Virtual Brush Box

Words of the outside world. Letters of Note: I like words, 2012. Hat tip to M.

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Me: Six for six! I am a puzzle goddess!

Voice: Seven

Me: They gave me six puzzles. I bounced them back without flaw.

Voice: Seven.

Me: I am … what?

Voice: Seven. There were seven puzzles in the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.

Me: Oh, all right. I did puzzles 1 – 4 and 6 – 7 with zero errors. Puzzle 5, not so much.

Constructor’s notes for puzzle 5:

And then there’s Puzzle 5. The evil, evil Puzzle 5. The impasse to any and all positive solving momentum up to that point. It’s designed to be truly impenetrable on purpose, to separate the elite solvers from the rest of the pack. Think a Thursday-plus-plus theme gimmick combined with Saturday-plus-plus cluing. Oh, and you have only 30 minutes to finish the whole thing. The vast majority of solvers come nowhere close.

This Puzzle Is a Battle, Sam Ezersky, The New York Times [April 19, 2023]

My notes for puzzle 5 – Why is this even fun?

Aside from that, I had a good time.

Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament
Virtual Crossword Tournament Program
31 Mar – 2 April 2023
IRL Stamford Marriott

75 Incorrect letters (yes, all #5)
place – 125 out of 238
score – 9997 (No idea what this means)
virtual results

Reporting on the ACPT from earlier this year, because Saturday posts are about words and fiction is not happening and I’m trying to be okay with that.

Links

List of results, videos, & news articles, 45th ACPT.

NYT: A Knack for Wordplay and Kindness Is Rewarded, Rich Norris, the former editor of the L.A. Times Crossword, will receive the 2023 MEmoRiaL Award at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Amlen, March 30, 2023.

Chris Zetter: Learning American Crosswords

Posts

[Pondering The Rules Of Play, The 44th Annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament] 2022

[Horses In The NYT Crossword]

[Let The Boxes Begin, American Crossword Puzzle Tournament 2021] Click over for longer explanation. Aside from improved results in non-5 puzzles this year, my solving approach & experience was much the same as in 2021. Now that the tournament is hybrid, Puzzle Dude Will Shortz made a point of addressing the virtual people from time to time. Which was a) nice and b) makes me hopeful about them offering virtual again next year.

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. Popular Science: Marble is luxurious—but is it sustainable? Delgado, 2022.

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Imerys – Gantt’s Marble Quarry Observation Point
Sylacauga AL, USA
July 2023

Bham Wiki: Gantts Quarry

Technical Details

Path. f/14.0, 1/125 sec., 85.0 mm, ISO 100, manual

Pond. f/13.0, 1/125 sec., 32.0 mm, ISO 100, manual

Things I Forgot

The heat was getting to me more than I realized, causing me to forget the meta photo. I snapped a photo of the sign instead. What was I thinking? [Dog] [Blaze] [Forest] [Joy]

Also, “One border color as a thread throughout the project. Picked #808080 gray for the grayscale of photography.” [Photo Safari The First, Beeswax Creek Park]

Decided to restart this. Usually, I take the border color from the photo. Note the different colors on the meta photos. Keeping a consistent color will give the project unity.

After drafting this post with grey borders, slight change in plans. I think I’ll use the grey border for the SLR photos only. Meta photos are camera phone pix and will get the standard treatment. This will keep the big camera photos distinct as a group.

Update. Going to go with Nikon yellow (#FFE100) for the meta pix borders. Appropriate, goes with the gray, and satisfies my need to sort things onto categories.

Meta photos while I was still working out the plan. [Beeswax] [Coosa]

Meg McKinney’s meta photos. [Arrive] [Road Trip] [Magic]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. BBC: Tiny Roman dog remains found during Oxford archaeological dig, 25 July 2023. Hat tip to A.

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Part I [Dog Nicknames]

Jasmine, aka Cerberus

Rose sleeps in a closet, on a crib mattress. Jasmine sleeps at the foot of the bed, on a dog bed and pile of rugs.

Rose often feels the need for a short constitutional in the middle of the night. She’s very good about it. She crosses her dog paws until someone gets up, escorts them down the hall, waits for that someone to open the front door, trots down the ramp (mostly), does her thing, and comes back inside. Easy-peasy.

The problem is getting out of the bedroom.

Basset Hounds are long dogs. When Jas stretches out, she often blocks Rose’s path to the door.

Rose finds a slumbering Jasmine to be an impassible obstacle. Hence the nickname Cerberus, after the three-headed guardian of the gate to the underworld.

Me: C’mon Rose. It’s not that hard.

Rose: (looks up, mournful and flummoxed)

Jas: (sleeps)

Eventually, Rose will skootle through the gap at one end or the other.

Once, she jumped over the somnolent roadblock.

The struggle is real.

Jasmine & Rose Fan Club [list of posts]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. It is rarely a good sign when a state makes headlines. At one point Monday night, this was the lead story. CNN: US Supreme Court faces ‘outright defiance’ from Alabama. Wolf, July 24, 2023.

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The hind foot. Boss level bucket soaking.

Milton has decide it is time for a summer vacation.

He has turned up with a mild and mysterious lameness, which is behaving a lot like his abscess a few years ago. [Milton’s Foot Diagnosis Develops]

Similar symptoms include popping up after rain, no visible structural damage (which is good), and slight heat in a fetlock (which was misleading last time). [An Alternate Explanation]

An abscess would be uncomfortable for Milton, would be annoying for his people, and would not resolve overnight. However, would be way better than other options that come to mind.

Cross fingers that it will be shorter than the last go-round. We are attacking it as an abscess immediately, rather than dithering about what the cause might be.

We liked how the poultice approach worked previously. [Abscess Treatment]

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. I never got the hang of Twitter, despite repeated attempts. But I know many people enjoyed the platform for business and entertainment. RIP blue bird.

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The things you see while ground-driving, that is.

Fortifying during a workout. Excuse the snaps. Getting better clips is on my list.

Stopping off at the restroom before work.

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CW for blatant bodily functions.

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Note the crossed hind hooves. Milton has a wide stance

Onwards!
Katherine

Awareness of the outside world. CNN: What you need to know ahead of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Ramsay, July 19, 2023. Runs from July 20 to August 20.

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We bought cattle ear tags to use tick repellent. [Tag You’re It]

I braided one tag into Rodney’s mane and one into his tail. A few days later, the tail tag had fallen out. A few days after that, I found a tick in his tail. Still none in his mane.

Causation? Coincidence?

Coach Kate attaches hers to the fly masks. We don’t use them, so that option is out. [Tag, comment]

Since one of the goals is to keep ticks out of their ears, the ideal would be to have the tag attached to the forelock. I am concerned that this would upset the horse, causing head shaking, causing the tag to go clunk, causing more head shaking. Cue hysteria cycle.

A person in the driving world (waves hi!) has the tag braided into the forelock. I can only assume they have a more amenable equine than we do.

Onwards!
Katherine

Art of the outside world. Lindsay Kelley, fringe foods, bioart, uncommon modes of food preparation & ingestion. Hat tip to A.

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Butterfly Garden
Painting knife & acrylic
Workshop with Lisa Opielinski
Alabama Art Supply
July 2023

Instagram post with exemplar painting, @opielinski: July 1.

Students were supplied with canvas, brushes, and all relevant unguents. The canvas came with raised butterfly. We supplied the texture streaks and the color.

Despite being as accomplished in art as I am in dance (read, not at all), I learned that I have a preference in brushes. Who knew? The idea was to use the wide brush, above. When the instructor did so, she got a gentle wash of variegated color. When I used the wide brush, I got a large blotch. If I was not careful, I got a large, mud-colored blotch. I discovered that I preferred using the narrow brush to place the streaks of color where I wanted them. Control issues? Moi?

I also learned that acrylics are more forgiving than pens. Purple? I must have purple! No. No. Not that much purple. Hastily paints over with white.

Instructor was quite tolerant of having a heathen stomping around her class.

New Project

To keep Sunday posts from from being all lettering all the time, I have decided to embark on art adventures. Once a month. I shall go forth and dabble in various modalities. If I can find a class, I will go places & do things. If virtual or a kit, I shall stay home & learn things. Going places and learning new things are both good for my sanity. Avant!

Onwards!
Katherine