Friday, February 8, 2013

Did you bother tasting that at all?

Monday, when I started writing this post, I was reminded of something a late friend and former coworker once said. We used to go to lunch together frequently, all of us who worked at the Caltech Submillimeter Telescope office in Hilo when it was still on Kilauea Avenue, because it was more or less next door to Cafe 100. Lynn was an electronic technician, a very good one, and I still miss him. A farm kid from Iowa who went into the Navy and became an electronics technician. Later he built himself a trimaran and sailed from the West Coast to Hawaii, missed Hilo by all of about 5 miles and settled here.
One day at lunch I was in a hurry for whatever reason and ate my lunch in about 3 minutes. He said "Did you bother tasting that at all?"

I had such a day last Monday. My office mate of several years Bryan and I went up the mountain to fix some computer problems and run a bunch of tests. At Hale Pohaku, the mid-level facility, where we stop to acclimatize for the altitude I asked one of the cooks about when we were going to have lunch and was told that there was only going to be an early lunch. There went my intention to fix something, get somebody at sea level to change a configuration of computers and get a test going before lunch. We were almost late for the early lunch but got our lunch and ate it fairly quickly and managed to get some stuff done before the person at sea level went to lunch so that I could start my test. We went about the rest of our business up there at UKIRT and got back down to Hilo at a reasonable time. I even got home at a reasonable time, picking up dinner on the way home. As I was both very hungry and very tired I ate that in about 3 minutes as well.

We started having computer problems at one telescope or the other one way or the other 10 days ago. Last night we had the first night at UKIRT when we didn't have any faults in a week. Normally we don't have significant faults more often than every other week at least. We still don't know what happened to cause some of those computer problems, others we're very well aware of.

And as I didn't get around to posting this until now: Congratulations to my supervisor Craig Walther to be RCUH Employee of the Year. He very much deserves that.

To make this a not completely technical post, here's another Etsy Treasury I'm featured in:

'******COLOR OF THE W??NE********' by aytulgift



Formal Ball Gown Pr...
$235.00

Original Burgundy W...
$19.95

The Rose that Lasts...
$14.00

Medusa .. Opaque Ma...
$6.99

Dark Red Garnet Kan...
$22.00

Chunky Macrame Brac...
$11.54

Tie sided Harem Pan...
$34.00

Burgundy Queen Anne...
$40.00

Bridal Clutch Winte...
$46.00

Burgundy and light ...
$45.00

NEW Color- Ruffled ...
$11.99

Embroidered flower ...
$38.00

Turkey Burgundy rub...
$14.00

Burgandy little gir...
$12.00

Arm Mittens Glove /...
$25.00

Ruffle scarf ,Pash...
$18.90

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

'******COLOR OF THE W??NE********' by aytulgift



Formal Ball Gown Pr...
$235.00

Original Burgundy W...
$19.95

The Rose that Lasts...
$14.00

Medusa .. Opaque Ma...
$6.99

Dark Red Garnet Kan...
$22.00

Chunky Macrame Brac...
$11.54

Tie sided Harem Pan...
$34.00

Burgundy Queen Anne...
$40.00

Bridal Clutch Winte...
$46.00

Burgundy and light ...
$45.00

NEW Color- Ruffled ...
$11.99

Embroidered flower ...
$38.00

Turkey Burgundy rub...
$14.00

Burgandy little gir...
$12.00

Arm Mittens Glove /...
$25.00

Ruffle scarf ,Pash...
$18.90

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

(and extra spaces removed by me :) )

Friday, February 1, 2013

New international shipping rates, another custom order and another Etsy treasury.

Last weekend the US Postal Service increased the shipping rates for international packages significantly. While the price for first class packages went up, in comparison the priority mail flat rates went up more. What I used to ship priority flat rate will now be shipped first class parcel if possible - I haven't changed all the shipping rates in my Etsy shop yet, for some things I have just taken international shipping back out as it's ridiculous to pay $23.95 for a priority mail flat rate envelope to Europe if the items costs (e.g.) $3.50. I'm working on it as time allows and so far this week there hasn't been much of that. Of course I didn't want to increase shipping ahead of time.

I mentioned the Hilo High School Craft Faire in an earlier post. One of my coworkers came by with his wife and a friend, and the wife really liked some of my lampwork beads.

He came to me the week after and asked would I make a necklace for her in time for Christmas. I had to redesign once because the seed beads went into the holes of the lampwork beads, but this is how it came out (click on the picture for a bigger one):

The lampwork is goldstone chips (worked too hot) on Moretti ivory and Moretti light teal - and I changed the clasp to a sterling silver one after taking the picture. It's strung on softflex as almost always, with 4mm crystal Swarovski bicones, 6/0 seed beads and twisted square liquid silver.

And my lilikoi seeds made it into another Etsy Treasury:

'Passion' by ursulasalcove

Inspired by the passion flower and my own passion for fiber arts, I hope this treasury inspires you to pursue your passion.


Lilikoi seeds - pur...
$7.00

Deep Purple Handwov...
$50.00

Silk Ribbon Purple ...
$56.95

Vintage Charm Brace...
$19.95

Cagoule feutre/soie...
$77.00

Winter Sale Purple ...
$38.00

Passion Flower Neck...
$35.00

Needle Felting Wool...
$5.00

Purple Swarovski Cr...
$60.00

Purple Passion Hand...
$27.00

Purple Passion Pin
$58.00

Sangria Throw/Wrap ...
$750.00

Royal Purple and Go...
$80.00

Purple Passion Flow...
$38.00

8/0 Czech Glass See...
$3.99

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

(and extra spaces again taken out by me. It's really easy - on a Linux/Unix system. You copy and paste into vi/vim, close the file, open in pico (or nano which is basically the same thing), justify with a ^J and copy back out of the result.)