I scored some sweet Stargate action figures

They don't make them like they used to. They stopped manufacturing them in fact.
A handful of them were languishing in a comic book shop near my dad's office, until I took them home. They'd been there for years, apparently, but I feel like that might happen a lot at comic book stores. I also got one on ebay, but then felt a little bad when I realised I'd bought a mint one in a box and then opened the box, when there is a finite number of boxed ones left. FOREVER. But obviously I bought them to play with.

Also I had to repaint Sam's hair. It was not attractive. Now it is much better. I think this adds value.

Zero hours of tutoring this week... so yeah, hopefully that picks up a bit.

I hope I never run out of SciFi shows to discover. Farscape is looking good! I am glad we have some SciFi shows on the tv these days, too- SG:U, Sanctuary, V.
Fringe... I have mixed feelings about but it's there.

trying to get my mom to learn to use the computer just a tiny bit so that I don't have to get off the sofa where I'm reading: (not to make fun of my mom, she really doesn't have any reason or opportunity to use computers)

"I need the hours for the Aurora Inn."
"my laptop is on, just go over and look it up."
"I don't know how."
"Yes you do, just google it. What is on the screen now?" (hoping it's not something weird)
"the ecological..." (my nationstates page)
"ok, yeah, ignore that. Do you see a little box at the top right of the screen? What does it say?" (hoping it doesn't say something weird)
"It says Samantha Carter."
"ok... well click where it says that and type in 'aurora inn.'"

anyway we ended up searching for "saurora innamantha carter"

I swear I was looking up something important to do with Samantha Carter, just can't remember what...

So, I've pretty much done nothing worthwhile in the academic or potential-professional sense since September 1st when I handed in my paperwork. I'm hoping to change this, but editing my papers for submission is so daunting, I can hardly bring myself to start. The hard part is over, right? It's written... but especially now that I'm out of the swing of it, it seems impossible. But then, writing it in the first place seemed impossible. Do I really have something to say that is worth publishing? I guess it's a combination of that worry and the fact that I've never done it before, I have just a hazy notion of how to do it. Plus it means getting back in touch with my committee after almost 2 months, which I'm a little embarrassed about. But as one friend said, it's not unreasonable to take a break after finishing. So I feel better about that...

Looking for a job is another matter. Each individual endeavor matters much less, but it's important to be looking and to take opportunities and eventually find something. But there's not really any time pressure, and just about every day I read something about how there are no new jobs, so, I'm just not that optimistic. I'll try USAJobs for a while and similar online things, but if that doesn't work, I'll have to put more thought into it...

Halloween is almost here! I've been forbidden to buy any more costume stuff by my mother, but that's ok because I used to have Katelin do the same thing. I bought a Browncoat! Not a person. A leather jacket. But it looks just like Mal's! So that's why I can't buy any more. No job, right.

this video has a commercial, and it doesn't really play well. But it has Amanda Tapping so it is great!



I know no one else cares, but I kind of like embedding things. Also, supposed to be working on stuff.

Isn't she great though?

Ahhh I'm so glad I got to meet her, in case she doesn't do little conventions as much anymore. I can't really afford the yearly close up one in London.

I guess I am back from a long and winding trip! Plotted on the google maps it looks like we covered half the country. This time, I'm back from Baltimore (was only there for a day though) and Ocean City, MD, and importantly- from New Jersey and Easton, PA where I saw the amazingly beautiful wedding of Amy and Mark!
I didn't think I would, but I cried a bit when I first saw her coming down the aisle in her pretty dress.
It was really fun, and the first wedding I'd ever been to, James' first as well.

Congratulations to Amy, who is now in Greece with her *husband.*

It looks like I might be able to get a few hours a week tutoring high school students, possibly in English and writing or for the SATs. This would be very good. Fingers crossed.

So, I can't remember it all but:

This past month, or rather, since September 22nd, I did many fun things and saw many great places, ate many wondrous foods, saw some lovely good friends, swam in a diverse number of notable water bodies. Got to share it all with James! (my boyfriend is an Unstoppable Baking Machine, among other things)

Stargate.

Let me just take a moment to say I am at the Stargate convention. James is running in the fitness center or something (crazy, right?) Well, I am across the street in a Starbucks, populated by other convention-goers. May I say unconventional conventionists? No, I guess it's pretty much your usual convention.
Anyway! Saw Michael Shanks, he was very amusing and cool :)
Amanda Tapping....

Amanda Tapping. So great. Sweet and funny and amazing. Funny stories, and very touching.

My decision was to do the AT autograph, rather than photo. Just seemed right. Anyway, me and a couple of hundred of other people waited in line, she must have been back there signing for 3 hours. How amazing is it that she was still so energetic and just great after that long? Well, she did look a little dazed. I practiced in line ahead of time what I was going to say to her, so I told her that I had just finished writing my master's thesis and thanked her for helping my get through it- which is totally true, she was really my role model, or inspiration for buckling down and working and doing my best. Of course also the biggest distraction. But, while I imagine I would have done it without her and Stargate, it was still really important to me.
Anyway, I managed to get out that first sentence, I hope I stressed the Thank You part enough. But she looked up and said, as far as my addled brain can remember, "wow, congratulations" and stuck out her hand to shake mine. Which I did! She asked what it was in, I said Agroecology, she said that's really important now. The rest is a blur. I didn't burst into hysterics this time and sob for 20 minutes, which was probably for the best. I was a little shaky though.
I wish I had been able to absorb everything just a little more. I was busy trying to remain coherent and so on. Anyway. I'm sure she knows how much she means to so many people. So she is so friendly and great to the faceless hoard of people streaming past her.

Also we kind of have the same hair.

Also, my ultimate goal of being Samantha Carter's best friend is not yet realized, but, I am not giving up hope.

Oh right, so today we saw Rachel Luttrell and Paul McGillion, they were both really funny and entertaining as well. And Joe Flanigan came right from an exclusive fan meet and greet cocktail party and you could kind of tell :) but he was great too. James says he likes him best.

So summary: not as much of an Experience as the ST one last year but then... that was the Experience after all :)
Wish I had been closer to the stage for Amanda Tapping so I could see her face better, but I tell you what- some light waves/particles bounced off of her and entered the lenses of my eyes! That's pretty great! And I touched her hand! From now on, this hand has shook the hand of Amanda Tapping. I am glad she will never read this.

So that is not all but that is most.

I love Stargate.



no photos allowed at the autograph... so, this isn't a photo, really. James and his "doing whatever they tell you not to"... that's my head on the left.


EDIT I am going to make her something and send it to her I don't know what but it will be something great

Stargate Stargate Stargate
I am going to Stargate
I am going to be in the same room as Amanda Tapping
Stargate, verb. Synonym: awesome.

Yesterday I felt like I was failing at something basic when I went in search of food for dinner. Took the bus home, supposedly it's a long walk (3.5 miles if you google map it). Then set out on foot to search.

I found a mulberry tree still fruiting but it was behind a chain link fence and I could only reach two berries. I felt kind of savage as I hungrily grasped the leaves of the low branches to bring the fruits into my reach, and as the purple juices ran down my hand.

Still, not dinner.

Well, I don't know how long it actually took me before I found a place that sold sandwiches over in the Johnson neighborhood, about a mile and a half from the house, but it seemed like there had to be an easier way.

I face the same prospect now.

Things close too early, things that aren't bars. "What is this," I cried, "the Isle of Man?" recalling strangely deserted streets. I did cry it, by the way, rather softly so that the sidewalk Madisonians wouldn't hear me.

All of this is compounded by the fact that I am very likely to substitute a nice big coffee shop cookie for dinner if I find one first. And I know where to get those. Dinner is more elusive, I suppose because of my stringent requirements for both characteristics of places I'm willing to go into, and type of food itself.

I'm hesitant to do the most logical thing and buy groceries as usual, since I don't want to get into having lots of dirty dishes (mine from the car or do I use the guys'?) and having a lot in the fridge (after just throwing away the many perishable things that wouldn't fit in my car or wouldn't last if they had).

$7.75 is probably too much for a sandwich, in any case.

I shall use this tool, the internet, to guide my quest.

Will need to find a cafe with free wireless near my new place, can't really expect to go all night without any, right?

Also have to remember to move my car between 8:30 and 11:30 tomorrow. What do people do about that? I've always had a parking space. Ok, I'll just have to spend 3 hours returning the modem and cables, my other chore.

It feels like it's been a while since my normal routine. I guess it has- I've been in the process of moving and defending for almost a week, starting last Tuesday and ending today. New apartment for my last 2 weeks, and making some changes to my thesis before submission. Have to write an intro and conclusion to the whole thing, and an abstract. Need to adjust intros and conclusions, I think, to reflect more "making a case" and be a little more purposeful about it. Then, eventually, work with my committee to get them publishable and... publish them. But that will be after I leave, I think.

Also need to return library books, cancel my old internet, change my address in a billion different places, return the broken SG1 box (cleverly keeping the working DVDs). Add control crystals to my car. I have a plan for that last one.

the Wisconsin Land Economic Inventory (Bordner Survey) from 1938-1939 cataloged land use across the whole state. Looking at a part for my study area, I thought the legend for symbols marking buildings was cute- the options are:

occupied house
vacant house
summer home
occupied school
vacant school
church
town hall
cheese factory
creamery
filling station or garage
store
tavern
hotel
saw mill
grist mill
farm building
logging camp

I liked that Town Hall and Cheese Factory have the same symbol except above town hall there's a "TH" and above cheese factory there's a... "CH" ?

{Good news, everyone! http://cli.gs/EJjq0B }

In other news, oh my, I have watched all currently existing Stargate. Oh, except for the cartoon series. Obviously.
I'm glad there is more in the works!
Another good thing is that there is such a quantity of Stargate, that I can probably rewatch it quite a bit without getting bored of episodes for a while. I think when I'm back in Rochester, I'll have to get my mom into SG-1.
For now, I think I will try Sanctuary. I'm sure I can't not like it, it has Amanda Tapping!
Speaking of which, I fully intend to go to the Chicago Stargate convention if at all possible, man, that's coming up soon now! But if I can go, maybe I can meet her :) I want to get her autograph... Michael Shanks, Joe Flannigan, Rachel Luttrel also, but if I have to pick one I have to pick her.

anyone familiar with any free downloads that allow you to password protect folders in vista? I found plenty online but am extremely wary of downloading any of them... it's really not that important, but I would like to have a password on a folder rather than just restricting access by user. Since there's only one user on this computer and... because that's the way it is in Stargate. I admit, that's why I want to do it. Anyone have one of these programs that they're sure isn't a virus or spyware?

... but the first one made me think about what science fiction really means, to me and in general.

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.
-Isaac Asimov

There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.
- Arthur C Clarke

Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.
- Ray Bradbury

We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe.... If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.
- Ray Bradbury

The landlord sent some bug guys through the apartment yesterday- they didn't find anything, but when I was bringing back my laundry last night, one of the downstairs neighbors was out and told me that they'd gone through their apartment too, and were coming back today to heat the place up to 140 degrees!
This morning there was a guy sitting at a desk directly out the front door (he had to move to let me through) and the sound of machinery-buzzing was coming through all the windows. If I heard the neighbor right, she said they were going to do it for 40 hours- that can't be right, can it?
As she pointed out, maybe better than chemicals, but it still sounds kind of insane.
Hmmm, I wonder if the heaters in there were plugged into the house, and if we will be paying for that electricity later... or maybe that was a generator that I was hearing. Not that I'll be living here for much longer, might not even get another utility bill...

I have had this urge to try writing fiction again... maybe once I'm done here I'll give it a try :) I'm always impressed by those of you who actually write and edit and finish actual stories and even books!

ha, this is the funniest one of these I think http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/fiend-folio-2.php?page=1

( ok, I have to express my thoughts on Stargate or else I will be up all night muttering to myself in the dark unable to sleep. I might be anyway. Don't read this unless you're pretty bored I guess because it is just my feelings about the episodes of Stargate I just watched and also don't read it if you haven't seen all of SG1 up to season 9 unless you don't care. Just a warning )
From an interview I read with David Hewlett
"I think we all grow up thinking that we're meant for something better than this world.... all these escapist sci-fi things are what appealed to me, and I thought that was a fantastic episode for that because we saw, through Jeannie's eyes, this world all the nerds -- certainly the nerd in me -- secretly hopes exists. [I] still keep stepping through the gate hoping something actually happens."

I've been waiting for rain- when it doesn't rain, I feel like something is wrong (California seems very unnatural)- but now that it is finally raining, I am not looking forward to biking home in it. Real rainwater makes my tomatoes really happy, somehow more than tap water from my watering can.

So I guess I have first drafts of my papers! Conclusions might be too lame, but then, the whole things might be wrong, I don't know! Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, they are 9,389 words or 30 double spaced pages, and 12,412 words and 41 double spaced pages, respectively.

I somehow managed to imply I'd go see Bruno with a couple of people today. I like seeing movies, but I really don't want to spend the rare opportunity to actually see a movie in a theater on Bruno, which I hear is awful. I think they want to see it because they think it is 'controversial.' But, I haven't seen it so I can't really say. I would rather see pretty much anything else, though. Maybe we will change our minds.

and what I actually want to do is go home and watch Stargate SG-1, of course. They have been so good lately! After I watched one last night, I didn't know what to do with myself because it was so good that I couldn't think of anything that could come close. Couldn't watch more, because I was too emotionally tired from that one :) seriously... it had me crying more than once. Couldn't watch Atlantis because the next 2 episodes in order have Daniel Jackson from SG1 in them and it would be out of order within the Stargate universe. Speaking of which, can I refer to it as that, now that the new show is called Stargate:Universe? Since it starts in October, I will probably be able to watch them on real TV!

Ok, let's see if it is still raining.

so while I have the ability to work and keep writing today, my brain is acting like a sieve! Words keep falling out. I guess they're still in there but they keep getting lost. My brain is staying on task but the task keeps slipping away!

Beautiful day, the lake is choppy and awesome!

Doesn't below seem great?

FOR SALE
TROUT PALACE
SPRING-FED TROUT FARM IN SOUTHWESTERN WISCONSIN

. 250+ Gallons per minute spring-fed, flow through system, no pumping
. Twelve cement raceways housed in a metal pole building
. Includes inventory of Kamloop Rainbow Trout, fingerlings to one pound
. Completely licensed
. Type 2 Fish Farm Registration
. Veterinary Health Assessment
. Food Processing License
. HACCP plan
. Equipment for hatching, rearing and live hauling
. 2,000 square foot, owner-built home (1994), wood heat with propane back-up. Three bedrooms, 2 ½ baths. Licensed fish processing room inside the house.
. Quiet, rural setting on 15 mostly wooded acres. Several large vegetable and perennial gardens, managed organically
. 30 X 40 foot shed with loft and firewood storage
. Member Wisconsin Aquaculture Association and U.S. Trout Growers

We have been in business for over twenty years and have decided to sell the farm in order to pursue other interests. Our approach has always been part-time, as we worked other jobs and were raising a family, but there is good potential for expansion. In addition to the trout farm, we are selling a lifestyle. This was a wonderful setting to raise our children, allowing one parent to stay home while they were young. We have also raised our own food between the fish, chickens and gardens. We would feel blessed to pass this opportunity on to another generation.



Asking price: $300,000

Operation Details
A major selling point of this trout operation is the possession of the hatchery license. It is impossible to construct a farm (i.e. license a new facility) now due to restrictions imposed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. However, our hatchery license will be grandfathered to the new owner and renewed annually upon application. Another advantage of our particular facility is the building which houses the fish, protecting them from predators such as birds, raccoons and mink, which can consume a substantial portion of your livestock.

We do not maintain our own brood stock, instead purchasing eggs usually about 40,000 at a time, once or twice per year. Our farm was originally designed to raise fingerlings to about 8-10", so we keep one raceway drained for our hatching equipment. When the fry are established and trained onto feed, they are transferred to one of the raceways. As they grow, they are graded and split into additional raceways according to size. Water quality is controlled through vacuuming of solid waste into a settling tank. Fish manure is pumped onto the gardens spring and fall or as needed.

This business was built on sales of live trout, mainly stocking privately owned spring ponds in southwestern Wisconsin. Our customer base has also included other trout farms within the state, rod and gun clubs, lake associations, and "pay to fish" operations. Contract sales are available through the WDNR and occasionally through the federal government. We are active members of the Wisconsin Aquaculture Association, which provides a network between farmers for supplies, sales, education and general support.

In addition to live trout sales, we have sold dressed trout to groceries and restaurants and smoked trout direct retail to local customers. We also have developed a product called Smoked Trout Pate', which sells really well around Holiday Season. We make it in three flavors and sell it in 8oz. frozen logs. It ships well and we have sold it in gift boxes as well as direct retail.

Financial
We have not demonstrated the full earning capacity of this operation. As previously stated, we have always approached it as a sideline, a source of secondary income, a vehicle to support our lifestyle and family values. However, we have taken advantage of the low overhead and fixed costs of a small farm, which keeps production cost low and provides a better margin compared to larger operations. This farm has provided enough net income to pay our mortgage and utilities with a small amount of effort, requiring only about ten hours per week. We believe there is good potential for the right manager to take the Trout Palace to the next level and would be happy to discuss our ideas in further detail with interested parties.

TROUT PALACE
Jim and Cathy Pierce
E14214 County Road D
La Farge, WI 54639
608-625-2084