Caitlin Burke

Yesterday in the office, Roscoe really got into a bowl of grits. There wasn’t much to see while his face was in there, but when he took it out…

I visited the Getty Center while I was in Los Angeles a couple weeks ago and very much enjoyed the grounds in particular.

Or should I say, “the ground.”

I took some time off going out of town a couple of weekends in a row, but I still got a few things done, which I’m finally documenting. Here is a proof of concept, about 5 inches on a side, of a new cat bed I’m making.

The final piece will have fleece on the inside and wool on the outside, be circular, and will have quilting on the bottom side, but I wanted to piece it together and figure out how I would finish all the seams before I actually cut into the fabric (which is pretty nice). Before I sewed this, I sketched it on paper and then pieced one together with tape and napkins, and those exercises were very helpful. This little fabric piece came together in about 5 minutes and disproved a concern I had about how I should pattern it, so it was both very satisfying and genuinely helpful.

Mr Bun stuck his head into it but declined to be photographed.

Fossil. August 2005

Fossil is so named because as I constructed it I was thinking of Meganeura,
a huge 320 million years old dragonfly-like insect belonging to the Protodonata group,
which had a wing span of around 70cm.

See larger photos and more at James G Watt’s site.

Last night I took a night off, and tonight I did, too, but I at least got out of the house. I joined Kishore Hari’s Down to a Science program for tonight’s presentation from Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute.

Shostak talked about the history and mission of the SETI project, and took lots of questions from a largely excited and completely sympathetic audience. I can’t really do justice to Shostak’s talk. If you’ve followed SETI at all, frankly, there was not a lot of new information, but I hadn’t quite realized what an engaging speaker he is ad lib.

And he took potshots at dolphins, Neptune, San Mateo, college education, the impoverished prisoners of the 4 dimensions we experience, people with navels, AND the post office. I mean, in a nice way, but I can’t help saying, you know, the post office has a really hard job. It’s like DNA, when you think about it, especially if you really love your Netflix subscription, as I do – so many things can go wrong it’s kind of amazing what a good job they do.

Anyway, if you get a chance to see him in an interactive environment, go!

Well, not all of it – some of it is legitimately awful taxidermy. But some of the entries at Crappy Taxidermy are clearly trying to do something other than simply mount the remains of animals in order to preserve a lifelike appearance.

Did you go there yet? OK, admittedly, a lot of it is just awful. If you’re patient, though, you’ll see some weirdly wonderful things in there.

Ok, this is kind of a cheat. Today I made Rice Krispie treats. No points for guessing what else I “accomplished” today.