FIRST 2012

Alternate title: I’ve almost been doing this longer than the students have been alive.

It’s January which means another FIRST Robotics season is upon us. This means six weeks of having nearly every thought consumed by robots and ten hours a week at the high school. This year, I’m finally not a student myself so I’ve got far more time to devote (and am actually available to answer questions).

First off, this year’s game. It’s basically a modified version of basketball. A three minute animation explaining it can be found here.

Again this year, we’re working with Thomas Jefferson, a magnet school for science and technology. The students are very smart, very driven, and basically just need our help to keep them from building something far too complicated and to re-explain how PID controllers work.

So far, they’ve got a priliminary design complete and have welded most of the chassis. Pretty good progress, seeing as we’re now about halfway through the six week build season.

And, now, photo overload.

Life Recorded

We all have goals for the new year. We want to eat healthy, get in shape, explore new places, try new foods, keep in touch with old friends, and quit that one bad habit.I’ve got goals like that, sure, but there’s something else, too.

This year, I want to record my life. Not by forcing myself to do something daily like take a self portrait or blog or journal but by really taking the time to somehoe record what’s going on, whatever way I feel like doing it at that moment. Photos, blog posts, scrapbooking layouts, letters to no one, journals full of words – I don’t want to focus this year on the mdium but the actual act of recording. Just getting it on paper and out of my head.

See, I’m someone who is oddly forgetful. I can remember every single word to a song from a musical I was in back in fifth grade but ask me which little town I took that photo of the house with the yellow shutter back in October, and I’m clueless. Sure, it’s probably got something to do with the fact that it’s just a photo of a house I saw once and not a song I had drilled into my head by repeating it over and over. And that house has no memories tied to it. But that doesn’t mean I should forget it. I have the photo but everything else with it is gone.

Memories should be preserved, if only so you can look back and laugh at how silly you were back then. I want 2012 to be the first year I really record what I’ve seen, ate, regretted, enjoyed, and felt ambivalent about. I want to look back in ten years and actually have some idea of what was going on in my life and not just the highlights. I’ve got plenty of photos from big trips, family gatherings. You know, the stuff you’re supposed to take photos and write blog posts and make scrapbook pages about.

But my life happens(and changes) outside of those big, important events. I want to focus on recording the little moments between the big ones.

I’m not sure what form any of this will take and, for a control freak like me, that’s pretty terrifying. I’m just going to relax and record things when they happen. And maybe some of that recording will get shown off here. Maybe almost none of it will.

But, this year, 2012. I will record my life.

Year in Review (2011 Edition)

I was going to make this a post about how I did or didn’t meet my goals for last year then realized I never made any. Sure, I wanted to graduate but, really, was that ever in doubt? (Oh, I hope not.) So, again this year, a year in review.

January: Attempted, yet again, to blog daily which became weekly which became only when I felt guilty that I hadn’t blogged in awhile. Visited the National Building Museum. Started working with the TJ FIRST team. Mostly focused on coding my senior design project. Started a new job.

February: FIRST season concluded and senior design continued. Tried skiing for the first time.

March: Attended the St. Patrick’s parade in Old Town. DC FIRST regional held. Midterms and a big senior design deadline consumed my life. Spring break was spent working and doing school work. Attended Steph’s baby shower.

April: Life consumed by school projects, tests. etc. Traveled to West Point to attend a design competition (and really wished they didn’t have a rule about no AC before 1 may).

May: Wrapped up my last undergraduate semester. Graduated Suma Cum Laude. Celebrated Matt’s grandmother’s 90th birthday. Went to a color theory workshop with Ms Babs.

June: Started first full-time job (and it’s not so fun commute). Started looking at houses. Got back into sewing by making a few handbags (and failed at making myself a skirt).

July: Brutally hot month. Went to more open houses and house tours. Attended the first annual Bontrager cousins reunion in DE. Started digital scrapbooking five years of marriage.

August: Put a bid on a house, counterbid accepted, home inspection, mortgage application, and everything else invovled with buying a house. Felt not nearly as poor as expected at the end of the process. Really started my new job (assignment received). Started a quilt for the first time in four years.

September: Moved into the new house. Held a housewarming party with friends, family, and neighbhors.

October: Spent two and a half week exploring Spain, France, and Italy. Spent the rest of the month starting a new project at work and recovering from being away for so long.

November: Had Thanksgiving at our place, this time with Matt’s parents, Jesse’s family, Alison, and Lucy. Attended the DE reception for Caleb and Karen. Finished making a sweater for myself that actually fit.

December: Enjoyed a realitively warm December. Parents and brother visit for Christmas. Had first year of decorating our own house for Christmas (but settled for just a tree and some lights on a front window).

Udvar-Hazy

It’s been forever since I blogged or scrapbooked or knit or sewed, even. Okay, not forever. Like 10 days. Still, it seems like an eternity since I actually did anything at all creative. Last week was filled with long days at work. Thursday, my brother, Rob, got into town (though he was local for work earlier in the week). Saturday, my parents arrived. Yesterday was Christmas and all the craziness that comes with presents and stockings and massive quantities of sugar and food plus not being able to, you know, actually go anywhere all day. Today – today we were happy to get out of the house and do something.

So, after more than three years of begging Matt, we finally went. For once, it wasn’t too warm or too cold and wasn’t even crowded, despite being the day after a holiday that most people have off from work. It was everything I wanted: a giant hanger filled with dozens and dozens of airplanes plus missiles, satellites, hot air balloon baskets, and related objects.

I didn’t take notes so I can’t detail what’s in each photo so, yeah, what follows is lots and lots of pictures.

Bit Obsessed

So, I’ve become a bit obsessed. Ever since Saturday, all I can think about is this quilt. It’s for Ada, the daughter of two very good friends.

On Saturday, I cut out the entire quilt top.

On Sunday, while a friend made Christmas cards, I sewed the coins (then just long strips of fabric).

Yesterday, I cut the strips into coins and added most of the sashing. Right now, I’m trying to resist the temptation to desert Matt (he’s playing video games next to me on the couch) and sew on the last of the sashing. We’ll just ignore the fact I have no batting or binding and haven’t exactly figured out what I want to do for the back (though it’ll probably be pieced.

After a bunch of sketching and trying to figure out the perfect pattern for these very bright fabrics I purchased in late October, I finally settled on a simple coin quilt. At first, I was going to make the coins in three rows of equal thickness but decided, instead, to make them three slightly different thicknesses for interest (and, also, I cut the first one too small and had to figure out how to recover). Between the coins is thick, dark gray shashing that I’ll also be adding to the top and bottom, likely later this evening.

Sure, it’s very bright but, hey, she’s still very young and should be able to enjoy her toddler-sized quilt for at least a few more years. (And, yes, this is the same child I made a knitted blanket for before she was born. Apparently I’m paranoid that she’s going to freeze.)

I’m thinking of piecing the back such that it’s the opposite of the front: sashing in coins of the bright fabrics then, where there are coins, strips of the dark gray. But that’ll be even brighter. Heh.

On Thursday Ada’s parents will see the (possibly finished) top in all of its glory. I just hope the colors won’t keep Ada up at night!

Another day, another December Daily page

Hope I’m not boring you all with these but I’m so proud that I’m being good with keeping up with this pages that I just have to show them off. Today’s page focusing on the only Christmas-y element of today: decorating our tree (while we watched the very exciting Packers-Giants game). Other than tree decorating, today also included Indian food and the Muppets Movie (very excellent) with Matt’s buddy, Mark and the previously mentioned football game watching. And, of course, I made this page.

Our Christmas tree will never be one of those fancy all-in-one-color deals. See, Matt’s been collecting Christmas ornaments since he was little so we probably have over 200 in total. We don’t pick them up nearly as often, usually only on special vacations (though we got zero on our last Europe trip). This year, with this giant tree - it takes up a good portion of our living room – we finally have more than enough space to show them all off. Even took three full strands of lights to cover it – two mega strands (400 lights) and one normal (200 lights).

I was very happy with the performance of my 50 mm/f2.9 that Matt got me for a graduation gift. The lens let me easily take photos of the tree, despite the fact is was dark out and the only lighting was the tree lights and a light a good 50 feet away in the dining room. In ten shots, I had four perfectly in focus, like the one I picked that really shows off the different ornaments.

December Daily: Days 2 and 3

No blog post yesterday because I didn’t have a chance to get back on a computer after work (and, even if I had, it would have been the computer without PSE on it, anyway). I had a full day of work then we drove up to Baltimore to see a performance of Handel’s Messiah. We got stuck in a ton of traffic which meant we arrived 30 minutes late to our dinner reservation. Thankfully, it’s a local place and very chill so we didn’t have a problem getting a table, anyway. We then headed to the Meyerhoff for the concert, arriving 5 minutes after they started due to issues finding where to park. The concert was more than worth the traffic and waiting to be seated. I really liked that they provided a copy of the words (not the music, this wasn’t a sing-along). Despite not having any chance to take photos at the performance, I did manage a cell phone shot of some of the lobby decorations so I could still make a page for yesterday.

Today was equally busy. We spent last night at Matt’s parents’ house and slept in rather late. We had breakfast then went out and picked out our Christmas tree. After that, we grabbed lunch and did our usual Costco/Wegman’s trip. Matt and his dad went back to Costco and got a mattress set (you know, so my parents will actually have somewhere to sleep when they’re here in a few weeks). While they were gone, Matt’s mom and I did dishes, finally took down the chairs and tables from Thanksgiving, and cleaned out the room where the bed was going. Day ended with paninis for dinner and scrapbooking while watching Charmed (Matt’s playing on his PC in the other room). Of course, I only scrapped about the tree picking as no one cares about the rest of today. I don’t even think I care anymore. Heh.

December Daily – Day 1

[No promises to blog daily but I would like to blog my December Daily pages. December Daily is a scrapbooking project where you, well, scrapbook daily each day in December. My version lasts from Dec 1 to 25th because, well, I can only stick to something for so long.]

It’s only the first of the month so we have almost no signs of the holiday season in our house so far. We’re picking up our tree this weekend and, otherwise, all we’ve got is a wreath on our front door. My plan was to take a photo of that to scrap for today but, well, working a ten hour day isn’t conducive to getting a decent photo of something on your front door. So, I had to improvise. One of the things I promised myself with this whole project was that I wouldn’t stress about making sure my stories were all Christmas-focused.

Today’s focus, then, is on the lack of signs of Christmas (and how Thanksgiving, only a week ago, still lingers in our house). Instead of photograping the not yet washed wine glasses or still taking over our dining room large plastic tables, I captured my dessert: leftover banana bread and vanilla ice cream.

I first made this version of the page but wasn’t happy with how light the background was and how you can’t really see the border.

Here’s a different version, with a darker background and the border recolored a dark green. I rather like this to the point what I’m tempted to recolor all of my pre-made pages like this one.

Tomorrow, we’re going to see Handel’s Messiah up in Baltimore where I won’t really be able to take photos inside but I hope I can capture what I’m sure will be an excellent night at the symphony.

Day 30, We Meet Again

Okay, not really, as I’ve never actually finished NaBloPoMo successfully until this year but who’s paying attention? I may blog more often in December than usual but don’t count on a continuation of this daily blogging thing. I will be, instead, focusing my efforts on December Daily. But I’ll tell you all about that (or not) tomorrow.

Right now, I’m going to crawl into bed and read some Agatha Christie. But, look, I did some actual knitting. Knitting I may even continue to work on after today. (A first since I finished that sweater, oh, a week ago. Heh.) Eventually I’ll share what it is.

Two more days..

This whole blogging daily thing became a drag about a week ago but, alas, I want to actually finish this year out with having blogged every day. At first, I was so good about blogging first thing or about having posts mostly written in advance. But now. Well. I’ve not got much to show. Just a picture of some of Matt’s Christmas gifts (still in their packaging, of course).

needles & vectors

an engineering gal who crafts her life away

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