rather accomplished. Plus, Python shares similar syntax to PHP, which I’ve been learning on my own,

So, in lieu of a rather involved post, I’m simply going to share some pictures from the past couple of days – expect a more exciting post when I get my brain back later this week!

2013-05-25 21.27.36First off, I found a TARDIS night light!  I’m rather fond of it.  It does a good job lighting the way from the bed to the bathroom in the middle of the night.  And it’s the TARDIS.

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Recovering from the end of the semester

I know, I know, my hiatus has been about double what I thought it would be.  I’ve been working on recovering from the end of the semester, as well as working my way out of a deep depression.  Which is hard, but it happens.  (The most recent post in Hyperbole and a Half describes my past few months perfectly.)  But I’m finally on an upswing, and finally feeling somewhat rested and together enough to get back into posting.

While I spent time recovering from the spring semester…

  • I had a ridiculously pony-themed birthday party.  It was fun, and none of my friends seemed to care that everything was decorated in Pinkie Pie while we all gathered around to play Cards Against Humanity.
  • I cleaned out my crafting closet, and got rid of some things I didn’t need anymore and pared down some stuff that I didn’t have quite enough room for.
  • I took a two week break from crafting altogether, and only recently picked up my Doctor Who scarf.  (I’m two thirds of the way done with it!)
  • I watched a lot of television, and read nowhere near enough books.  This needs to be changed.

And that’s what I’ve been up to.  Expect some more regular posts next week that focus on all the good things – namely, nerdy things and crafty things!  And nerdy crafts!

Short blogging hiatus!

Hello, all you crafty nerds – I just want to let you know that due to end-of semester craziness, The Crafty Nerd won’t be updating this week.  However, next week I’ll be back to posting amazing awesome things!  So stick with me, and if you’re not already following The Crafty Nerd on Facebook, please do!  I will be posting random nerdy/crafty things there.

See you all in May! 😀

Making the best of a sick day (or two)

You know what’s worse than being sick?

Being sick on a weekend.  A beautiful weekend, no less, where it’s finally warm enough to open all the windows and sit outside on the porch, and enjoy the beautiful flowers.

I hate late season colds.

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The beginnings of a TARDIS blanket

However, I did make the best of this cold – yesterday I decided to jump in on the Worsted for Wear Knit/Crochet-a-long on Ravelry (it’s Doctor Who themed!), and am working on a TARDIS blanket.  It’s small – I suppose I could make it a lot bigger if I upped the hook gauge, but I figure I should stick to the pattern for right now, since it’s my first time working with filet crochet.  You can’t really make much of it out, but that’s totally the bottom of the TARDIS. I swear. 😀

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Scootering: Best antidepressant ever.

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The Crafty Nerdmobile! (Or, as she’s more commonly known, Scooterlou)

I think, if I were to assign my website a mascot, it might just be Scooterlou.  She may not exactly be the nerdiest mode of transportation – I mean, come on, scooters are for everyone! – but she is decked out pretty nerdily.  She’s got a nice little Nyancat on one side, and a sweet “Engineered by Firefly” sticker on the other, and she’s rocking some My Little Ponies on her trunk (not pictured here – this is before I installed the trunk on her).  She enables my nerdy crafting pursuits, too – if not for her, it’d be a lot harder to get to and from craft stores, as my hubby’s not exactly always keen on schlepping me back and forth to craft stores around town.  I’m rather attached to her.

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San Francisco: The Experience (sans video blogging)

Well, I’m back from San Francisco, and adjusted to being back in the right time zone finally, and figured I’d share the tale of my vacation!  Sadly, there wasn’t enough time to video-blog the entire trip, but I took plenty of pictures – and I’ll share the highlights here!

Day one was nice – although I was absolutely exhausted from not sleeping much the night before (remind me never to go to the drive-in the night before an early cross-country flight!), I still had plenty of fun.  I met some of Bryan’s friends, we all nerded out together, and it was awesome!

The view outside the front door of the place we stayed.

Trees in San Francisco are green already!

We stayed at a place we found on AirBNB – it’s located here, if you’re curious.  (If you want to stay in San Francisco and be within walking distance of practically everything, I can’t recommend Lorraine enough!)  After two days with no sleep, I ended up crashing pretty early – so I could be energetic for Day Two.

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San Francisco: The Nerdy Video-Blogging Experience

No, I have not dropped off the face of the planet, in case anyone was wondering (although apparently dreamingpixels.net did, sadly, I didn’t renew my domain name in time and I think I may have lost it, we’ll see when HostGator processes my payment), but I have been incredibly busy.  Not only was this week the middle of the semester, but it’s also….

golden-gate-bridge…the week before spring break, and my trip to San Francisco!  And Bryan, wonderful husband that he is, suggested I video blog this trip and post it all here!    After some thinking, I decided “what the heck, why not?”  So, over the next few days, expect to see a video a day about my San Francisco adventure.  There’ll be a nerdy twist to it, as there is with everything on this wonderful blog, and hopefully everyone will enjoy watching my adventures!  (And it’ll be a great place to keep things for myself, too!)