Sean Markey

Get the EFF out of my yard

Sean — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 07:37:01 +0000

Stupid raccoon. Mostly I like nature, which is why I have two bird seed feeders and a hummingbird feeder in my backyard. But when the fatest, most fearless piece of TRASH raccoon comes climbing down the tree and starts smacking the feeders around with his fat little paw, then I get a little less excited.

You can see from the pictures that I was pretty close to this big guy, and he didn’t really mind. Just eatin’ some bird seed, like ya do. Lovely night, isn’t it?

I’m looking for solutions on how to get rid of him without KILLING him, so if you have a thought, please let me know. Probably will end up calling animal control to come get him. I’m really going to try and find one that doesn’t just toss all captured animals into the Tree Shredder 3000. But if he keeps wrecking my stuff, I’m going to care a lot less about this little rascal’s future.

Blackberry Blossoms

Sean — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 18:41:53 +0000

That awkward moment in between blossom and blackberry

(click pic to embiggen)

July 4th is like the New Years Eve Halfway Point

Sean — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 07:27:22 +0000

Lots of fireworks going off tonight. It’s strange, having grown up with animals that ALL THE WAY freak out when the fireworks start going off. The animals now could care less.

What’s that noise? Eh, nevermind. I’m just gonna lay here and be my black cat self in this dark doorway–surely no misfortune can come of this.

Silly cat.

It feels like July 4th is a great time to take a look back at the last six months and get all reflective and analytical. Maybe it’s just the fireworks. Whenever there are fireworks we should think about how we’ve been performing, and what our goals are for the future. Also fried chicken. We should eat fried chicken and watch fireworks. I think I just jumped off track…

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I spent Friday with Beth at the hearing and balance center where she underwent tests to see how bad the Labrynthitis (that she got on May 20th) affected her. It turns out her balance is 75% damaged in the right here. What does this mean?

Labrythitis is believed to be caused by a virus, and affects the inner ear, in the place that handles your balance. People affected by Labrynthitis come down with a TERRIBLE case of vertigo. Some of the damage can be permanent, and the recovery can last months as the brain has to be retrained in how to balance using the undamaged inner ear.

It’s been a crazy month or two, but Beth starts Physical Therapy next week to help her brain compensate and learn to balance using only the left ear, instead of relying on both.

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Last night I woke up to get some water and saw the idiot cat sleeping on the floor like this.

This morning when I went outside, I watched this Robin pull a worm from the ground in our front yard, and then fly up into our ANCIENT Lilac tree with a worm hanging from its mouth. This is why we don’t spray for weeds. Birds LOVE our yard. So do worms, I imagine.

Our Roses

Sean — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:22:35 +0000

As promised.

It is not quite like an English cottage, but I like to pretend. It has yet to hit 80 degrees for 3 consecutive days yet this year (and yet, back east, it is pushing the 100s day after day). And that’s why I love Utah.

Back to school, again

Sean — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 04:10:51 +0000

This week I celebrated (with no fanfare) my one year anniversary of working as a special ed teacher. After a two week break, I went back to work–that was hard. Since I work at a private school, I don’t get the typical 3 month Summer break, but I think I like it better this way. I get two week off after semester #4, then we do a 7 week summer term, and then another 2 weeks off before the fall semester starts.

I’m still putting together my side web-site, The Instant Rockstar, where I write about how to become a musician, with posts like “how to hold a drumstick.” If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to play the drums, I recommend giving that site a look, or at least helping me spread the word. I’d definitely appreciate it!

In Utah, the weather has warmed up (finally) and the roses and other assorted flowers around our house are madly blooming. I will post a picture tomorrow with my nice camera.

Recently, I’ve been considering writing about my progress and my road to creating a website, and trying to start a business. Perhaps I’ll post about that more, soon.

Until then!

The State of Things

Sean — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:31:06 +0000

So I haven’t posted since January. There I said it. It’s funny how one builds momentum in doing (or not doing) something, and it just becomes so hard to do it again. ”Yeah, I’d like to write about this, but I haven’t posted since January!!”

Oh well. I’m going to post whenever I feel like it. It’s my website, after all…

I’ve been changing a lot of things lately, mostly my focus and how I spend my free time. I’ve been working on somewhat of a business called The Instant Rockstar. Want to learn how to become a Rockstar? I’m going to teach people how to read music, how to play an instrument, and maybe go into attitude and fashion. It’s been a lot of fun and I anticipate I lot more fun to come.

I’ll post here about my progress with The Instant Rockstar, and I’ll also maybe post about some of the other projects I’m working on.

I will leave you with a picture of my cat, because you are THAT special.

Cat in the Sun

Coffee Noir

Sean — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 01:10:16 +0000

Up early (for the weekend, anyway) and checking out a new cafe. it’s called Coffee Noir and it’s…. cozy. The coffee is DELICIOUS though. There’s not much room for a crowd, with seating for about 12, but if you can snag a table it’s a comfortable friendly place to hang out.

Just visited their facebook page and it looks like they’re closing at the end of the month (or when they run out of inventory). SADFACE.

The Movement of Storm Clouds

Sean — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 07:31:45 +0000

One day I will write a story called “The Movement of Storm Clouds.”

Spent a good chunk of today out with the wife recording some video for a super awesome project she is working on. The location offered us some nearly panoramic views of the Salt Lake valley, so I used our new HD camcorder to record a little storm cell passing across the valley like a scapel. Only a narrow path in the west valley got precipitation from this.

The footage is sort of sped up to create a time-lapse view of the storm, because, man! Clouds are slow!

And for extra fun, here is a photo I took of the storm with my iPod. Unedited. Woo!

(click picture to embiggen)

No, I won’t trade you my macbook for a canoe

Sean — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:32:51 +0000

I recently put my macbook up for sale. I was selling it at a used price, but I still sold it for several hundred dollars. I listed the ad on craigslist and on ksl.com, a local news organization’s classifieds listing. I got many good offers from KSL, and a couple from people saying basically “Hey, I don’t have enough to afford this; I’m a student. But I really really need it. Would you let it go for 500?”

Fair enough. It doesn’t hurt to ask.

But I got a lot of people from craigslist asking me if they could have it for 500, or for 250. A 2010 macbook. I was kind of amazed. And then I got the best email of all. I am bringing it to you in its entirety:

I have tools or a canoe that I would like to trade for. Are you willing?

Not tools AND a canoe. But tools OR a canoe. WTF, awesome!

No, I did not trade my pretty macbook for a canoe, but I found a reasonable buyer who paid asking price.

What about you? Would you have been tempted to trade based either on the absurdity of the request, or the shoulder-shrugging chance for future adventure?

the newest edition

Sean — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 07:14:46 +0000

Tonight Beth and I bought a Sony Bloggie Touch camcorder. It’s kind of like a flip video recorder, except this takes 12MP pictures, which is pretty handy. We are both beginning to work on separate projects where high quality video and imaging would come in handy, so we decided to get something a little nicer than the camera that comeswith an iPod touch 4g (nice as those are…).

So I took a little video of it snowing tonight, though you can’t see much of the falling snow, and edited it with the iMovie software. This is my first try with the iMovie software, so I went a little overboard with the effects and such. It’s totally cheeseball, but it was fun.

Enjoy!