Getting things rolling

On Wednesday, I started at my CERA job. I had expected there to be several student employees for each evening, but it turned out I was the only one. Larissa Mottl, the manager of the Prairie Studies program, drove me to the EEC (Environmental Education Center), which takes around 20 minutes to get to. On the way we talked about the snow, and how it's been melting. She's been living here since 2000, so she was able to tell me to expect probably at least one more good snowstorm, sometime arond the beginning of March. Coincidentally, we both want to build a snow sculpture with the snow when (if) it arrives. She wants to build a buffalo out front of the Prairie Studies office and even dye it brown. And I want to build this. She told me there's a snow sculpture contest in town that I could enter it into, but I haven't found out anything about it yet. The EEC is a really pleasant, curved building, and won the first LEED Gold Certification for low energy impact in Iowa. We went to a room overlooking the snow-topped prairie and she pulled out some equipment for the seed cleaning we would be doing: sieves, bins, and a grinder consisting of a rectangular boat-shaped wooden bowl lined with rough rubber and a similarly lined square block of wood with a handle. She also got out a big bag of leadplant seeds, and the showed how to go about getting them out of their hulls. We do this to make it easier to know how much seed we have, to make planting scientifically easier, and to concentrate the viable seed. It's a long process, and we'll be doing it for the next several weeks. I got to use a pretty keen blower to separate the chaff. So, I did that for my shift; she did a few other things around CERA, and then came back to work with me. We got through a fair amount of seed. It sounds like a really tedious and unrewarding job, but it's actually a lot of fun. The seeds release this hearty smell as they open up. It's a real smell, one straight from the earth, and I'd wear it before any cologne. Operating the blower is pretty neat. It doesn't get boring, somehow. I really like working at CERA.
-The Grinnell Krokay Front is now an official group. I've put up those posters, and we're going to play a game tomorrow at noon to draw interest. This game should turn out to have more players; they've said they're going to make an effort to actually come, instead of leave for D&D with no notice. So, this will start being somewhat regular fun.
-I got some books yesterday that I ordered in the mail. They're by Daniel Pinkwater. It feels really good to go back and reread these for the first time in years. This guy is so much fun. I sat reading them most of yesterday and today. I also borrowed How We Are Hungry from the library, and at some point soon I'll be getting House of Leaves. ("House" is always printed in blue in it. It's supposed to be a really interesting and odd novel. It has backwards, rotated, and labyrinthed text at parts; there's an appendix; it has footnotes, and its footnotes have footnotes.)
-And, I've been finishing the font. I was just about to sell it, but the rep said he'd like me to add some more characters first. Luckily, these characters are just the ones I have, with diacritics added, plus a few math signs, so I've been knocking out the expansions at a rate of three or four hours apiece, spread across whenever I have time. I should have them all done and ready for sale in a week or two. I ended up not needing to buy the expensive program I was going to buy, because I found a free one that will do the same stuff for me. I'll let everyone (and that's going to be a pretty inclusive "everyone", because I'll be very excited) when it goes on the market.
-Lastly, the GOOP leader training for this summer is starting next Sunday. It will only cost some time on Sundays plus $40 for a trip at some point, so I won't even need to ask for money. The leaders last summer told me they got paid $250 for the trip. Isn't that great? I'll be getting paid to go have a lot of fun!