Q: When you’re unemployed, how is the weekend different from the rest of the week?
A: Um…

Anyway, at least I had more company. Takaza had to work Thursday and Friday (and Monday and Tuesday of this week), so that left me to my own devices for those days, which was odd after having him around for the Christmas five-day weekend. I filled the time with a bit of hiking (I discovered a lovely new place for hiking – White Pines Natural Area, a lovely all-but-deserted area at the confluence of the Deep and Rocky Rivers. It’s a 45-minute drive from our house, but the walk was worth it: kind of hilly, nice flat stretches along the river banks, not a soul in sight. The temperature was in the low-40’s, perfect for a winter hike. Didn’t see much local fauna, probably because they heard me coming from miles away.

On Friday night, we did something a bit atypical for us: we went and hung out in bars 🙂 After shooting some darts at Hot Shots (our usual hangout), we walked next door ad grabbed a spot at the bar at MacGregor Ale House and found a new addiction: NTN Network trivia games. Pretty addictive, though unfortunately it was extremely smoky and afterwards I felt like I needed to fumigate all my clothes.

On Saturday we drove first down to Jordan Lake Dam, which I had stopped by on the way home from White Pines and thought Dan would like to see too. We took a bunch of pictures of the dam and the water rushing torrentially out of the spillway. The Haw River, which the spillway runs into, is actually at a higher level than the spillway exit. The water trying to flow into the spillway meets with the water rushing out and creates a tremendous froth which is simply awesome to stand next to and watch. Dan even took some short Quicktime movies showing the power of the water. Yeah, maybe it just appeals to the engineer geek in me, but I thought it was cool.

After visiting the dam, we drove up to Triangle Town Center and I got some pictures of their very furry Christmas decorations there, and we picked up a few small items. The alleged sales were rather underwhelming, though we picked up a couple of calendars at 50% off. I found my next book purchase – Cookwise, by Shirley Corriher. She’s the food scientist on Good Eats, and the book is fabulous. In the section I was reading, she described not just some good bread recipes, but what each ingredient did for the finished product, and the chemistry behind it. This is a book for me! It’ll have to wait until we have a bit more disposable income, though.

We drove around Raleigh for a bit looking for dinner after we left, and wound up going to Playmakers. We grabbed some dinner, enjoyed a drink at the bar, and played more NTN trivia. A nice way to end the evening.

And on Sunday? On Sunday we didn’t do anything. And it was good. (Candle-lit showers are good too. Oh yes. I recommend them.)

Got shopping to do today. Preparations for tomorrow’s New Year’s Party – need to make tomato sauce for the homemade pizzas we’re doing, and get stuff for the artichoke dip, too. Thomas is bringing his tiramisu, and Donald and Janelle are bringing some delicious champagne too. Yay! It’s a nice day out, so I’ll probably walk a bit too, and listen to some more Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

I have gathered all of the recipes I’ve posted into one place, and I’ll be sure to put other recipes I post there too.

That having been said, here is the recipe for
Duncan’s Cornbread Dressing

I’ve just put up pictures from last night’s Orphan’s Christmas party for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!

Doesn’t seem too different from any other day of the year, and that’s actually pretty much OK by me.

This is the first year that we haven’t really decorated the house at all for Christmas, which sort of makes sense given that neither I nor Takaza celebrate Christmas. It seems odd, though – the break from tradition, like something is missing. It’s not too big of a deal, though. Maybe next year, wherever we are, we’ll string some lights on the house or something. Or not.

So, we exchanged gifts over the weekend to commemorate the Solstice – the beginning of a shared tradition for us, I’m hoping. Things were modest, given my employment situation, but we did well: I got Dan a nice set of darts, a How to Host a Murder game, and Unexploded Cow. After exiling me from the house for a bit, I came home to find his gift for me was a series of chocolate discs (dark chocolate with white chocolate letters piped on – eat your heart out, Jacques Torres!) that spelled out 9-0-M-I-N-U-T-E-M-A-S-S-A-G-E-1 PM MON. And that’s what I got – a lovely 90-minute massage from a massage therapist we know in Durham. It was a wonderful gift – perfect, because it was so nice to relax and de-stress.

So on Monday, after a slow start, I went and got my massage (heaven!), then we met up with Thomas and played some darts and pool and drank beer (well, some beer – I’ve found I’ve developed quite a taste for Smirnoff Ice, too). Sherry joined us when she had finished her shopping and we walked over to MacGregor Ale House for dinner. Dan also discovered the joys of NTN Network, which means we may be spending more time at the Ale House for a while 🙂

Yesterday we had Thomas, Sherry, Donald, Janelle, Beth, and Franklin over for Orphan’s Christmas dinner. It was all quite fabulous – Thomas brought a turkey (brined as per Saint Alton’s instructions) and we indeed deep fried that sucker. It was pretty impressive – 375 degree peanut oil makes quite a fuss when you dip a water-laden turkey into it. But the 12.5 pound turkey was done in 40 minutes (even a bit overdone – we could have pulled it out a few minutes earlier), and it was delicious. Nice, crisp skin, moist meat, and not greasy at all (to me, anyway). I made my mom’s sausage dressing, Beth made a green bean casserole, Janelle made some mashed potatoes, and we were good to go! Sherry made some yummy peanut butter cookies with mini-Snickers in them for dessert, and Janelle also made a chocolate-Macadamia nut torte that was quite tasty as well. We sent everyone home a little before midnight, fat and happy.

And today…today we rest.

I wish all of our friends out there a joyous holiday, whichever it may be. I hope you are with ones you love, or at least in the minds and hearts of ones you love.

You know what makes everything better? Homemade peanut butter cookies. Oh yes.

By the way – if you’re in the Chicago area, you need to fill out Takaza’s poll! Let us know what plans you think we should make for Friday night when we visit on the weekend of January 17-19.

Two things I forgot:
1. chronocoon has finally gotten around to posting a page with his music on MP3.com. He’s a talented musician – you should check out his page, download some of the songs, and buy his album! (If you liked the piano playing in the lobby at MFF, many times that was Chrono playing…)

2. We’ve stopped buying sandwich bread altogether and instead are making our own in the spiffy bread machine my parents got us for our commitment ceremony last year. I make a loaf of bread per week, and I have found a recipe for buttermilk bread that is amazingly easy and perfect for sandwiches.
Check out the recipe here…

For all you concom geeks, here is the demographic breakdown for the attendees of Midwest Furfest 2002. This is a more complete form of the summary that was posted to the MFF-Staff mailing list. These results will also be sent in for addition to the Anthropomorphic Fandom Convention Information Sheet.

Click here for the data

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon…

Oh wait. Wrong shtick.

So anyway, I’ve been puttering along on my job search since Midwest Furfest, tossing applications off from place like Monster and Flipdog with little expectations of replies. Certainly no phone calls from recruiters or anything like that. Well, on Tuesday that all changed. I got calls from three different recruiters, and one other one on Wednesday. It appears that the hoped-for break in the logjam in the first quarter of 2003 might actually be coming to pass.

The first recruiter had a possibility in Boston. I told him I would consider it, but I really was centering my search in the Chicago area. No problem – he can get more info to me and we’ll see what develops. I’d be stupid to flatly turn down anything. The second recruiter didn’t have much for me specifically, but we chatted about my resume for about a half and hour and she’s got a good picture of me and my credentials. The fourth recruiter had a project engineering position in Kalamazoo that requires seven year’s experience in managing capital projects. I only have two years under my belt, so I don’t really think it’ll go anywhere, but who knows? Can’t say I’m wild about Kalamazoo, but I could do worse.

The third recruiter I talked to, though – she had a job I’m really excited about. It’s in Belvidere, Illinois, just five miles east of Rockford. I thought it was pretty far out until I did some checks on Mapquest – Belvidere is about as far west of Chicago as Joliet is south of Chicago. That’s not so bad at all. The job is with Green Giant, which was owned by Pillsbury, which was purchased by General Mills a few years back. It’s a systems engineer position, and according to the general job description sounds like it would be something I would really enjoy. What really got me interested is when I looks at the job benefits – domestic partner benefits mentioned prominently, new employees get three weeks of vacation. Hell, at my last job I was still three years away from getting anything more than two weeks of vacation. Not that it would ever apply to us, but I also noticed that fathers of newborns (and those adopting!) get one week of paid leave – if nothing else, I really like the thinking behind policies like that. I should know in the next few days if they are interested in a phone interview, even though that wouldn’t take place until after the first of they year.

In other news…

Not too much going on. Got some Christmas shopping done. Got our tickets for the trip to Chicago in January as well. We’ll be at NoCoasterCon, then some meetings for Midwest Furfest. Got the budget for Registration for MFF 2003 put together as well. It’s a bit of a crapshoot, but right now I’m guessing we’ll see about 20% growth (down from last year’s 32.5% growth, but better than the prior year’s 8.1%). This would give us a total attendance of 820, with 128 sponsors. I’ll probably be modifying those estimates on the fly as registrations come in.

On the to-do list:
Make bread today.
Watch the finale of The Amazing Race tonight.
Watch the Survivor finale tomorrow night (not that we really care. This season has been a real dud).
Watch the super-duper edition of Fellowship of the Ring this weekend (we never got around to seeing it in theaters).
Go see The Two Towers this weekend.
Meet Thomas (and Sherry?) for darts and beer Monday afternoon (need to look up other game rules so we can play something besides Cricket and 301/501).
Prepare the menu for the Orphan’s Christmas Party we’re having on Christmas Eve (mmm, deep fried turkey…)
Think about the menu for our New Year’s Party. The only definites are artichoke dip and Thomas’ delectable tiramisu.

Happy birthday, Datahawk! It was so much fun imagining what your take on events in Nemesis might have been when you saw it (certainly more entertaining than the movie itself, but that’s just me…)

Here is an amusing story about how a guy in New Orleans got screwed selling an Powerbook to a guy in Chicago on eBay. He sends computer, gets a phony cashier’s check (deposits it, bouncing, fees, etc.). He gets pissed. Using reverse phone number lookups and other net tools, he figures out where the guy is, then takes his case to a couple of Mac forums. He then sets up a sting operation with the local authorities (after some false starts) and nails the evil-doer. And all this took place in the last two weeks. What a great story – check it out.

– Try out a new recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for four-cheese pasta casserole (Italian Fontina, Reggiano Parmesan, Pecorino Romano: good. Gorganzola: bad). For a first, I think we finally found something that Takaza likes that I don’t. Go fig.

– Drive Takaza into work at 7 PM so he can let the BellSouth repairman in to fix their phones. Hey, it gets me out of the house…

– Take car into dealership for two new tires courtesy of some unknown Technical Service Bulletin (“Sorry, we can’t show those to the public.” Riiiight…). This means I now have replaced all four tires on a car that is less than 19 months old. No charge for the tires, anyway. At least I got the oil changed while I was there.

– Do laundry. Strip the bed. Flip the mattress. Make the bed. See the househusky in action! yay.

– Check airfares to Chicago for our January trip (courtesy of earlier bumpings on United, we have a voucher for one free ticket and $100 off another ticket). There’s a 5:25 PM flight we could make with the comp time Takaza got from last night call-in, but it’s $40 more than the 6:50 PM flight. Nuts. Eh, we’ll take the later flight and get in at 8:10 PM. Easier to get out of O’Hare then, anyway.

– Takaza’s Holiday party, postponed from last week due to the ice storm, has been rescheduled to January 4. Damn. I was so hoping it would be on the 18th, when we’re in Chicago. Oh well. Scrap all the Christmas music we were going to play, start laying in a supply of general “winter” songs and dance music. I’ve got 8.5 Gb of MP3’s on my laptop – if they can’t find something they like in that, they need help. Guess I should pick up more 80’s stuff, though.

– Word has it they’ll have karaoke. Kill me now, please.

– Walk. Two miles around the neighborhood = 2 chapters of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Only 20 chapters to go! (Yes, I’ve read it before, but I’m listening to the audiobook this time around – I’ve forgotten enough that it’s entertaining all over again).

– Make pizza dough. Home made pizzas tonight, yum!

– Plans for the weekend? Not much. Invitation to Rob and Janet’s Sunday afternoon for gaming and socializing. Not sure if we’ll go or not, but the socializing would be nice. Oh, for those that know them: Janet announced this week that she is pregnant again. Congratulations to them! Looking further out, we’re hosting an Orphan’s Christmas on Christmas Eve. Good company, good food. We’ll have to fire up the fireplace and at least make an effort to make the place Christmas-y (or at least Solstice-y?) Maybe some pine centerpieces and stuff.

Isn’t it a good thing I’m easily amused?

Hey kids, it’s time for some new pictures from Duncan and Takaza! We’ve got shots from our trip to the Chicago Wolves game, the most recent ice storm, and just hanging around the house. Duncan-Bob sez check it out!

Datahawk was nice enough to try out a couple of different recipes for snickerdoodles while she was here, and though the recipe from Penzey’s was tasty, the winner is the recipe from The Best Recipe.

And here it is…

My, it’s been an interesting week-and-a-half. If I posted more often y’all would know more about it, but instead you get…
Yet another of Duncan’s weekly recaps!

Still recapping last week’s post-Midwest Furfest fun…

Spam-preventing lj-cut added for your protection

Today is World AIDS Day.

For your consideration:

I have been very fortunate that AIDS has not touched my life directly, but it has touched the lives of those near and dear to me. Consider these figures from the National AIDS Trust for 2001:
5 million people were newly infected with AIDS.
3 million people died of AIDS.
40 million people were living with AIDS.

By the end of 2000, 21.8 million people have died of AIDS.

What you can do:
Know the facts. Know which activities are safe and which are not. Don’t guess – this is your life at stake here.

Get involved. Help with an AIDS service organization – monetarily, or by donating your time. Attend fund-raisers, and support their causes by word of mouth where you can.

Help your friends and loved ones. Support those whose lives have been touched by the AIDS epidemic. Your love and support will be appreciated.

So, Midwest Furfest. Right.

LJ-cut added to prevent spammage

There was a convention called Midwest Furfest. A silly man volunteered to run Registration, and in the course of events wound up doing a little bit of work for Publications and Security along the way, plus whatever else needed doing. Occasionally, he got some sleep, too, though not enough.

One day, he might write about it in more detail, but not now, except to say that he survived, the convention ran well, and he is now going to go sleep for a while.

Last day at home…

My job today is to pack up the last little bit of stuff (laptops, cooler, suitcase) and stuff it into our already extremely-full car, then go through the house and give it a thorough cleaning in the event that someone wants to see the house while we’re in Chicago. Hmm, I need to call the realtor too, since some kind soul left the door on top of the flyer container open during the downpours over the weekend and all of the flyers within got soaked. Oh, and I’ll probably stop at the grocery store on the way up to pick up Takaza to pick up some munchies for the road, too.

Let’s see, we’ve got about seven hours of driving to do tonight to get us through to Morehead, Kentucky. We’ve got a good audio book to help speed along the miles, so that will help (all 20 hours of it! Yeesh) Then another seven or so hours to get us up to the convention hotel, where we’ll get in around 2 PM, hopefully. Wednesday night will bring an alarming number of folks to our hotel room to help stuff bags with flyers, con books, pocket programs, and other goodies. Thursday brings more preparations, though really the only thing I need to do that day is pick up the chains and stanchions from the rental place and then set up Registration once Rusty gets on site Thursday afternoon. I’m sure stuff will pop up in the meantime, though, and I know Takaza has a bunch of stuff to do so I’ll probably wind up helping him.

Well, time to get motivated. Hope to see y’all at the convention!

Yes, it really is 7 AM on a Sunday and I’m awake. I’m a morning person, what can I say?

So, the latter half of the week was quite busy. Between having my car worked on (24,000 miles on it and both front hub bearings need to be replaced – that ain’t right!), picking up the con books and the pocket programs, last-minute errands to Office Depot and such, and, oh yes, a dinner party on Friday. I am insane, yes, why do you ask?

Actually, the dinner on Friday was fun, but exhausting. Wisely, I let Thomas handle the main entree – roasting a couple of chickens in his shiny new gadget. Call me a purist, but I think I’ll stick to old-fashioned oven-roasting methods. We also had some soup, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, crackers and cheese, spinach dip, and beef stew. In other worse, like most Gang events of this type, enough food to feed an army. For dessert, I make a yummy tasty White Chocolate Creme Brulee that was fabulously easy to make. I’m not a big fan of white chocolate and I loved this.

Click here for the recipe

If you ever wondered, well, now you know. (Not a work-friendly link, but funnay as hell)
Link courtesy of BoingBoing

Heh. I saw this and thought of you, woof. Sad thing is, it’s so darned true…

Hi folks, I’m back. Did you miss me?

So it’s been almost a month since I last updated my LiveJournal. What has gone on since then? Well, here’s the short version:

• Still unemployed, still looking
• Still trying to sell the house
• Getting ready for Midwest Furfest
• Working through a mild bout of depression

Here’s the long version

Been a busy day – being all domestic ‘n’ stuff. I have a phone interview with a company in Louisville, KY tomorrow afternoon. I’m not sure how I feel about it, either the position or the location, but I’d be a fool to turn anything down right now. If nothing else I have to show the recruiter that I’m making a good-faith effort or I’ll have to go find another recruiter, and this one isn’t too bad. Mind you, I AM talking to other recruiters, but this is the first one that’s actually got me something tangible.

A couple of links for amusement:

• So, you want to take a virtual tour of our house? Well now you can! Kinda cool software to do it, too, though it does weird things with perspective sometimes.
• After trying an interesting potato-wheat bread earlier this week, today I’m making a sesame semolina bread. We’ll see how this one comes out.
• This picture just amuses the hell out of me (it helps if you know what warchalking is, though). (Link courtesy of BoingBoing)
• And finally, and amusing though not particularly work-friendly link: Why Stick People Are Extinct (link found at J’s Notes)

Hmm, just about time to start in on dinner. Sautéed chicken breasts with orzo and a nice gravy.

OK, it took a while but I finally had some free time on my hands (imagine that 🙂 and got these all uploaded. Therefore, may I present to you pictures from the LAFF Pizza Party on 9/7/02 (12 pictures) and from our party during NC Pride (over 250 pictures), located at our picture gallery site. Remember, you can comment on any picture, too. We’ll get around to adding captions Real Soon Now. Enjoy!

What if someone wanted to dig up all the dirt on furries and found out that…there is none? This is what you’d get. (Note: contains words that aren’t work-friendly)

Finally a chance to relax.

These last few days have been hectic – Mom was in town helping me get the house into shape, since we’ve put it on the market to sell. Lots of moving stuff around, errands to be run, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The house looks absolutely fabulous right now, but at a cost – the garage looks like a disaster area. All the boxes and stuff that were cluttering up the closets have been moved to there, and now we have to pack it all up, seal the boxes, throw out what’s not needed and carry the rest over to a friend’s house for storage. That’s today’s job. Yesterday we took a break and went to the wedding of our dear friends Thomas and Sherry. It was a nice, low-key affair, and Dan and I were even able to sit in the Baptist church without being struck by lightning 🙂

The only drawback to the house being in showable condition is that we have to be ready for a phone cal from the realtor at any time (during the day, anyway) saying that someone is going to come by to look at the house within an hour. We need to keep things clean so that we can just take care of a few things (make beds, put dishes in the dishwasher, etc.) then leave and everything will look perfect. Or close to perfect, anyway. I call it “living lightly” and it really kinda sucks after a while. Anyway, we had two potential buyers come through on Friday, though none yesterday, which is disappointing. We have an open house scheduled for next weekend, and another for the weekend after that. I’m hoping those will move things along.

Of course, I’m of two minds – we need to sell the house so we can get the burden of the mortgage off our backs, but if we sell the house before I find another job, then what? We’re working on that part. We have a friend who is willing to put us up, although he’s unemployed as well and reaching the end of his unemployment benefits. And there’s the matter of all of our stuff – I can think of very few things I’d rather do less than pack and haul out all of our stuff, although we can do it if need be. Certainly not something I’m looking forward to.

It’s a great motivator to get me on the phone with recruiters and employers on Monday morning, though…

Well, since Jen asked…

Absolutely Amazing French Toast
(Recipe from The Best Recipe, by Cooks Illustrated)
In the book, they recommend using challah for this, but I really liked Pepperidge Farm French Toast Swirl, either Buttermilk Cinnamon or Cinnamon and Brown Sugar – both are good. It’s thickly sliced, and perfect for this recipe. Use tongs to handle dipping the bread in the batter and a spatula to flip them in the pan. Also, if you have a cast-iron skillet it’s perfect for this recipe since it retains heat so well. It’s not required, though.

Makes 4-5 slices of French Toast (this recipe scales wonderfully, though)

1 Large Egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for frying
3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I use half this amount of Penzey’s Double Strength Vanilla Extract)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4-5 slices of bread, 3/4″ thick

1. Heat 10- to 12-inch skillet over medium heat for five minutes. In a bowl, beat egg lightly; whisk in butter, then milk and vanilla, and finally sugar, flour, and salt, continuing to whisk until smooth (I cheat and use my KitchenAid mixer). Pour the mixture into a pie plate or shallow pan. Soak the bread without oversaturating, about 30 seconds per side. Pick up bread and allow excess batter to drip off. Repeat with remaining slices. (I find it easiest to only dip as much as I need for one skillet’s worth – don’t dip all your bread at once)
2. Swirl 1 tablespoon of butter in hot skillet. Transfer the prepared bread to the skillet; cook until golden brown, about 1 minute 45 seconds on first side and 1 minute on the second. Serve immediately. Continue, adding one tablespoon of butter to the skillet for each new batch.

This is incredibly tasty – if done right, you get a nice, crisp crust on the outside and the inside is almost custard-like.

First off, thanks to all of my friends, near and far, for your words and calls of support. You’ve kept me grounded and remembering that jobs are transient things – it’s friends and relationships that are important.

We were fortunate to be joined last weekend by some dear friends from my SCA days, Jen and Tracie, and their friends Bob and Laura. They were upbeat and cheerful, and provided exactly the right amount of distraction I needed for the weekend. I was teetering on the precipice of some nasty depression, and they pulled me out right when I needed it.

Saturday night was also the bachelor party for Thomas. On Friday we’d called and said due to our suddenly tight finds we’d have to pass, but Donald called Saturday morning and informed us that we were attending, and not to worry about funds. We had a fabulous dinner at Enoteca Vin (roast duck for me, a really fabulous beef tenderloin au poivre for Takaza). After that, it was over to Havana Deluxe for fine Scotch and cigars. After a stop for dessert, we took our leave from the group and came back home to hang out with Jen and company.

Sunday was a nice morning of making French toast for our guests, then going to work on the house. The realtor came by and put the sign up in front – the house is now officially on the market. Dan and I spent a good part of Sunday, Monday, and today cleaning and de-cluttering the place. We still need to move a lot of the boxes that we stuffed into the bedroom closets to give the appearance of wide, spacious closets (which they are, actually, but when they’re filled with crap it doesn’t look that way). I had a mad scramble to put the finishing touches on the house this morning before the realtor’s weekly agency tour of new listings came through – I almost made it too. The first agents came through right as I was finishing up, so I pulled the car out of the garage and threw all the boxes that were stacked in the dining room into the garage. Everyone was happy. I got a few nice comments about the house, which made me feel better. In comics terms, I consider it to be in Very Good, but not Near Mint condition (I haven’t taken a toothbrush to the baseboards, for instance) (Yes, that’s the kind of stuff you do when you sell a house – that’s not just me being a bizarre neat freak again :-).

Somewhere in all of this I’ve applied online for a few jobs and talked to recruiters, but there’s still a whole lot left to do. I’ve got some good websites to explore and need to keep a daily watch on Monster, Hotjobs, and Flipdog. Oh, and I applied for unemployment today. Nice that you can do that online now.

So, tomorrow. My mom is coming up from South Carolina. She’ll help me put the finishing touches on the house cleaning, and she’s bringing their pressure washer – the exterior of the house really needs it! Mom will be around until Friday, and her help will be much, much appreciated. In the meantime: more calls to recruiters, more jobs to apply for. Busybusybusy…

And somewhere, in the midst of all that, I need to find the time to snuggle with Takaza. He’s so amazing – he’s been my rock through all this, keeping my mood from bottoming out, quietly doing the Stuff That Needed To Be Done, and prodding me along when I needed it. I am more lucky than I know to have him, and I love him so much.

And amongst other good news of the day, I was laid off today.

No, I’m not kidding.

Bless his heart, Dan came home immediately and was there when I needed him – those first few hours were rough. Dan made some of the important phone calls (canceling some memberships, getting in a handyman to see what would need to be done to make the house presentable, lining up a realtor to visit tomorrow). He’s asleep on the sofa now, worn out. My poor wolf has walking pneumonia again (when it rains it pours) and so his energy levels are pretty crappy right now.

I’ve been on the phone with a recruiter off and on all afternoon, and mentally mapping out where we’re going. I get four weeks of severance, so that’s good, and Dan still has his job. I’ll be applying for unemployment on Monday, and I need to talk to the mortgage company and see what kind of terms we can work out. Our primary goals:
1. Get me a new job…somewhere. Preferably in the Great Lakes region, but I’m not in a position to be choosy.
2. Sell the house. This is not a short process in the best of times, and when you combine a crappy market with a bad time of the year to sell a house, well, the sooner we start the process the better.
3. Talk to creditors. That starts next week – I’m not really in any shape to deal with that right now.

On the bright side, I’ve already gotten a call from a recruiter with some prospects: one in Louisville, KY, and one in Chestertown, MD (!). If nothing else, it’s comforting to know there’s possibilities out there. We’ll do all we can to get back to the Chicago area, but right now geographical location has to take second place to economic realities, and the market in Chicago for chemical engineers is in the toilet right now. We’ll see what happens.

There are a lot of questions right now, including what about MFF? All I can say is, we’ll be there and we’ll cover our responsibilities. How we’ll do that remains to be seen, but give us some time to work on it.

Man, what a weekend. I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account except to say that things pretty much went as planned (OK, the hike didn’t happen on Sunday – quelle surprise) and everyone had a good time and I’m exhausted. What more can you ask out of a weekend?

Both Takaza and I had a lot of fun cooking, and we’ve worked out a very comfortable arrangement with our friends – they clean up if we cook. Everyone’s happy with this arrangement, and it kept us from being a crispy critters by the end of the weekend.

To everyone who attended: Thank you all for making this a truly enjoyable weekend.

To Aerofox and Loriana – We told you you’d have Livejournals by the end of the weekend 🙂 It was great to see y’all after far too long.

To Brophey and Rasslor – Great to see y’all as always. Hope you’re feeling better, Mike!

To Zenwolph – Hell of a commute, eh? We have got to get together more often!

To justincheetah – It was really a pleasure to get to know you better. I’m also very glad that there’s someone else in the Chicago area who enjoys fine potables as much as I do 🙂

And finally, to Datahawk, Linnaeus, and Rustitobuck – How can I put words on how good y’all make me feel? You’re family, as much as any blood relative. We’re coming home, I assure you. It may take some time, but I promise we’ll be there.

And now it’s back to work, though I just got an intriguing phone call pursuant to the website I was looking at last night…

And next weekend? We’ve got some dear friends from the SCA crashing at our place, and we’re also attending Thomas’ bachelor party. More about all that later, though.

Well, things are looking much better, even though it’s a dark, gray day outside, courtesy of Tropical Storm Isadore.

First off, I’m feeling better, even though I’m not at quite 100%. In talking with the doctor yesterday, the best we can hypothesize is that I took a glancing blow from the stomach flu, and while it didn’t hit me full-on, I got some of the nasty lingering after-effects. Fortunately, the effects seem to be fading with time.

Starting tonight, the craziness of the weekend begins – yes it’s takaza and Duncan’s Pride Party 2002! Let’s see, rustitobuck is coming in first, around 5 PM. Not long after, Aerofox and Loriana should be driving in (just a short jaunt down from Ohio). linnaeus and datahawk will be coming in on a 10:45 PM flight, along with the peripatetic Cheetah. brophey and rasslor should be driving up from Atlanta either late tonight or tomorrow morning. All of this is made utterly fascinating by the fact that my parents are supposed to be driving from New York to South Carolina today and mentioned they might crash for the night at our place. They’ll get along famously with our friends, I’m sure, but it’ll certainly be an interesting clash of worlds for us…

So, what’s on tap for this weekend?

Yep, I’m still alive, though I don’t much feel that way.

Last weekend was a quiet one, which was good. We had planned on doing some cleaning, maybe some further planning for the party next weekend. Shortly after lunch, though, I started having some nasty abdominal pains. I attributed it to gas pains (something unusual for me, but not out of the question), dosed myself with some Pepto and we vegged out on the sofa, clearing the accumulated progammage from the TiVo (The verdicts: Firefly, John Doe – added to season pass. Push, Nevada – not added to season pass, may watch one more episode but probably not). I skipped dinner and went to bed feeling crappy.

On Saturday I felt somewhat better, only like someone had punched me in the gut a few times. We got some shopping done, and laid out tentative menus for the weekend (and we’re surprising folks with what they’ll be this time, so there. Nyeah 🙂 A little more laundry and some pizza for dinner and that was about it.

This week is tough for both takaza and me. He’s got the end-of-year accounting blitz going on, and I’m trying to get out some product for a customer on very short notice. We’re both busy and preoccupied, which really sucks, but that’s the way life goes sometimes. Dan’s allergies are acting up (due to leaf mold?) and the ache in my gut hasn’t subsided, so I’m off to the doctor tomorrow afternoon. Such fun.

Last night my gaming group made characters for our new Shadowrun campaign. I haven’t played Shadowrun in fifteen years, os I’m taking a while to re-learn the system. I promise not to ever gamer-geek in this space, but I did have quite a bit of fun creating my character: an 8’11” troll adept (think magically-enhanced martial artist) named Cletus. He’s quick and intelligent, things trolls aren’t supposed to be. He’ll be a fun character to play and wildly different from the ones I usually have played in the past.

Tonight it’s an evening of cleaning, doing laundry, and generally getting the place ready for company, since our first visitors start arriving Thursday night. Eek! So much to do!

Incidentally, I’m looking at the weather forecasts and see the very real possibility of not one but two different hurricanes/tropical storms whacking us this weekend. If that happens, NC Pride will be pretty much a washout but on the bright side, but on the bright side I can’t think of a group of folks who I’d rather be cooped up in the house with.

Oh, by the way – Serinthia, e-mail me about plans for this weekend.

You know there’s a reason people like me shouldn’t have children. The Story About the Baby is an excellent example of this [Note: This link contains Bad Words]. My favorite passage so far:
But now I spend all of my time having internal conversations like:

Me: “I’m hungry. I sure could use a ham sandwich.”
Inner voice: “Boil the …. wait. Did you say ham?”
Me: “Mmmmm. Sandwich.”
Inner voice: “Mmmmm. Sandwich.”
Me: “Better clean this plate.”
Inner voice: “Put the baby in the dishwasher.”

This is gonna provide hours of entertainment…

Many, many thanks to Elynne for the link

Today is International Enough Day. I’m wearing black.

Thanks to DaveQat for the link

Wowsers. What a weekend.

So, Duncan, what did you do last weekend?

If you haven’t already seen “Lurid Digs” (not a work-friendly link!) you really should. It provides hilarious commentary on amateur male pr0n from an interior design point of view. Hee!

Y’know, the (extremely belated) primary season is on us in North Carolina. I’m still trying to figure out who I’m going to vote for (free hint: it’ll be one of the people with the “(D)” next to their name), but I’m fairly certain it’s not going to be this guy. On the bright side, maybe he can get a job copy editing for Doc Bronner.

Now, it’s a pity we don’t live in Tara Sue’s district – I like her style!

2 September, 2002, 3:25 PM, on NC 49 somewhere east of Charlotte, North Carolina

If you read my last entry, it was probably pretty obvious that I needed a vacation. Labor Day weekend came just at the right time.

So, Duncan, what did you do during the long weekend?

I drove in to work this morning with Linkin Park playing very loud. It fits my mood today quite well…

Shut up! Shut up when I’m talking to you!

Midwest Furfest is pleased to announce the availability of online registration for its upcoming convention (which occurs November 22-24, 2002 near Chicago, Illinois, but you already knew that). You can now enter all of your information in and pay in a couple of easy steps. Yes, you can have that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that your registration is secure and complete, with no messy checks to write, no nasty-tasting envelopes to lick, no painful paper cuts to endure!

All you have to do is stop by http://www.furfest.org/registration/onlinereg and follow the instructions there. We look forward to seeing you in November!

And now, the answers to a few questions that might arise:

Just to follow up on yesterday’s post on radio shock-jocks, I wanted to point this out:
Sex Stunt Costs Opie and Anthony
Folks who know me know that I’m far from a prude, but the transcript from a prior citation by the FCC shows that these guys have been way, way over the line in the past, so this latest stunt was no surprise.

On a side note, Google News Search is might damn cool.

It’s not news that radio is in a sad state these days. With certain evil empires controlling the airwaves, the quality of content has gone down steadily. What brings this to mind? Just a couple of reminders of why I listen to CD’s or my MP3 player on the way to work every morning (or at least something less obnoxious if Takaza‘s in the car).
Exhibit One
Exhibit Two
And thank heavens for intelligent programs in the evenings…

I just found this weblog devoted to keeping up with the latest in gadgets: Gizmodo. Interesting bits on the new Palm OS phones comes from Samsung.

How to avoid writing the report I’m supposed to be working on? I know! I’ll write a LiveJournal entry!

Not too much to talk about, though. We’re going over to Donald and Janelle’s tonight. Well, just Janelle’s, really, since Donald is roughing in at a conference in Orlando, FL. Tough life, you know. We’re going to bring some of the Evil Caramel Sauce we picked up at Williams-Sonoma this weekend. Naughty, but oh-so-good!

Random stuff to do…we need to try Alton Brown’s tasty recipe for French fries (there’s a recipe there for fried dish as well, but we’ll pass on that. Or maybe I’ll try it with chicken). We need to figure out what we’re going to do up in Chicago while we’re up there next month, besides go to the Midwest Furfest staff meeting. I need to start making a list of all the stuff I need to order for Registration (sponsor goodies, staff name badges, etc.). And I need to send a list of names to the staff list for verification that these people are indeed staff and need staff badges. I need to check the online registration system when it becomes available and make mention of it in the Registration FAQ (and figure out what questions might arise because of it). Gee whiz, this gets complicated sometimes. On the bright side, this isn’t too bad for a ~500 person con. Once you get past 750 or 1,000, I’m sure the level of complexity increases accordingly (and unpleasantly, I’d guess). Still, it’s a fun challenge and worthwhile, I think.