photo session

today our wedding photographer met us for an engagement session! we smiled a lot. i can't wait to see how we look... in the meantime, i'll share with you the faces i made in these self portraits courtesy of my iphone...

sunset sail

pictures from the sunset sail.

the sights of RISD

i have to echo John Maeda here-- when i see things like this i don't really flinch, i just think of RISD.... [via Our (and Your) RISD blog]

001:365

001:365
Originally uploaded by shanalines

i'm going to post a picture every day. this is the first one.

genius

lawn sized scrabble!?!?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2008288666_zliv20lawnscrabble.html

weekend

it's always hard to get back to the daily routine after a trip... we finally put most of our stuff away yesterday-- still a few things to get back in the kitchen, and some stuff to stow in the basement... yesterday we got to spend some time with kevin and parini who were in town from LA! check out our silly Halloween photos... oh the other picture is from a spice store.  i found this setup of couscous particularly funny-- is there actually a difference between israeli and lebanese couscous?

WV photos

the full albums are here and here

WV

we are back. it was a fun trip. i don't want to go to work.

here's a photo of bridge day.

weekend adventures

this is going to be a long post.  i hope it's worth your time to read it-- i have to document this before i forget it all.

this past weekend was kind of ridiculous.  enjoyable, memorable, and ridiculous.  it was perfect climbing weather, so dan and i decided to head up to rumney, and were excited that darren would join us as well.  the original plan was to go up saturday for the day, since i had plans to see david sedaris at symphony hall sunday.  well, we had to run some errands saturday that could not be done sunday, so instead darren got the idea to drive up saturday night to camp, therefore getting an early enough start sunday so we could make it back.  sounded great! dan remembered we had heard of a place called D'Acres, and organic farm close to climbing that has camping as well as indoor sleeping accommodations and i thought it would be easier to sleep in their yoga room rather than pitch a tent, so off we went.  

seriously, the whole D'Acres experience was under 12 hours but MAN was it CRAZY!! somehow the website seemed rather unassuming and i didn't realize that the place is a commune of sorts.  we arrived around 8:30 PM, and entered a large house.  i noticed on the way in through the garage a free-standing bathtub with what looked like laundry and ice cubes in it... odd, i thought, but i didn't mention anything to dan or darren.  a guy was putting on a pair of boots by the door, and told us to go inside an talk to the guy with the goatee.  so we did.  the first thing this guy says after dan says we have a reservation to stay in the yoga room is "have you been here before?" to which we say, "no".  his immediate response is, "isn't this place great?" and we all kind of said "uh, yeah" even though we'd only been in a large garage, a hallway, and now a kitchen.  right.  then he mentions something about the yoga room being upstairs, and the composting toilet, and that we can't wear our shoes upstairs.  he shows us the yoga room, then we go back to the car to get our things.  

there's a bonfire going across the "street", so after we drop off our things, we take the 6-pack of beers we brought over there.  i think this was the point at which darren suggested asking someone what the hell was going on... interestingly i don't think we ever did.

let me try to set up the scene:  people are quietly sitting in a circle around the fire, there are 2 guitars, several bongo drums, a diggerydo (i have no idea how to spell that) and maybe a rain stick? and singing.  oh, and the fire! there was an elaborate contraption set up in a teepee form with what we later found out to be a tangerine tree suspended over top the flame.  then we see close to the fire what looks like a large paper mache head, probably 6' diameter, about 15' up.  it is right next to a real teepee with its own mailbox.  so we start to drink our beers and i feel totally out of place-- we chatted with one another an again i felt like it was inappropriate to talk with the singing!  luckily about 10-15 minutes later someone came back from town with a bunch of beers, and some of the original musical group left.  at that point it changed to a regular campfire, which was cool... we met this guy who lived there, and he was all fun...

 dancing for us, chatting us up-- then he grabbed these fire balls (i'm not sure if there's a better word to describe them?) and started slinging them around in a wild dance.  it was kind of surreal.  oh, he told us the story of the teepee fire thing, which was a remnant from their middle earth party a few weeks before, in which they lit a bunch of leaves covered in vegetable oil.  BUT my favorite comment he made was this: a bit later 2 of the residents started playing guitar.  i could not identify the song, as they were not singing.  so this guy says to us "hey, is this hotel california?" i am about 99% sure it was not, but i said "it can be if you want it to be" so he says ok cool, but i forget how it starts.  so i lead him to "on a dark desert highway" and he says "oh, ok, but i have to do it reggae style" from which point i think he sang most of hotel california with a reggae beat-- which, by the way, was totally not what the guitars were playing!  ok, so then back to the fire, good times... then a conversation starts about a pig roast.  apparently the bathtub with ice was holding a pig.  on ice.  to cook.  i mentioned having seen this, and it was noted that i was "more observant than most" to have noticed a bathtub filled with sheets and ice.  so they rally up a few guys to start setting the pig up-- it would take 1 hour at 350 degrees for each 10lb of pig... or so they say.  hm.

overall it was a good time at the fire.  then we headed in...

the yoga room floor was not comfortable, despite our sleeping pads.  the room was huge and had maybe 8-10 people in it. it was also right above where the people had started cooking the pig, so it was not that quiet.  eventually i fell asleep.  at one point, though, i thought dan had rolled over in his sleeping bag onto my legs, because i felt something pushing on my legs.  i was actually quite warm at the time so i reached my hand outside the bag and then i seriously screamed-- my hand landed on the back of a cat! A CAT! dan woke up and i told him about it... but i think he fell back asleep immediately.  well, i could not sleep.  dan is allergic to cats-- and i later found out darren is, too-- so i took it upon myself to defend us against this cat by NOT going to sleep.  i was super hot but convinced myself i had to stay entirely zipped into my bag in case the cat tried to attack me.  also, this guy across the room was snoring like a train.  or something else loud.  it didn't even bother me though because it helped me to stay up and defend against a cat attack.

in the morning we were planning to have the pancake breakfast, but that turned out to be a bust... so we left that zany place in search of a diner.  the diner was tasty.  climbing was good.  the whole experience at D'Acres lasted from 8:30 saturday night to about 7:30 sunday morning.  it was a different world.

attached are a few pictures of the fire, the yoga room, and climbing.

thank you for reading. 

for today

another case of mistaken identity

i am at dan's parents' house now in preparation for rosh hashanah dinner... i am sitting here with dan's mom and i was just telling her dan's case of mistaken identity, only to find out that she too had a similar experience-- she was being confused with a speaker or writer of manuscripts, in florida. her response was something like "i am not the fran you think i am, i am not a writer and i live in the northeast".

like mother like son, i guess.

happy new year to all!

a case of mistaken identity

dan and i were just discussing an email that was sent out to the residents of our condos about noise.  he claimed to have not received it (it turns out he had not checked his email since it was sent) but told me he received a message about the garage door opener-- mind you, we don't have a garage door.  he then reminded me that he's been getting emails for a different condo association-- somewhere in Canada actually-- for the past 3 months.  apparently they have the email addresses wrong so he's on the list.  he keeps trying to get removed from the list, telling these people they have the wrong dan-- and they don't believe him! they just keep emailing him.  so we were thinking that when people see the intended dan walking around they must give him dirty looks, because the unintended dan continues to ask to be removed from the list on the grounds he does not live there.  they must think this guy is crazy.  meanwhile on this end, it's annoying but also hilarious.

a fall saturday

we got pumpkins.

we went climbing. 

and this time the pretzels were a success.

short sleeves

the shirts are successful. note the smile.

stay tuned

recently dan took 2 long-sleeved dress shirts to the dry cleaners, and beyond just getting them cleaned, he asked the cleaners to tailor the shirts so that they will be short-sleeved shirts-- these shirts in particular had developed holes in one of the elbows. if possible we will pick them up today. yesterday, however, dan raised a good point: how do they know how short to make the sleeves? is there a standard short-sleeve length proportion based on the size of the shirt? what if they end up too long? or too short-- muscle tee style?

photo to follow later when we see the finished result.

fun friends photos and food

what a weekend-- a whirlwind trip to new york for a wedding, plus mini visits with many MANY meals! some of the photos are posted here

wii and blueberries

yes, it was a good few days.  dan and i enjoyed a rowdy game of 4 player wii tennis at tobias and tessa's place.  totally great.  only a few unintentional physical hits with the wii remotes.  today we went climbing in rumney and on the way back, we picked our own blueberries! we left after picking just one pint but i was impressed with the couple who showed up at the same time as us and left with at least 3 pints.  it was clear to see they had more experience picking blueberries.  we are still happy with our crop.

hello

hello reader(s). here is a wrap-up of my weekend: friday i took a half day at work so i cram for my general structures exam, which i took saturday-- i hope i passed! i felt ok about it-- i have to say the room was too hot and i ended up kind of bailing on a few questions at the end, so i hope it didn't kill me... we spent saturday night in RI with dan's parents and grandma who was in town from AZ-- it was nice and relaxing and quite awesome to watch some Olympic swimming in HD on their awesome TV! sunday we all went to Mystic, CT for an outdoor art fair, then an early dinner at Mystic Pizza 2-- yum! dan also got the idea to bring home a mystic pizza so we'll get to eat one tonight, too!

i'm totally jazzed about the Olympics but i have to say our TV doesn't really hold a candle to HD... oh well. i have a feeling i'm going to have to be ok with not studying for my next (and final?!?!) exam for the next week or so while i enjoy the games!

are you wearing hot pink?

yesterday and then again today i spent some time with my college friend jessi who was in town for a work conference. it was a healthy and much needed friend visit... i decided it would be good to hang out rather than cram for my structures exam since jessi always did well in structures... i figured she might wear off on me. i think it may have worked: jessi and her coworker took a cab to meet me after work today, and she called when she arrived... i spotted her and told her to walk ahead to the side of the park where i was seated, and she said "ok i think i see you, are you wearing hot pink?" to which i replied, "yes, are YOU wearing hot pink?" we had managed to wear nearly identical shirts! amazing! i think she definitely started to wear off on me... now, if only i could solve the forces in a truss...

hip hip

HOORAY!