Self Portrait with Corn

I used to have a drawing blog which I have since deserted. One of my husband's friends commented that he checks my old drawing blog every day in hopes of me making a new drawing. That is a bit sad- but it explains where all of my traffic comes from...

Anyway- that comment inspired me to draw tonight. And here it is: Self Portrait with Corn. Obviously I am the orange lady. Do you like that groovy hair flip I have going on? This weekend I saw a black woman with short hair flip it up to one side. A-symmetrical they call it. No, in real life my hair doesn't actually look like that.

And then you see my students-represented by the blue piranhas sucking the life-blood out of me and carelessly spilling it on my clothes-and face-and hair. Damn students! Stop sending me a million emails and complaining about 2 point deductions! I have research to do! (And lives to save.)

To my right you see The Corn, and between us: wedding bells. This is supposed to be representative of the fact that my new boss "Alice" just got engaged. Well- he asked her- I bet on valentines day- and they got the ring later. A beautiful diamond ring. And since he asked her on VDay- he is depicted as corn. And since diamonds are impossible to do justice to in the 2D form in which my art lives-- we have the bells.

What these two things really represent I think is the fact that I am looking forward to having lunch with my new boss "Alice" tomorrow at the semesterly "Take-A-Prof to Lunch" event that my university holds. I have asked around-but little is known about Alice- or her Fiance. They both have tattoos. It is interesting to me that such a superficial observation is all that my lab mates have gleaned about them. But this will all change tomorrow at lunch when I discover the life of my new boss, my favorite professor.

the floor is made of lava

toothpastefordinner.com

How Babies Are Made 10/30/08 is a blog post by Natalie Dee that has significantly influenced my life. Hopefully the link gets you there. If not, I believe I have provided enough information for you to find it.

How Babies Are Made has cured me of my "baby wanting" for the time being. This is good, because the idea of babies seems very appealing when compared with the drudgery of my graduate program-- however, the Hell written about in How Babies Are Made is significantly worse than grad school.

In other news, Tino has requested that I post some pics of the pups. Previously, I have refrained from posting any photos of my dogs because it could be incriminating evidence of my true identity. But now, I say: Bah! I am taking the risk.

The first photo is of Herman; I have titled it: The Floor Is Made of Lava, because he is walking from the chair to the couch as a kid would if they were playing the game.

The next photo is of Diego. He is our little Red Headed Step Child.

And finally, we have them both together on the couch in Together On The Couch.


Training Success: A Review, Days 1-5

The book says that we are supposed to do 2 training sessions a day of 20 repetitions of click and treat for 3 days. That didn't quite happen. I do think that my dogs get the idea of their current training sessions now, though. Here is a review of our progress:

Wed (day 1): 1 session PM
Thurs (day 2): 2 total sessions: AM and PM
Friday (3): 1 session AM
Saturday (4): 1 session AM
Sunday (5, today): 1 session AM

Today I actually have time to do more sessions with them but I am going to try to move on at this point. So far we have had 6 sessions which is the same number we would have had in 3 days of twice a day.

In Chicken Liver news, I have decided to trash the remaining livers. The livers have a grainy texture that fragments in my fingers as I try to feed them to Diego. On top of that they smell horrible. Chicken Livers have been the bane of my training existence.

I am also looking forward to moving on to the next training exercise because Diego has a problem of being over-zealous about food so that he scrapes my fingers with his teeth every time I try to put a treat in his mouth. I have cut up longer strips of centimeter cheese to help with this, but the box game that comes next will solve the teeth scrape problem.

happy birthday, America

I love America, and it seems that the fourth of July makes women want to bake. It is the summer and berries are everywhere so most people make some whipped cream and blue-berry-strawberry cake thing. Not me. Finally I am posting a photo of the disaster of the red velvet cupcakes.

I had such high hopes for these little guys. But the blue is baby-blue, not royal blue, and red-velvet cake is foul. If I were to do this again, no, I won't do this again.

I felt very unmotivated Saturday. I bet there is a correlation with very hard work during the week and total lack of motivation on Saturday. I did get one thing done! I got booton a gift card to bed bath and a nice wedding card. So I will send that off soon. Etiquette sites say that you should not give people gift cards for wedding presents. This is rubbish if you ask me. Once people start having registries, gift cards are okay, because basically they are picking their own stuff out anyway. Gift cards just allow them to get specifically the exact thing they wanted most off of their registry but have not yet received.

We saw Wall-E on Friday night. It was okay. More of a romantic-drama than a romantic comedy. I prefer my romances comedic. How could the fat people make babies if they weren't used to touching each other, that's what I want to know!

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. At least it is another 4 day week for me, because Jips and I are going to my dead grandmother's memorial service on Friday. I am looking forward to the little vacation.

Mosaic

I found this Mosaic Idea on Adventures of a Bad Ass.
Click over there for the instructions.
Here are my answers:

1. What is your first name? Fermi
2. What is your favorite food? Blueberries
3. What high school did you go to? LHS
4. What is your favorite color? Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Jack Black
6. Favorite drink? Diet Sunkist
7. Dream vacation? beach
8. Favorite dessert? cake
9. What you want to be when you grow up? rich
10. What do you love most in life? dogs
11. One Word to describe you. silly
12. Your flickr name. (I don't have one, but it would be The Fermi Level)

Thank you to the following Flickr people:
1. Baby Buffalo at Fermi Lab, 2. two blueberries, 3. Bristol LHS VOD93K Devon General, 4. what's with the purple bags????, 5. Jack Black as "Nacho Libre", 6. Beverages, 7. Dracula's Castle Panama City Beach, FL, 8. Trial Buttercream Wedding Cake - Mini, 9. triangle to rich, 10. Three Dog Road Trip, 11. Silly Saturday Centerfold, 12. Fig34 (0.1 fermi)

Crown her Broccoli of All

Inspired by Maru when she made her Broccoli Father's Day card last Saturday, I made this Broccoli Valentine! Yes, that is a silver glitter outline and real red bows in her Broccoli-Crown.

This is not quite as RED HOT as Mrs. Smoltz's valentines, but I gave it my best shot.

Will there be another valentine tomorrow?

There is only one way to find out! ;)

Harrison Ford as INDIANA Jones

I can't help but smile at this RED HOT LOVE valentine.

He has ribbon streamers coming out of his hat! RED HOT.

This is the last of the Mrs. Smoltz valentines, but there will be another valentine posted tomorrow... by yours truly.

Heart of IRONman

Don't be fooled by the small size of this photo. This RED HOT LOVE valentine takes up the whole page of a normal sheet of construction paper. Mrs. Smoltz made this one as well. In the center we see Iron man in a Tux looking sexily off to the side as he poses for this RED HOT LOVE valentine photo op. Immidately behind him there is a pink heart that kind of looks like bunny ears. I told Mrs. Smoltz that she should accentuate the bunnyness of the valentine and add a cotton ball as a tail. She didn't go for that option, obviously.

Brace yourself for tomorrow, when we unleash the best RED HOT LOVE valentine yet! A valentine so RED HOT that 2 photos are needed to give it justice!

Glitter John Smoltz

This valentine was made by Mrs. Smoltz, for her love: Glitter John Smoltz. Notice the glitter on the Braves jersey, and the glitter accentuating the love symbol.

Who will steal our hearts tomorrow when the RED HOT LOVE series continues?

Broccoli with a neck-tie

I hung out with Maru yesterday. She made this father's day card. Broccoli with cotton balls painted green as the flower-bud part, and a ribbon tied around the stalk in a neck-tie fashion.

After our hang-out date, she invited me to come do her radio-show with her. I accepted. It was pretty neat. I was the guest DJ Fermi. It was terrifying at first, I don't think I have smoked enough pot to be on a college radio station. But then when Jips told me via Google IM that you could tell I had never been on the air before, I decided to step it up a notch in the "coolness" arena and I think it went better from that point on.

Who is this Joker?

I had a girl party last weekend. We made valentines. It was fun. Mrs. Smoltz's were the best... I have decided to start a one-a-day feature of the Smoltz valentines. Today is the first one.

I call this one: Who is this Joker?

Mainly because I don't know who he is. Notice the beautiful purple ribbon streamers accentuating the heart shaped love-symbol. Tied to one side like the attractive side pony tail of Deb (a la Napoleon Dynamite.)

There were two especially interesting quotes of the evening:

1. The bible can help you learn your elements!

and

2. I think I have weed poisoning.

Both were said in the form of stories, as we did not actually have bibles or weed at this party. Glitter and Ribbon were plenty enough.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another RED HOT LOVE!