Kristen Ankiewicz

This has been a long-range project, but oh so fun and satisfying.

Super-cute fuzzy and squishable stuffed animals are here!

You know you want one.

His name is Smuckles. He is a little orange slug who is always happy to cheer you up with funny stories.

Next up: fancy pajamas, for nap time. Because what's cuter than a stuffed animal slug? Stuffed animal slug with eyestalk warmers.

The latest drawing is here. You are all reminded to buy stuff.

In the process of editing monsters.net I discovered a converter to change HTML characters into plain text, for displaying source code on the page.

<h2>
This is some HTML.
</h2>

Normally the above snippet would display like this:

This is some HTML.

Three red monsters decided to fly off into the sky, today.

Does anyone have an example of rounded corners with a drop shadow using CSS/image sprites, and an extensible content area? I want to achieve this kind of drop shadow, but with curved corners:



So far this set of examples from Yahoo is as good as it gets, but there is no single combination of all the features I want. The example that uses one single image seems better suited for dialogue boxes of set height, rather than extensible boxes. I like Leslie Sommer's examples of curved corner boxes that uses CSS sprites, but I would like an example of a curved corner box combined with drop shadows.

We hiked Windy Hill Open Space Preserve today. This owl was sitting peacefully at in the grass.



I haven't hiked in a while, my feet are complaining.

I haven't really dealt with my old posts on lj, or anything. However I've mostly decided that my most-updated blog should be my home page, ankiewicz.com. Also, I've updated it with photos from Mexico.

I visited Windy Hill Open Space Preserve today. It was full of flowers and wildlife. There were ginormous lurking frogs in a swampy pond (Sausal Pond) making silly sing-songy noises. They sounded more like geese than frogs.

Last weekend I hiked Castle Rock State Park. Also totally loaded with wildflowers.

If you want to see flowers, now's the time!


The hip injury that was putting a dent in my running schedule seems to be healing. I hope to be back into the caving and running routine again soon. (Tip: if your leg hurts on the first day, don't run on it a second day. And a third day.)

Yesterday I made cookies, from scratch, for the first time in my life. AAAUUUGGH BUTTER nom nom nom nom.

Dinner tonight: avocado/tomato/corn/pea salad with blue cheese and buttermilk dressing. Again, NOMNOMNOM.

I went hiking in Henry Coe State Park and posted the photos in my
california gallery:





Alas, I think I overdid the hiking and running, because now my left hip hurts. I haven't been able to do my tuesday-thursday run routine with the coworkers.

I have intended to post some stories about my Hawaii vacation, but WOOSH, time just flies by.

Here's one Hawaii story, anyhoo.

The very first day of our trip we went to see the Wailua waterfall. It was huge and rushing and loud, with a rainbow in the mist at the bottom, and lush greenery all along the sides:




There were at least four signs that said KEEP OUT, DANGER, DON'T FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GO BEYOND THIS FENCE. One sign said PEOPLE HAVE DIED HERE. Out of the blue, a local guy came up to us and told us about a trail that goes to the bottom. We'd be a-okay, he said. It's a little muddy, but there are ropes we can hang onto, no problem.

Well then! Ropes? Mud? Excitement? Disobeying some stuffy signs? Awesome!

The hike was not too long, but it was very slippery and involved ropes attached to trees. By the time we reached the bottom, I was doing the full butt-slide-in-the-mud thing, and we had attracted the entire population of Kauai's mosquitos. BUT! We got to see this:



Double rainbow, even MORE rushing waterfall, lush jungle. No people! The view from the bottom was much more exciting than the view from the top. I don't fully capture it in the photo above, mostly because I didn't want waterfall spray on the camera, but you get the idea.

In more recent news, I have updated my paintings website: http://www.ankiewicz.com/paintings. The blue ones at the top of the small acrylic gallery have some metallic shimmer paint and a bit of glow-in-the-dark.

Work is great, but deadlines seem to rush at me all the time; I need to come up with a better way to manage them. zecco.com is the site. In theory, I could be active in the trading community on the site. I have a $100 starter fund, maybe I'll blow it on some penny stocks.

I have been jogging much more consistently. 3 miles at a go, 4 or so days a week. Not too shabby, but I'm trying to push it up a notch. I might do Bay to Breakers with a coworker. I'm dieting, as usual. I don't feel totally out of shape, but there's a layer of pudding attached to me that I'd like to mostly shed.

I just got back from Hawaii, and I am rested and tanned 'n stuff. We hiked, snorkelled, and took boat rides, and saw tons and tons of rainbows (also roosters). More stories later.