June 2010 – Learning Machine

One Ring to Rule Them All

As I mentioned in my post about our wedding, Austin and I a few months ago debarked upon the path of creating customized bands. My engagement ring (pictured below) is an unusual shape so we needed to create an interlocking band. As for Austin’s… well he deserved some bling! Here are some thoughts and results…

The Planning

So this is my engagement ring… sorry for the quality. Shinies are hard to photograph with a cell phone camera.

Enagement Ring

Austin bought it at Diamond Exchange. He wanted to get a tension setting… but those are SUPER expensive so he found this unique setting which mimics the look. The experience was positive so we went back to the store for our bands.

I had read in some wedding book of a Victorian tradition where you spell out words with gemstones. Me not being a big diamond fan and the fact that using gems are a money saver we decided to run with it. While those crazy Victorians spelled out words like “L-O-V-E” and “H-O-P-E”, Austin and I decided upon initials. Austin would have two sapphires for Sheila Suarez. Where I would have A-D-F for Austin David Flores (as you will see later this was harder then I hoped).

The Jeweler is a fantastic designer so with my input he came up with this for my band:

Sketch of my band.

Austin meanwhile picked out a white gold/”frosted” band. He then designed his own gem setting, very reminiscent of this TrueBlood ring:

Only instead of two bands… its one… and Sapphires that make the infinity symbol… much like the tear drop stones on mine. So really not like the above at all.

Results!

So creating customized interlocking rings is not for the weary… It took a lot of visits to the store to ensure the bands fit the original engagement ring perfectly. And even then its not perfect as to be expected from a man made metallic object. But it looks darn good! Austin’s was of course much easier. Behold my precious…

My band separated. We have dubbed it Bling-A-Tron.

So the final stones actually don’t spell out A-D-F but S-D-F for Suarez De Flores (my future last name). I really wanted to match Austin’s name but after an extensive search the only F stone was the Mexican Fire Opal (left stone). And orange does not match any A stone… So for Suarez we used Spacerite Garnet (right stone) which is a light orange. Luckily Diamond Exchange did their research and was able to figure this out for me!

Final Thoughts

Creating customized bands are expensive but I would do it again in a heart beat! This is creating a legacy for your family and a hand me down.

If I had to do it again though I might have done a little bit more checking around as far as jewelers. Though I will say Diamond Exchange really pulled through. I heard though that putting in an alchemy request on Etsy.com can be great and more affordable.

Also using gem stones while cheaper can be tricky as they are not even close to as hard as Diamonds so may break easily. My fire opal broke during construction and they had to replace it. Luckily my jeweler constructed it so that when put together the Diamond sticks out slightly and protects the site stones, but still it is a risk that I will have to maintain. Here is a scale to give you an idea! The problem is this scale is not a set ratio so the difference between level 9 and 10 is .. well .. ten fold.

In the end, you will probably end up sautering together your ring. While nice to be like a puzzle, after the wedding day you will most likely never wear them separated (mostly because wearing the band alone could risk breakage as its created to be together). And if sautered together the ring is more protected from warping and breakage. Kinda shame… probably will do it myself… :/ And of course this costs more money.

So have fun and don’t pull out your hair!

Shinies – S

Biking On the Road is all the Rage

I didn’t have the best friday and I needed a diversion that wasn’t food or drink to bring me back to earth. I really have been striving to find balance in my life as far as my health, stress level & recreational time.

After talking to some friends I heard about the Cross Seminole Trail head being just down the road from us. I did some research online but found scant resources in my precursery search. The most informational being: this and this. I actually used a different map then the latter which I can no longer find.

Either way we hydrated, put on sun block and hit the trail.

First 4.5 miles were great. The trail was awesome and I was mad at myself for not doing this more. In Pittsburgh, as a child, I used to ride ALL the time.

Uhohs

Then we hit the end of the trail. Uhoh. This was supposed to go for 20 miles, of which we planned only to do 10. All the informative end of trail sign said was “Use side walk”. Which does not sound like good advice anyway since there was a bike lane on the road… I guess for families that is good.

So as a conscious effort to follow the rules of the law we rode in the bike lane. And rode. And rode. No trail reentry.

Finally we decided to cut our loses and ride back home by making a loop past UCF. Which meant riding on University Blvd. A road with no bike lane. And as we found out a lot of ignorant drivers despite being near to a major University which should have lots of student bicycle traffic. No wonder students are afraid to ride there.

We work off of University Blvd. and have been anxious to get some practice riding in the road on it, as we are by law supposed to. Plus, riding in the the road forces the cars to notice you rather then the side walk where distracted drivers have been known to turn and hit bikers. This being a Saturday with no traffic we felt it would be optimum practice.

First of all I know riding in the road is the best. But it did not feel safe. Despite no traffic angry drivers constantly cut it close, honked, yelled & pointed at the sidewalk. Yes. We get it. We are not blind. We see the sidewalk. One car got really close to Austin. We rode taking up the right lane as to ensure that drivers would not try to cut it close. But they did. In the 4 mile stretch we had at least 2 close encounters and 7 angry honks. One from a mail man! Slowest vehicle on the road…

Why does the right thing feel wrong? Other people.

I have mixed feelings about this experience.

I already know biking to work is hard for me as much as I want to do it as I only live 5 miles away. 1. I’m not good at getting up early, as biking doesn’t take long but getting there with time to shower is hard. 2. University Blvd is just not bike friendly and its just a damn shame. On all the roads there were bike lanes it was awesome and I felt fine but University Blvd was hell.

I feel like a chicken but though I plan on biking more I may just always ensure I take a trail or a road with bike lanes. With some research I figured out that google maps has a bike trail view (bike button at the top of the directions) and I saw that we were supposed to veer onto a certain road to catch the trail again… Thanks for the signs, County.

I feel riding in the road was correct. By law and as I vehicle I had every right. But with the angriness and the close calls it was just not a relaxing experience.

Austin and I will be taking a road biking course hopefully soon so perhaps that will change my mind. I just wish I had the time to lobby for… or for the government to… put more money into bike commuting, bike lanes and educating the public about sharing lanes with bikers. I feel UCF also is missing out but not pushing for a more bike friendly campus/locale.

I’m proud of myself though! I almost gave up as one point but I kept on going and ended up biking 18.6 miles! Pretty darn good I do think so… 🙂

Our Path: http://tinyurl.com/2dyjgzf

I guess my message is take bike lanes/trails as much as possible. But do your research as far as your options. And go out of your way to find safe roads if you do not live in a bike friendly area.

But if you are stuck on a road with no lane. Own that lane with no apologies. No matter how much they honk. It’s safe and you have every right.

Honk – S

First Post… BEES!

So finally put this blog on my own namespace. New title: Learning Machine. Because I am… a Learning Machine (think Iron Man).

Still have to make my own theme. I have an idea. Might take me 2 years to find the time to implement it… Personal projects are usually the last to be implemented/finished.

But mark my word it will be glorious when I do.

So to mark this moving how about a post?

Bee-Me-Geden

This weekend I went down to South FL to visit my parents. Turns out they had their own smoke monster a brewing… honey.

Smoke Monster

Seems since 2005, the year of hurricane Wilma, my dad has not used his grill. Partially due to lack of opportunity and partially due to the hive of bees that took residence in the grill that was secured a tree (hurricane proof and great for bees!). My dad being a fairly nonviolent person despite the muscles and martial arts training left the bees alone. Or at least he did until last week when they didn’t like him mowing the lawn… they didn’t like it one bit. As evidence by his swollen bitten face.

So my father launched several attacks upon the bees: spraying poison, trying to lodge drum sticks in the hive & running at first site of swarm. Even got my brother in on the action at 1am last night. But the freight train mega-hive was pretty smart about protecting their Queen so stayed strong.

Enter Mr. Craigslist

So Bees can suck but they also are slowly dying. Which as someone, who relies on her daily transfusion of honey to make her allergies at least placebo effect better and a general lover for the natural world, makes me sad. I swear, everyday a tablespoon of raw honey, lemon and cinnamon… makes me feel super strong. I started taking it a month or so ago and immediately felt better though I expected it to effect me next spring. *shrugs*

My friend Natalie’s family owns K&D’s Honey Bees and she had mentioned to me that people sometimes call them to humanely remove honey hives. She gets the sweet sweet honey, bees relocated, people bee-less. Everyone wins!

So 2 hours south and sympathetic to the bees I turned to craigslist. My mother had called the county and some local honey harvesters to only get no response. I hoped the Internetz could help us.

The first question is Under what category do you post giving away an angry swarm of bees? I decided “free stuff” and “wanted” (i.e. I want you to take my free bees). You have to be careful about posting the same post in two categories as its against the rules so I used my genius to reword a three line advert basically saying “HELP! We love bees. Relocate our grill full-o-bees!”.

The next morning we had three responses! Two offering the service and one hoping for me to clue them into who they can call to give away their own angry swarm.

Save Bees: Smoke Them Out

Some very nice people came, got the bees drunk off of smoke and then loaded up their truck with 50 lbs of honey, a bucket full of wax and many other buckets of confused bees. Sadly the honey will just be thrown away due to my dad’s first attack of poison. But the wax is good. The bees saved. And the internet has saved the day. Really there are going to be some sad lost bees on bee milk cartons and not all of the hive can be taken together. A sad swarm will still hover over the spot for the next 3 days. Until, according to the beekeeper, other bees from all over the place come pick apart the useless remenents of the hive and they all fly off together humming happy songs.

Moral of the Story

If you have bees on your property. Resist poisoning them. They are slowly becoming endangered and their sweet excrement is awesome. Call your local honey harvesters. And if that fails just post on craigslist. If we can have three responses quickly in Port St. Lucie… I’m sure you will have no problem. It’s free. Humane. And I’m sure you could ask for a jar of honey (if you haven’t poisoned the crop).

BEADS! – S

Lost No More

So I started this post before Lost ended. This is all I had… “Things I hate about Lost:”

I’ll try to put a more positive spin on this situation by introducing some short lists of likes, complaints and solutions…

Likes

No complaints about the acting. Locke/M.I.B. played Terry O’Quinn especially shined in his contradictory but convincing roles. Michael Emerson (Ben) was also a favorite despite how they let his character peter out.
Some real novel intriguing ideas, too bad it was piece-mealed together. It’s not enough for me that it was “art” or “unique” I need some resolution. They could have been more successful with sticking with oneish concept (time travel, human experimentation, salvation).
Something to watch/bitch about.
Some really good character origins. My favorite episode being Locke’s “Walk About” and Sawyer’s “Confidence Man”.

The characters/actors made Lost.

Dislikes

Overdone suspense music even when revealing a twist for the third time… I don’t care if THIS character is learning it for the first time, we already know.
Gimmicky twists as mentioned above. Especially when in regards to fate. Fate is interesting when its not written (such as coincidence in life), unfortunately there is yet the technology (or amount of intelligent chimps) to produce unwritten shows that aren’t reality shows. So lay off of relying on fate. Of course its all intermingled, you wrote it like that! Oh lord, Jacob touched him!
No regard for my time by letting the ending be what it was.
Character development became more mechanical towards the end as people were used as stereotypes of themselves to move what little plot there was. So Sun spent days seemingly sitting in one location (totally amnesiac of her daughter) until someone told her Jin was where they were going and she followed them.
Time wasted on flash sideways when we had wrapping up to do!

I FELL ASLEEP DURING THE FINAL SO DON’T REALLY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT HOW IT ENDED BUT THIS IS WHAT I SUGGEST AS FAR AS HOW LOST COULD HAVE SALVAGED THEIR DIGNITY

Woke up confused. Austin explained the end and I was even more confused and slightly agitated.

My suggestions go as follows…

We know we can’t make the island purgatory because some asshole guessed that on a forum after Season 1. And we DEFINITELY know we can’t make the flash sideways purgatory because that would mean a majority of season 6 was for naught. We don’t want to waste people’s time… do we Lost? So how about instead of purgatory we make the island REAL LIFE and life before the island hell? And the flash sideways if they had gone to heaven and not hell and if they redeem themselves in real life (a.k.a. make nice on the island and don’t let the Devil in Black leave) they will attain heaven.Okay you know what? Scratch that the island should have been purgatory we all know that and that’s why some troll guessed it. I don’t care if they would have had gloating rights you should have stuck with it Lost.
The gold shiny light? Should have been time (or at least explained). This theory doesn’t really explain why time turns you into a black smoke monster but we as humans strive for more time (longer lives) so that makes the shinies worth it to fight over. It would explain the longevity of the protectors. Also, if one person released or stole it all it would end time as we know it for everyone else. Also, explains the magical time travel. The flash sideways could have been an alternative universe spawned by the explosion that must be united with the “actual” universe in order to stabilize time. The island could be basically the knot that holds together time (or the cork if you prefer) and Jacob and M.I.B. the humans deranged with power by living at the nexus. You can also explain Jacob getting off the island as time travel can be perceived as space travel.
How about jumping the shark and explain it away as… aliens. Jacob and the M.I.B. are aliens enacting their own “Crash of Titans”. In some sort of Truman Show biosphere they crashed our plane on to their “mechanical island space ship” and are testing our virtues. The flash sideways are another simulation that they are putting people through and by realizing this the humans end the aliens hold on them.

Pick one. Still better then, some hole light thingy that Jack magically could just plug back in and flash sideways being some sort of limbo where people magically have stupid sons.

Done – S

To be fair I was the one that watched it for 6 seasons… by the ending I just didn’t care. Made me long for the days anticipating the ending of worthwhile series like Battlestar Galactica. Even if their payoff wasn’t great either…

Doomsday Book – Book Review… OF DOOM

So in my many forays into “having too many hobbies” I have founded/maintained for the last two years a book club, Y.A.W.E.R.S. (YAY! Adults Who Enjoy Reading Still formally known as Young Adults Who Enjoy Reading Still).

Here’s my review of our May read…

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Synopsis:

It is the not so exciting future (other then… you know time travel) where historians are the new Indiana Joneses, the bell crazed British are sending historians back to the past, by themselves, to chronicle history. Shenanigans occur. One part historical fiction, one part sci fi, another part medical drama. A pretty surprising multifaceted book, that despite long sometimes frustrating inner monologues will keep you guessing (and you’ll find you were probably right) and interested until the end.

Thoughts:

I liked this book. It wasn’t what I expected (mostly because I’m bad at reading back covers/reviews). It really has a little about everything and keeps you interested. Connie Willis’ view of the future is not super exciting (then again it’s only 50 years from now) but the time travel aspect adds a twist. She in my opinion cops out though with the book’s universe rule that you can’t travel back in time and effect the past because “the net” that takes you back won’t let you go if you can screw it up. Really takes a lot of balls to trust in that one.

The characters aren’t SUPER endearing but they are likeable enough. The parts in the past both anglicize the people of the time and forces the point that its not the fairy tale era that SCA members day dream about. Apperantly she did her research though (didn’t travel back in time though… :/ Where’s the commitment?) as best as she could and its pretty accurate to the 1300s.

One sometimes frustrating and sometimes interesting aspect of the book was Connie Willis’ ability to really get in the head of the unreliable narrators. Large stretches of the book are spent with the characters listing what they needed to do full of self doubt or full hardy promise. Made me stress and urge them a long. It wasn’t Grapes of Wrath in length of description though so it was barable. The way she stretches on inner monologues also is mirrored in her plot reveals. Good twists but I guessed them 50-100 pages before as there is very obvious lead up.

Rating:

3 out of 5 penguins for gumption!

Read On – S