Rammi's blog

The end of an era

Literally. Bring on a new decade of awesomeness!

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Merry Christmas

...Ignore the potential fire hazard.

I hope your last Christmas of this decade isn't too shocking (heh, heh).

Roll on 2010!

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Tonsillitis

I find having tonsillitis strange. Despite the constant coughing and the occasional phlegm, nothing else seems to happen. Sure, my breathing does seem a bit more restricted than when I'm healthy and not having a panic attack, but most of the time, it's a minor discomfort a few times every year. Also, it's easily fixed with luminous pink erythromycin tablets (henceforth known as the pink pills, because I have troubles spelling that word).

In late November, after being given the pink pills once again, my doctor told me to come back in two weeks (after the pills ran out) so he could assess whether or not I needed to have them removed or not.

Two weeks passed, the pink pills depleted, and I forgot about the bits of tissue in the back of my throat for another week.

These tissues appeared to be unhappy about being forgotten, and decided to remind me of their presence by becoming inflamed again the week after.
You know what that means? MOAR PINK PILLS.

Now, I have to wait for another two weeks to find out if I will join the ranks of my living family members, each of whom no longer have their tonsils. >.>

Lesson learned: When the doctor tells you to go back within two weeks, GO BACK IN TWO WEEKS. Your tonsils seem to have feelings. They do not like being forgotten about, and will get angry at you if you decide to go back on the third week instead.

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Friends of friends will sing me @AmberRubarth songs to prove a point.

Today, I got a friend request on Last.fm from a user named Socratesv1. I've been using the website since 2006 to keep up with my changing music taste, and occasionally get friend requests from friends and/or people who have a similar music taste to me. The username didn't seem familiar to me, but we did share a "very high music compatibility". The  music we had in common was Imogen Heap, S Club 7, ABBA, Owl City and OK Go.

@Synoiz sent me a CD of ABBA's greatest hits for my birthday yesterday (because I realised I owned no ABBA music ;_;), and this means that all I've been listening to today is that. This probably explains why we're "very high" on music compatibility.
[I tend to listen to "new" music obsessively until I get sick of the sound of it.]

Anyway, I soon realised that I *did* know the mysterious Socratesv1, and that he was a friend of a friend of mine who I had spoken to on Skype before. So I logged on, and we talked about the music we had in common (quickly skipping over the S Club 7). Soon, conversation turned to my obsessive listening habits of the day... Which I quickly diverted by picking a random song I liked, to try and make it seem like I listen to other music too.

This song just happened to be You Will Love This Song, which I promptly sent him a link to. He seemed to like it, despite my annoyance at not being able to sing the phrase "You said you love it when all the words in a song move really fast and your ears have to choose just one little phrase to hold on to" in the song fast enough.

He swore that he could, and that he could actually record a new version of the song for me just to prove it.

I called his bluff (because I like this song a lot).

And so, this "challenge" of sorts began.

Alex (this friend of a friend) says that he'll record me a version of the song by the new year, in the same style, playing multiple instruments (as a one-man band).

This is going to be awesome.

[I wrote this blog post to remind myself to get around to meeting him in January and glare at/glomp him for failing/finishing the song.]

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

It's my birthday!

Well, for another 10 minutes, anyway. Thanks to everyone on Plurk, Facebook and Twitter that sent me birthday wishes! [I'll extend this post later with everyone's names.] This may be slightly due to the messages I sent out at 00:00 announcing that the 14th of December had started, but they still count, right?

And now, my birthday's going to be over for another year. Boo.

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Why I don't blog about my day.

If you've read a few of my blog posts, you'll notice that I'm not a person who blogs about my day. This is because my life is pretty boring.
"Eat, sleep, and breathe that you're full of the stuff, etc. etc." Eat, sleep and breathe. Oh, and occasionally do some work. Rinse and repeat.
I mean, I could write about the multiple ladyboys I met today (who all seem to know my name), but I have no idea how to make it sound interesting. Do you really want to know about the embarrassment and humilation I felt when I met one of them and was like, "Um, I swear you have a male twin? Didn't I see him a couple of months ago?"

Yeah. I think not.

In my defence, she/he looked very feminine. Social situations + Rammi = FAIL.

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

The Great Interview Experiment: Laurina

I heard about the Great Interview Experiment from another blog a few weeks ago, and thought it would be interesting to take part. I am currently in the process of answering the questions I've been given (sorry for being so slow, Chris!), but I do have Laurina's answers to the questions I asked her!

What does it mean to be an environmentalist in today's day and age?
I gave a speech at Toastmasters the other evening, and my introduction was about being an environmentalist. I always thought we were all "caretakers of the Earth". That's what I was taught as a child and grew up practicing.
It was only later that people called me an environmentalist, which sometimes has negative connotations. To me, it's really about being a caretaker of the Earth and doing whatever you can to take good care of both our natural resources and nature. Yes, I love to plant trees, pick up litter and think twice about what I buy. Those are the same things I did as a child and still teach my children to do.

What languages can you speak?
I’m bilingual in English  and Swedish, and can understand a lot of Danish and a little French. My policy is to be able to say please and thank you in any country I visit. Although when I visited Russia this past summer, I only knew "no thanks" before we got there, and there never arose an opportunity to say that in 4 days as a tourist.  There I needed to be able to say “vegetarian food” and “How do we get to the St. Petersburg Hotel?” Without those two phrases, we got a little food and a lot of walking. Thank goodness for the breakfast buffet at our hotel!

What do Scouts and Brownies do?
Let me start by saying that I know almost nothing about Girl Scouts and Brownies. I’ve promised my 4 sons that one day when I have a granddaughter, I’ll be  a girl scout leader. Until then, it’s cub scouts and boy scouts all the way.  My oldest son is a scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop, and he’s doing a fantastic job. My teenage son has just finished his eagle scout project and just has 2 merit badges left to make eagle rank. This is the son who led our whole family into scouting.  My youngest son is in his 3rd year of cub scouts, which makes him a bear cub scout.
Let’s start with the job of scoutmaster. He acts as an advisor/mentor/coach to a group of boys 11-18 years old. The boy scouts are supposed to be scout-led and plan their own activities, but they do need guidance along the way. The scoutmaster is also a liaison between the troop and the community and the troop committee (adults).  So, what do the boy scouts do? The goal for all boy scouts is to reach Eagle Scout. This takes a minimum of 2 years, 21 merit badges, a special eagle scout project and serving several functions within the troop.

There are 12 required badges and 9 elective badges to be chosen. The boys start out at scout rank and advance to Tenderfoot, 2nd class, 1st class, Star scout, Life scout, and then Eagle scout. There is a boy scout handbook with all the requirements to reach each rank, and this includes skills like camping, fitness, knots and plant identification.
The cub scouts have 4 levels - Tiger, Wolf, Bear and Webelos. After that they move to boy scouts (at age 11). At each level, they have a handbook with requirements to complete at that level. My youngest son has finished his Tiger and Wolf badges and is now working on his Bear badge this year. He has almost 50 activities to do to earn that badge, things like community service, family activities and educational stuff. Today he’s been working on 3 activities about Tools for part of his Bear badge.

My teenage son originally started with the scouts in Sweden, which is co-ed and has almost no ranks. There it’s just about skills, camping, and education. He says he learned a lot of his skills there, before he started in the BSA. Now he is called upon all the time to use his scout skills in his Boy Scout troop. Sometimes I’m amazed at how much he has learned by being in boy scouts.
Subjects he never would have explored or places he wouldn’t have visited if it hadn’t been a required badge. Like this past week, when the troop visited the Yuma Proving Grounds (military test facility) to learn about troop mobilization. Also, his Eagle Scout project was so huge, but he learned so much from producing a play for the local homeschool group. It gave him a chance to test his organizational skills and to work with a host of adults and children.
As you can tell, this is a subject I love to talk about and can go on and on.

We seem to have taken part in the same events in past Novembers (NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, IComLeavWe). How did you manage to do all of them at once?
This is the second time I’ve done NaBloPoMo, and I was successful again. As for IComLeavWe, it was my first time, and I wasn’t totally successful. Ah, a learning experience. Several years ago, I successfully completed NaNoWriMo. Yay! But the urge to do that one again hasn’t come over  me yet. It took a lot of concentration and dedication. Congrats to all those who finish that!

You're related to Vanilla Ice and Bruce Springsteen. Any other famous names?
Those two are both related to us on the Van Winkle side of the family. My grandmother was a Van Winkle. All Van Winkles in the US trace their heritage back to Jacob Walichs, who was among the first Dutch who helped “buy Manhattan” from the Native Americans. My teenage son is so happy to be related to Vanilla Ice, but couldn’t care less that Bruce Springsteen comes from the same Dutch-American family tree.
I just consider myself fortunate to have had a great-aunt who actually kept the family history and passed it on to me in both written and verbal form.  It’s definitely a subject I can talk about for ages.

What was your favourite part of London that you got to see earlier in the year?
That’s easy… Hamleys. I have 4 sons, and they have all loved Hamleys and still love it whenever they get to go to London.

How easy is it to stay optimistic in times like this?
I’ve always been an optimist. Right now I’m trying to memorize the Optimist Creed, because I’m a member of a local Optimist club. The kids in the Jr. Optimist club that I act as advisor for say that I am one of the most cheerful people they know.
One teenage girl says I’m a little scary because I’m so cheerful. I think much of my attitude comes from my father, who taught me that everything will work out fine. I admire him greatly and just follow his example.

Knitting vs. crocheting. Discuss.
I love to do both, depending on what project I’m working on. Lately I’ve been having fun with guerilla knitting and freeform crochet. Sometimes I want to crochet an amigurumi, and later I may be knitting a prayer shawl.  My three oldest sons can both knit and crochet, but don’t usually have the time or interest to make anything nowadays. For me, it’s a way to relax when I find time to sit and watch a DVD with one of my sons. My oldest son loves to watch DVD boxed sets, so that’s the perfect time for me to knit or crochet.  Now to find somewhere to hang up the three guerilla knitting pieces that I just finished.

For more, see Laurina's blog. Thank you for answering my questions!

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

A few minutes.

Whilst editing a post for today and correcting a few grammar mistakes, you realise that it's almost already Saturday. This means that you've failed NaBloPoMo. You disregard your old post and start this one instead, ranting at how a couple of minutes can make you fail so spectacularly.

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Stairs.

According to Joe, I should dedicate today's post to gravity and stairs. The following conversation that happened as a result amused me.

Joe: Blog about how not running down stairs is a waste of gravity
Kitty: It'd make more sense to jump down the gap in the middle.
Joe: That would be a waste of functioning legs.
Kitty: I suppose the question is whether you value life over gravitational potential energy.
Joe: I like to take a middle ground and run down stairs

Well, it's better than anything I had to say today, anyway. Do *you* value life over gravitational potential energy?
...This question should really be on a T-shirt.

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.

Christmas decorations.

Every year, I pass houses like this:

And this:

And even this:

Whereas mine more closely resembles this:

It almost makes me want to do this:

Originally published at rammi.glomp.me. You can comment here or there.