April 3

Apr. 3rd, 2014 09:00 am
cerealjoe: (Default)
Taking a break from photos today.


cerealjoe: (Default)
Oh man, I can't brain right now because of the jet lag, so instead of trying to align two words about the World Cup Stadium I drew up something. Hooray! Posting schedule respected and fun times were had!


March 18

Mar. 18th, 2014 03:36 pm
cerealjoe: (Default)
We're not really following the usual schedule today because, as usual, I am the queen of last minute planning! Although, honestly, this time it's not totally my fault. The thing is these days I usually go through some photos, post process them and schedule posts with them in the morning, every day or almost. This approach does not really take into account last minute life hiccups known as strikes of the air traffic controllers in France on the day when I'm supposed to fly in. All of yesterday I couldn't check in online and that seemed strange to me but I didn't worry too much, sometimes it happens and I can always check in at the airport. Then last night I got an email from AirFrance telling me to, if possible, reschedule any short or medium flights I would be taking to/from/in France as the air traffic controllers said they would be on strike and no one really knew how many actually would be and how it would affect air traffic. I had a bad feeling about my second flight (considered short to medium and domestic) because it was most likely one of the last one to land in Marseille and those late night flights are usually the first to go during strikes (don't want to be mean but quite a few peeps are "on strike" by going home early...) I checked online when the updated flight scheduled appeared and guess what? My flight was cancelled.

That was last night and as of last night my plan was just to take my normal flight to France and then just spend the night in Paris and take the first flight/train down on the next day. Then I slept on it and decided that I should just go to the airport earlier (we're talking 5-6 hours earlier and therefore cut out my usual photo processing time) and see what kind of stuff the airline agents could come up for my case, maybe they could transfer me to another company flying through another hub because apparently domestic flights had more chances of being cancelled. Worst case scenario was that I would just ask for a one day delay in my flights and I'd stay one extra day to explore Inchon (because amazingly I've never been to the city besides flying in - then again I've never been to Marignane, or at least I don't think I have, and how many times have I flown out of that airport... but Inchon is a huge city that's quite something to visit and Marignane just isn't). Anywho, I got to the airport, made a last minute stop by the post office and then went off to find the KoreanAir counter since they're the company that have a code share with AirFrance. The lady at the counter told me to go to another counter where I might just catch the "AirFrance manager". I did catch him and it was my lucky day because there was another plane headed to Paris and departing about 45 minutes from then. I don't know if the people at the counter are just that nice and helpful to everyone (I hope so!) or if I just looked so desperate and/or I was kind of demanding (my opening line was "so there is this strike in France today and my second flight got cancelled, what can you do to help me?") but they got me on that earlier plane and then on a second flight to Marseille that wasn't cancelled... and then all I had to do was run to the plane. And if you Inchon you know that's quite a trek because there is are tons of escalators to take (where people do not respect the whole "stand on the right and let people go faster on the left" principle) and a little train.

All this to say that as of right now I'm just waiting for my second flight and it's not cancelled for the moment and I might actually get home tonight, not quite so sure about my luggage but there wasn't much in there besides two bottles of 2 euro soju - have I ever mentioned my talents for bringing home amazing souvenirs from my trips? That is literally all I've brought back (to be fair I was planning on getting a few touristy stuff at the airport because apparently thimbles are not a huge souvenir thing in town and I couldn't find any anywhere... but that airport souvenir shopping thing obviously fell through a bit)

And instead of photos today you get something I drew in the plane!



January 30

Feb. 1st, 2014 09:00 am
cerealjoe: (Default)
Taking a break from Spain - here is a doodle of what was on the table last week.

cerealjoe: ([kpop] WG - Sohee - waitinnngggg...)
BRB. Being busy and stuff.

So here is a beautiful night sky over a city… Yes! That's a city. Those are totally buildings. You just don't get my artistic vision.

Those don't look like tombstones at all.

Dammit. Yeah, they kind of do. Blah. But they were meant to be buildings. I mean, where have you seen so many different colours in a cemetery?





Speaking of tombs and stuff, apparently Steam has all the Tomb Raider games available on direct download. I have not given in, I have managed to stay away from Steam for this long, I will not give in now. I'm part of the old generation, stuff like Steam totally puzzles me.

(Edit: I just checked and the TR games aren't available on Mac from Steam in any case. Otherwise they have this awesome bundle that would have probably been mine. Sometimes life wants to keep me [kind of] focused on work things and reading and doodling and all those fun things.)
cerealjoe: ([cycling] Eddy - little drowned rat)
Foreword: I'd like everyone know that 99% of my commute rides are awesome but, let's be honest, writing about them isn't all that fun because it doesn't help me exorcise any demons. So let's move on to the real exorcism...

Fuckity fuck. This morning's ride was hell. Nothing was beautiful and everything hurt. It wasn't even raining, the roads weren't overly wet, there wasn't too much wind. Perhaps that makes my poor performance all the more annoying. All I wanted was a nice cup of hot chocolate, with full fat cream, no sugar, good quality cacao powder, and to some extent that's better than last time I had a terrible ride because hot chocolate is better than 6:30am beer or cider.

Alas I have no full fat cream and no cacao powder at work so I had to settle for tea, the name was something like "cheery tree on a rainy day"...




All this whining on LJ and doodling was brought to you by their amazing Gali!demons exorcising properties. For some reason email writing and publication copyright pdf form filling out do not have those same properties.


PS: someone make me new icons (or direct me towards good sources of icons)... although this "poor little drowned rat!Eddy" will always fit with descriptions of bad rides.
cerealjoe: (H2G2 - whale/flower OTP)
I am not MIA! I have just discovered the joys of a busy life. Just kidding. I'm just lazy and there are books to read and there is the call of the outside when there is a bit of sun.

I wonder if there is a name for the feeling of guilt one develops when living in Nordic countries when it comes to seeing some sunshine outside and deciding to stay indoors. It's a real thing. It hits you square in the face, "I should be outside, there is sunshine! Soon it will start raining again and then it's going to be dark at 5:30pm! I cannot possibly stay indoors!" That and the feeling of pure satisfaction one gets from beating the rain like I did this morning. It's a feeling of glee only five year old kids should feel and only when faced with an unlimited supply of candy/ice cream and legos. But really, one of these years I should move close to the equator and not have to deal with amazingly different day lengths.

That brings me to the point that I should start thinking what the hell I want to do after my defense because that's most likely less than six months away, five if there are no more fuck-ups. Post-doc in some random country (apparently there are some positions open in Singapore that might interest me), teaching environmental stuff/creativity/engineering design in some random university (I've always wanted to finally put that "languages" section in my CV to use), going into industry (9-5 sounds so... not my thing... not that I have a thing for late night writing and weekends worrying about stuff), forgetting about science and getting a job that would require almost no input from me (to be honest, "mindless" work sounds so appealing although I would probably tire of it after two months), other. And by "other" I probably mean trying to find the meaning of life, possibly by writing self-published books of poetry. Except that poetry is not my thing.

Man, that was a downer! Actually this is why I was considering participating in the NaNoWriMo this year and write a book called "The Dark Side of that PhD Stuff (Spoiler: There Do Not Have Cookies There)", it would exorcise, at least partially, my inner PhD demons. Except that apparently NaNoWriMo is just for fiction novels. Fucking sucks, if you ask me... although from a certain point of view, no matter what one writes, there is always a bit of fiction because no one can be truly objective.

Right... till then, have this amazing representation of life.




It's not quite as accurate of a representation as 42 but I would say it's not far.

(No, I am not functioning on 4 hours of sleep because I couldn't put down my book last night. Why do you ask?)
cerealjoe: (Good Omens - what's my point again?)
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. This whole LA deal is quite the soap opera-slash-detective story, isn't it? And now we have the book that should be the finale but like with all good stories, obviously there will be sequels and prequels and a spin-off or two.



Am I going to read the whole report? Most likely, yes. First of all because of the title, "Reasoned Decision of (...)", it has a nice ring to it. Maybe we should have a read-along and discuss chapters or something. Some discussions might go along the lines of, "where the hell did the guy get all this money? This is cycling, not football!" from the few things I've read here and there. Overall though, this report will not change much about my feelings on the LA case and doping in cycling. I guess we can thank LA and his stubbornness (or is it hubris?) for confirming what many suspected, if he hadn't been so great at denying everything then perhaps the extent of doping wouldn't have been known. For the rest, I've turned into such a cynic in the last few years that I actually feel bad for Mr. George, Michael Barry, etc. and their little PRed statements on their doping pasts. Out all the known dopers from the last few years, the ones that I have come to "forgive" (or at least the ones I manage to watch win and do other awesome stuff without going "yeah, right, like that's for real") are the ones with the nice and humble personalities, so maybe that's why I'm totally inclined to feel bad for Hincapie and Barry and not some others in the bunch.

Truth be told, the part that totally gets me down is the way LA seems to have bullied his way through life and doping. That totally undermines all his positive contributions. His story, or at least the one he has always told, has definitely inspired more than a few and now these people learn that chances are whatever they were inspired by wasn't worth all that much and on top of that the guy destroyed the lives of those who wouldn't cooperate and intimidated the others into doing as he wanted... that totally sucks.

Still, I suppose I should point out that lately I've figured out that men's professional cycling has always been about entertainment for me. It's really triathletes and seeing that they're humans and that cycling doesn't have to be about 200 kilometer stages that has pushed towards truly enjoying cycling as a sport. That and the stories of female pro cyclists who have managed to combine cycling with having achieved amazing things off the bike, amazing diplomas, work experience, etc. And the triathlon thing might also explain the extra disdain I developed for LA trying to push his way into tris.
cerealjoe: ([cycling] Eddy - still the boss)
I downloaded all the photos I should go through from the last week... too many for me to even consider post-processing them with the cast still on, they will have to wait.

Till then, maybe I'll be a bit more MIA from LJ than the usual, pretending to be a functional adult is hard work... thank goodness for drawing apps that let one let out frustrations.




And it's the TdF already! The usual "go FDJ!" applies, as well as "go Eddy!"

cerealjoe: (Black Books - Bernard - oh god let me di)


Sometimes there is just no other way to describe a week besides "meh". Or the last couple of weeks, really. And thus the image of confusion, frustration and borderline unhappy colours.

But hey, cycling is still kicking my butt and that's all kinds of awesome. Eventually my legs will, hopefully, stop feeling like logs all the time!
cerealjoe: (Giuly s'etire les mollets)



Hint: it won't happen for another couple of months at this rate :/
cerealjoe: (yellow - happy!)


Saw two groups of two swans today. Poor things, they can't even go to the sauna before hitting the cold water!
cerealjoe: (I hate everyone)


BRB, having an intense love-hate relationship with my thesis right now.


Also strongly considering finally printing out an FAQ answering such awesome questions as:
- so... what's your thesis topic? (answer: euh... so, have you heard about exergy?...)
- you think you're going to be able to finish in time for the early April doctoral approval committee thing? (answer: I don't like you. Smiley face.)
- what do you plan to do afterwards? (answer: first, let me finish this and then we'll see. Growing a beard and joining a circus sounds like a sound plan though.)

cerealjoe: (H2G2 - whale/flower OTP)


Procreate is now my weapon of choice. The interface just makes much more sense than in all the other apps I've tried.
cerealjoe: (thomas - fdj bus)


My new tactic? Doodling about in the hope of kick-starting writing related inspiration!

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