Well, it’s a boring afternoon at work, and instead of doing something useful I think I’m going to pass along some nifty links!

The Google Glossary is a fun new toy. Hey, they even have a good definition of furry. (link courtesy of Scripting News)

Spider senses tingling? You might be in trouble! (link courtesy of diveintomark)

Just the thing for the fire and brimstone sermons! Amaze your parishoners! (link courtesy of Boing Boing)

How bored are you? If you’ve got the LiveJournal bug and want to read more, but your friends just don’t update their journal often enough, why not check out their friends? Here’s mine – just replace the username as desired: http://www.livejournal.com/users/duncandahusky/friendsfriends

OK, back to work for me…

So we dispatched the last of our guests this morning: hartree and datahawk to the airport, brophey driving back to Baltimore. Incidentally, Hartree’s bit of excitement last night even made the newspaper. We picked him up at the airport after they officially cancelled his flight and went over to Outback for some big slabs of dead cow. Yum! The food was excellent, as was the company. After that we headed back to the house and hung out and watched part of the Canes game.

At last word, everyone seems to have gotten out OK, so tonight it’s just me and Takaza, for the first time since last Tuesday. I’m being bad and skipping the gym one final day today because I just want to get home and relax after work. No Tivo tonight, and heck, we’re probably going to even be sitting in separate rooms most of the night, Dan in his office and me in mine. We both need our “alone-time” and as wonderful as this last week has been, “alone-time” has been a missing commodity.

There’s a furry group going to Paramount King’s Dominion this weekend, and if it were any other weekend I’d be all for it. After all, it’s only four hours’ drive away. But as things stand right now we’re going to pass, due to exhaustion. I like the idea of getting up on Saturday morning and having a few hours to myself to read the paper, drink coffee, and surf the net. And what the heck, I’d be glad to do it again on Sunday morning – yes, I’m willing to make that sacrifice (“Oh please, don’t throw me in that briar patch…”) There’s also a new art-house theater opening this weekend in Cary which we might check out if we’re up to it, but right now I’m not making any plans.

Finally, if y’all will excuse me for pointing to Mark Morford once again, I just want to say that I love his column today, “Utterly Naked Men, The Movie”

There is probably no way to put this delicately or maybe there is but I am hereby electing to ignore that rather untitillating approach so let’s just come right out and say it: There are not enough penises in the movies.

So by now you’ve read all of the various accounts of the events of the past weekend (plus a few more entries). What do we learn from all this? All of our friends are geeks 🙂 That’s OK, we love them anyway.

A common theme in a lot of those entries is inertia, but I think that’s maybe a misnomer. What we really had was a great enjoyment of spending time with one another, and something of a reluctance to shorten that time in any way. datahawk likened the party to a small convention, and in a lot of ways that is exactly what it was. My biggest complaint about conventions, though, is that there’s always so much going on that you don’t have time to spend with the folks you don’t get to see much, the ones that live halfway across the country. Well, I guess this was our own selfish way of getting around that 🙂 Thank you all for coming, and for making this a truly memorable and enjoyable weekend. Will we be doing this again? You better believe it. Hey, I hear that NC Pride is on September 28 this year. Wouldn’t it be a hoot to have folks down for that?

Meanwhile, back at the Memorial Day shindig…

When last we left our intrepid heroes, we were about to head out on Saturday. Partran and Linnaeus have written up our exploits of that day. The homemade Mongolian barbeque worked surprisingly well – Brophey, Hartree, and Partran helped with cooking, bless their hearts, and everyone was well-fed by a decent hour, even. We’ll definitely be doing that again.

On Sunday, we didn’t go to see Spirit: Stallion of the Cimmaron as planned – inertia was too strong, and interest didn’t seem too strong. Instead, a portion of the group took off to the White Rabbit Bookstore in Raleigh while another part stayed close to home, except for a quick trip to the store. Much fun was had at White Rabbit and I’m sure we amused the people there as well 🙂 We returned and we fired up the grill, making a big ol’ pile of hamburgers, hot dogs, and sausages. After that we entertained ourselves with several rounds of Ultimate Outburst and general socializing. Not a whole lot got accomplished, but we really enjoyed ourselves.

And then we have today. Folks started waking up at around 10 or 11, and Partran and I made up some bacon and eggs for everyone. Since then we’ve been kinda hanging out, watching goodies on the Tivo (“So Graham Norton” is a hoot!), and wondering what we’re going to do. Another attempt at Spirit was suggested, but then we started watching the Nightline town hall on being gay in America and it’s been very interesting, even listening to the differing opinions even here in the living room.

So what’s up from here? Maybe some swimming, maybe just enjoying the company some more. Pork chops on the grill tonight, though we need to figure out what we’re having with them.

P.S. – Rashomon was a 1950 film by Akira Kurosawa in which one event is told from multiple points of view 🙂

And, with the exception of partran and rustitobuck, everyone else is still asleep. Hopefully, that’ll change soon, since we need to hit Dallas’ Restaurant for yummy chicken biscuits for brunch, then at 1 PM we have a tour of Carolina Brewing Company. From there, it’s over to the State Farmer’s Market for some fresh veggies, and then we’ll come back home and do our own homemade Mongolian Barbeque.

Last night was entertaining, though not quite what we had planned. The trip to Ultrazone never happened, since inertia was never overcome. We were having too much fun just hanging out an enjoying the company. Pop’s closed their grill an hour early so when we went for burgers, they had none to give us. Bummer. We’ll have to go back there later this weekend for milkshakes, at least (and I might have a chat with the owner and explain to him how his employees turned away easily over $100 worth of business). In a quick search for alternate options for dinner, I chose poorly: Waffle House. The less said about this experience the better, except to say that there’s a reason that Waffle House only seems good after 3 AM.

Well, off to make more coffee for the slugabeds starting to stir upstairs…

I’m sitting at home, all alone right now. The hoard is out at Southpoint Mall, then heading over to the airport to pick up mirkowuff, then heading back here, to arrive around 5:30 or so. As I look around the living room, I see no less than three iBooks, numerous plushies, and the sundry remnants of people relaxing and having a good time.

Life is good.

By the way, for a great Rashomon-esque view of what’s going on this weekend, be sure to take a look at the other LiveJournals of the folks attending this weekend’s party. (Or you can just read my Friends Page). It’s a very cool thing.

I also want to say, here and now, that I take back any snarky remarks I ever might have made about our Mormon neighbors, here or anywhere else. Yeah, they stopped by during the snowstorm last January with a loaf of fresh-baked bread, but I figured that was kind of a fluke. When I got home today, though…well, first some background:

While I was out driving yesterday with partran, my Low Tire Pressure light came on. It’s done this from time to time, and usually it didn’t take more than a quick topping-up at the air pump to fix the problem. We were a bit rushed last night, so I figured takaza could stop by a gas station on his way out today. Well, he pulled out of the garage and realized that the back left tire was flat. They went ahead and took other party-folks’ cars, and I figured I’d come home, grab the tire, and run up to the local tire store to have it patched, barely squeaking in before their 5 PM closing time.

So I pulled up and walked over to take a look at the tire. As I was figuring out where to put it to jack it up, our neighbor (I really should know his name, but I’m bad about that) walked over and said he noticed we had a flat – would we like some help? I described my plans to have it patched and volunteered to help me out. I figured he had a can of Fix-A-Flat or something, but he rolls over his air compressor and pulls out a tire patch kit. Between the two of us, we jacked up the tire and pulled a sharp metal fragment, about 3/4″ long, out of the tire. He patched it right up and reinflated the tire, mentioning that someone had helped him similarly a while back, and he was just passing it on. He accepted my profuse thanks and headed back over to his house.

Wow. How cool is that? As Dan suggested, we definitely need to drop by and give them a nice loaf of banana bread or something sometime very soon.

Well, that settles it. I want to bear Mark Morford‘s children.

Wow, what a day of mixed emotions.

First, the bad news. I was out of work yesterday, and in my absence word came down from the salesman that the product that I’ve been working frantically for the last two months to get out the door is no going to be provided to the customer by one of our competitors instead. This was immediately followed, of course, by the salesman pointing fingers and determining blame. Guess who’s getting caught in the crossfire? While we do share some of the blame for this one, there’s plenty to go around. Still makes me feel like someone pissed in my cornflakes. I’ve got another week’s worth of wrap-up to do on this one (since we’re technically “back-up/contingency” suppliers, meaning we might need to re-activate the product if needed), then I can wash my hands of it. Just one more reason I really don’t want to be here today.

On the bright side, we now have a house full of people! partran came in Wednesday night and I enjoyed hanging out with him yesterday (we also found a truly amazing French bakery right in Raleigh – the pain au chocolat are to die for!). Datahawk and hartree rolled in around 5:30 PM (after only getting a little lost). rustitobuckarrived at around 7:30 (after getting bumped from one flight and desperately trying to get bumped from another – those travel vouchers really add up!). linnaeus and Brophey came in around 10:30 PM (I think, I went to bed at 10 since I had to get up for work in the morning). takaza came to bed at 2:30 AM, and he said everyone was just heading to bed then. I’d guess that half the house is still asleep as I write this at 10:30 AM 🙂 I think the itinerary today is pretty low-key – a stop by local Apple Store and cruising Retail Hell. Just got a voice mail that mirkowuff, who was supposed to arrive around 1:30 this afternoon took a voluntary bump from American Airlines, thereby picking up a nice voucher from them, I’m sure. So he’ll be in at around 5 PM today.

This evening will consist of deliciously greasy burgers and milkshakes to die for at Pop’s, a local fast-food joint, we’re taking the group over to Ultrazone (which, according to the surfer dude on their answering machine, is now called “Battle Zone, the ultimate laser adventure”) for a fun night of laser tag and group bonding by shooting one another – yay!

So that’s what’s up right now. I’d say the good is outweighing the bad, and that’s a big help. I’m looking forward to the weekend and spending time with our friends here. I’m sure I’ll be exhausted when it’s all over, but it’ll be worth it!

So, as Takaza and I were sitting around on Sunday, he noticed that the marks in the living room ceiling where it had been repaired were quite noticeable. I took a closer look, and saw that the paint was flaking off around the joint in the drywall, and cracking along the edge of the patch. Oh, that’s just bloody terrific. After another visit this morning from the guy who did the repair, it appears that the shower leak that I thought I’d fixed wasn’t quite as fixed after all. When he ran his finger down the joint, the joint compound was somewhat pasty, not dry and crumbly like it should have been. So I slowed the leak, but didn’t stop it. Crap.

This evening, I’ll have to pull the drain again and reseal it with silicone caulk, using copious amounts this time. We’ll give it about a month or so to dry out and be certain that the leak is fixed, then he’ll come back out again to pull the old patch and put in a new one (for another couple hundred bucks. Ouch). Unfortunately, this means that when it comes time to show off our pretty new house this weekend, it’ll have a big, fugly crack in the living room ceiling. Not much to do for it, I reckon. This is a bit of a reality check for me, though – I need to remember that people aren’t coming to see the house, they’re coming to see us and each other. This helps me de-stress a little bit, and in a strange way, will probably make the weekend more enjoyable for me. Go fig. Plus, it keeps Dan from wanting to kill me for being stressed and annoying, and that’s always a good thing 🙂

Well, let’s see if I can get some work done today…

Apparently, this little poem has been around since at least 1990, but this is the first time I’ve come across it. First, the written version:

! * ‘ ‘ #
^ ” ` $ $ –
! * = @ $ _
% * ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Now, if you realize that angle brackets, according to readers of InFocus magazine, are pronounced “waka” and an exclamation point is often called a bang, well then you get this wonderful version when read aloud:

waka waka bang splat tick tick hash
caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash
bang splat equal at dollar under-score
percent splat waka waka tilde number four
ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash
vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma crash

Yeah, it’s geek humor, but I love it.
(Link and poem courtesy of Diveintomark)

Another quiet Sunday morning. Got my coffee, my Sunday paper, some nice mellow music playing…and my laptop. It’s geeky goodness!

Last week was pretty uneventful. Although I’d hoped to get a jump on cleaning and preparations for the upcoming party, Dan wasn’t feeling well at all and I was too tired after coming home from work to really do much of anything. We did at least get some lists put together of what to do and what we’ll be cooking, so that’s a start.

The weekend has been pretty interesting so far, though. On Friday, we had dinner with friends at Panera Bread (yummy Frontega chicken sandwich!), then marched off dutifully to see the new Star Wars flick

You really should read the review linked above, by the way. It has such choice comments as:

Like “The Phantom Menace,” “Attack of the Clones” reeks of a Lucas script that George kept under wraps because he didn’t want any of it exposed to criticism. Lucas reminds me of the conceited elementary school kid who doesn’t want anybody to read his poetry. When the mysterious words are finally dragged into the light, breathless anticipation turns into peals of laughter, then uncontrollable vomiting. Unfortunately, nobody wants to tell George that his skills as a screenwriter rival Anna Nicole Smith’s.

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my opinion of the movie. It sure looks pretty, but the love scenes and any scene requiring emotional expression by Hayden Christensen are laughable at best and nauseatingly cloying at worst. (And see if you don’t find yourself wanting to burst into song at a certain point in the movie: “The hills are alive with the sound of music!”)

So, that was Friday. On Saturday, we had an interesting change of pace. Dan’s company was sponsoring a golf outing down in Sanford and they needed someone to perform an all-important task to support the event: beer cart drivers. Well, that’s where we came in. In spite of the fact that it was pouring down rain, the temperature was dropping, and the wind was blowing hard, we were there at 8:30 AM to drvie that bloody cart around the course for the better part of four and a half hours, making sure the forty golfers were well-supplied with beverages. Dan even got to be a bit of a hero when we added hot chocolate to the repertoire once things started to get really chilly. We got soaked, of course, but the rain did finally let up around noon. It was quite a different way to spend the day, but fun in its own way. I didn’t even get into the beer, though – they gave us about eight different brands, and the fanciest of the lot was Michelob Light. Um, no thanks. We stuck to soda and hot chocolate 🙂

So today we’ve got a long list of stuff to do, mainly cleaning the upstairs, mowing the lawn, and doing the shopping for the week. I’m not sure if we’re going to start shopping for the party just yet – we’ll need to work that out. We’re going to be preparing six meals for around twelve people over the course of five days. Wow, that’s a lot of food. Time to go make some more lists…

Found this on Slashdot, in an article about Cingular censoring pr0n for those who use their wireless web access:
“It’s always been a problem of people talking while driving in a car…now I’m going to have to worry about people accessing porn in the car?! People! You have to keep at least one hand on the wheel at all times! Is even that too much to ask?!”

Heh.

This should cheer you up for sure/See, I’ve got your old ID/And you’re all dressed up like The Cure

So anyway…

Life is good. We finally solved the roadblock on the project at work that’s been annoying me. This will allow the project to proceed apace and will keep people from other departments from sending me nasty e-mails and such. This always makes me happy 🙂 This also means that I’ll probably be up in the Erie, PA vicinity in the first or second week of June. It’s Erie-sistable! Ah well, summer in Erie is actually quite nice – The Peninsula (aka Presque Isle State Park) is lovely, and now that I know some nice bookstores and coffeehouses up there, I’ll be set. I’ll still commute the 25-or-so miles to Saegertown from Erie, though. After all, if I’m going to stay up there, I prefer to stay near civilization.

Had some fun storms come through last night – no real damage, though the power flickered a bit. We got about an inch of rain in about 45 minutes, then it just stopped. That sucks, because right now we’re pretty much in drought conditions (unlike you lucky[?] folks in the Midwest). Our lawn is looking a wee bit brown, but on the bright side I don’t have to mow it as often. I suppose I should think about watering it, but that’s tedious, plus it gets expensive. If we go much longer without rain, though, I won’t have much choice.

Takaza and I are kicking back and forth a list of stuff we need to do in the next eight days. No problem, as long as we don’t actually sleep or anything silly like that. I know none of our guests will mind much, but it matters to me that the house is nice and clean.

What a week, and I’m not ready for the next week to begin.

As I said in my last entry, last week was quite busy. Between the pace at work really heating up and takaza recuperating from surgery, that didn’t leave much time for luxuries like Livejournal entries. This coming week should improve somewhat, at least on the latter front.

Dan has recovered well from his sinus surgery. His sense of smell is coming back, he can breathe much more freely, and life is good except for the occasional Waterpik torture (let’s put it this way, you have to have some way to flush all the clots and stuff out. Ouch). He’ll be at home one more week to fully recover and relax, though if absolutely necessary he could have gone back this week. Better he recover fully, though, I say, and so does the doctor.

This weekend has been pretty busy. Following Dan’s trip to the doctor on Friday, we hit Target, Build-a-Bear (had to get a graduation present for someone) and World Market for some kitchen items. On Saturday, following a surprisingly early wake-up for us both, we really hit the shopping trail: Grand Asia Market for some good jalapenos and cilantro and some tasty Japanese soda for Dan, United Restaurant Supply for some obscure kitchen items (gotta have that 20-quart brining bucket), the State Farmers Market for fresh tomatoes and apples (and, surprisingly, some excellent local goat cheese), Sam’s Club for those household staples, purchased by the pallet full, Barbeques Galore to pick up a little item that we’re going to have fun with at our Memorial Day party, and finally Whole Foods Market to top up our spice rack. Whew! To top things off, we came home and Dan whipped up some delicious homemade pizzas that we shared with Donald and Janelle.

Today we enjoyed the usual lazy Sunday morning (coffee and newspaper, oh yeah), then went out to see Spider-man (yay Sam Raimi!), then joined Donald and Janelle again for steaks on the grill at their place. A lovely day, all in all.

Well, that’s enough recap – off to bed, now!

I’m still alive, just having a very busy week. More on current events soon, but in the meantime: work is fine, Dan is healing well, and I’m planning our next home improvement project.

While you wait for more details, be sure to check out this story on a cool new feature offered by Google.

Yeah, yeah, it’s 9 AM and I haven’t even made coffee yet. I’m allowed to be unmotivated on weekends.

Courtesy cut for those who aren’t interested in every little detail of our day

The short version: The surgery went well, and Dan is resting comfortably.

Click here for the long version

Aren’t you glad people have started putting tests behind LJ-cut tags? Don’t you wish everyone did? {snicker}

So it seems that all of the plans I made for this week, which depended on some raw materials arriving here Monday or Tuesday, are pretty much shot since they haven’t arrived yet. Oh well. Yesterday was spent in the back (“back” meaning the manufacturing area in the back of the building) showing some folks how to use our PD-10 mixer and then how to tear it down and clean it. I hate doing that – it involves a few gallons of solvent, lots and lots of shop rags, some sandblasting, and not a little heavy lifting to get to all the parts to be cleaned. We wrapped that up just in time for me to go home. I skipped the gym and instead got my workout mowing the lawn, which I figure works out to roughly the same amount of cardiovascular exercise.

Today I started off with a meeting with my boss, as a follow up to my job review two months ago. Good news this time – he’s hapopy with my progress, and so am I. I think the biggest factor is that I’ve been swamped with this new project, and it’s kept me quite busy. I’m terrible at making myself look busy – I’d rather be busy. It doesn’t hurt that I now know how to read him better (for instance, when he makes a “suggestion” on how to do something with the project, if I don’t do it I’ll hear about it later). Anyway, it’s all good.

I plan to take a short lunch today so I can leave early for the gym. After I get in my workout there it’s straight home, just in time for people to start arriving for another Gang gathering – Pizza and Gaming this time around. The featured games are Outburst and UpWords, though games of Fluxx or Chez Geek may break out as well.

Today is a Friday of sorts for me, though maybe not the best way to accomplish it. Tomorrow I take Dan in for his surgery. Atthis point, it’ll be a Good Thing just to get it over with – the anticipation is awful. I’m hoping that having folks over tonight will take his mind off things. While he’s in their care (from 10:30 AM until 4 or 5 PM, I can’t leave the building, per their policy. I sure hope they have a cafeteria, but if not I can cope. Guess I’ll load up with my laptop and stuff to read. Anyway, on Friday we go to the doctor at 8 AM and have his packing removed and then it’s back to the house where he can relax. Theoretically I’m supposed to do everything I can to get back into work on Friuday, but that is absolutely NOT HAPPENING. My place is at my partner’s side, helping where I can, and work can go get stuffed.

Well, off to make more phone calls, yay…

Found this over in the ever-entertaining lj_nifty community…

Ever wondered how many people are on LiveJournal? Geographic distribution? Age distribution? Well, there’s a way to find out.

Let’s see…at age 34 that means that, uh, 96.93% of LiveJournal users are younger than me. Well, that’s depressing.

Caveat (added at 16:30 EDT): I note that if you add up the numbers listed for each age and compare that to the total number of users, you’ll find that only roughly 50% of the users have reported their age. You could say that the graph shows a representitive sample, but I’ll be optimistic and say it’s a self-selecting sample and therefore statistically invalid. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it 😉

It’s a Monday morning ramble, whee.

The weekend was quite nice. We had all kinds of plans to run errands on Saturday, but Dan wasn’t feeling well (sinus headache again), and I though that he would enjoy napping in the nice semidarkness of our bedroom rather than venturing out into the bright sun. So we bagged the errands for that day and instead just sort of hung out and noodled on computers. I started the reinstallation of Windows 98 on my desktop PC – I don’t use it for much anymore besides ripping MP3’s, burning CD’s, and transferring files to and from my MP3 player. I’m going to set it up as our guest computer (for those that don’t bring ther own and can’t hook into our wi-fi network). The reinstallation process was fairly easy, but tedious. Nothing like trying to dig through five-year-old floppies looking for sound drivers and hoping that they still work. Still, looks like I’ve got everything up and running again.

Sunday we did finally get out of the house, hitting Kohl’s to exchange some shorts (size on the sales tag didn’t match the size on the tag sewn inside), Lowe’s to check out their vertical blinds (for the living room), Wellspring (aka Whole Foods Market) for coffee and some excellent fresh-ground hamburger, and Lowes Foods for the usual weekly groceries. Oh, and Eckerd, for my shiny new prescription of Protonix. Holy crap! That stuff is expensive. Even with $50 covered by insurance, it still cost me $60. I can’t afford that every month, so I need to either look for alternatives or find a cheaper source. Or maybe only take it as needed, I dunno. Suggestions are welcome.

So today I have to putter around work, waiting for materials to come in so I can run a reaction Tuesday or Wednesday. Not too bad, gives me time to write in my LJ (obviously) and make further inquiries with lawyers about what is necessary to establish a civil union in the state of North Carolina (a combination of Powers of Attorney, estate planning, and other contracts, as near as I can tell). Oh, and I need to go to Homo Depot at lunch and put in the order for vertical blinds – they have what we wanted, and Lowe’s didn’t. Only thing that sucks is that it’s going to take three weeks to come in, but we hope to have them up before Memorial Day. It’ll be nice to have a bit more privacy and it should cut down the A/C bills, too.

Oh yeah – I need to set the Tivo to record Good Morning America tomorrow. Thanks for the heads up, mirkowuff!

Wednesday we’re having the Gang over for games and pizza, a last-minute party thing before Dan goes in for his surgery. He’s worried about it, but I think things will be so much better afterwards (well, after the recovery period anyway) that it will all be worth it.

Well, I’m off to attempt to be useful…

Not much to write about. It’s been a nice, quiet weekend in preparation for an especially interesting week. I will pass on a picture that amused me, though, titled “Playing With Your Dinner“. Enjoy!

Ma na ma na
Doot doo doo doo
Ma na ma na
Doot doo doo doo
Ma na ma na
Doot doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo doo doot doot doot doo doo.

Excuse me, I need to go flush my brain with Dra-no….

Feeling pretty accomplished today – got the problem with my big project resolved, which will break the logjam there. The downside, of course, is that it’s going to ramp up again therefore and leave me little time for much else. I’ve got a built-in rest break next week, though, with takaza‘s surgery, for which I’m taking Thursday and (probably) Friday off. Hell of a way to get a vacation, eh?

Still trying gather new and interesting stuff for my MP3 player. Naturally, MP3.com has piles of good stuff (and a lot of crap), and it’s tough to sort through all the available material – in addition to there being a tremendous amount, their user interface sucks. I found a new site called Emergent Music that has useful reviews and classifications of unsigned bands – this is exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for. I’d love to find a couple of new artists I’ve never heard of and buy their CD’s from them directly if only to give the record industry the ol’ f*** you. Anyway, if you know of any sites that have good reviews of little-known bands, let me know!

Hmmm…another night of lazing in front of the Tivo. We’ve got The West Wing, The Amazing Race, yesterday’s Survivor recap, plus tonight’s Survivor if we want to watch that on time delay. Ain’t no way we’re going to see all of that. And who knows, someday we’ll actually watch the two movies we have sitting on the Tivo (Local Hero and Magnolia). Plus a really good documentary about a 100-year old black lesbian who grew up and lived in Springfield, Illinois – I’ve just seen the first part and it’s a fascinating first-person account of the history of central Illinois.

Time to go!

A slow, quiet day here at work. Not a lot of those lately, so it was kind of nice.

I was able to figure out how to redesign some of my web pages using CSS. Nothing to show for it yet, but I’ve gotten the look the way I like it on my local copy, and that’s a start. Next I need to update the content of my coming out page and transfer the style over to the other pages on the site. I suppose I should figure out how to break the style out of the individual page and just use one style file for multiple pages.

Yeah, I do this for fun. Weird, ain’t I?

Hmm…$175 round trip from Chicago to RDU for Memorial Day. I have the germ of an idea on how we might get a certain someone down here for our party, whether they want to come or not. We’ll be in touch with some of you out there to see what evil plans we can develop.

Judging by the latest Midwest Furfest newsletter, I reckon it’s time to get my butt in gear and get the online registration pages up. Lots to do there – hosting to negotiate, merchant account to line up, websites to integrate. This will be fun because this is going to have to be a group effort, with some web page design, some paperwork shuffling, and lots of administrative sleight-of-hand. My goal is to get everything live by Memorial Day – wish me luck.

Why I love Doc Searles: “Now it’s the middle of the night and I’m boiling lettuce for a pet the size of a booger.”

(Even a five-year-old knows that Google is the Sum of all Knowledge!)

…and into the fridge?

After having a weekend where the temperatures were up into the 90’s, the high tomorrow will be in the mid-60’s. A welcome respite from the heat, but I could have used that when I was mowing the lawn yesterday. Gahh.

Nice that things are easing up a bit at work this week. Still plenty of stuff to be done, but within a more sane timeframe, thank heavens. I’ll be working on three different projects this week, including one that’s waaay behind (hey, they were working on it for a year and a half before handing it off to me, and they don’t have a customer for the product yet – they can wait.)

Got my federal tax refund deposited into my checking account on Friday – that was worth a several-thousand dollar boost. Pity it’s all going to Visa (and not making as much of a dent as I’d like). Fortunately, next month is also the first month this year where I get three paychecks (the joys of getting paid every two weeks – 26 checks per year when you only have to pay bills 24 times per year), so that’s even more money going into the Big Plastic Sinkhole. But what the heck, I was able to splurge a bit with my state tax refund and buy Takaza and I each one of these, which makes working out much, much nicer. Right now I’m listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at a rate of a chapter per day as I walk on the treadmill – it really makes the time fly by. Plus, it’s fun to lift weights with a good jig or reel playing in the background. I’m going to start mining MP3.com for new and interesting music. My latest addition: an interesting set of Eurodance stuff. Not what I typically listen to, but the driving beat will be good when I’m on the recumbent bike.

That’s about it for now. Hmm…note to self (and someone else): need to see what plans are for New Year’s Eve this year…

Everyone else is doing it, so it must make you cool 🙂

This could be tough because I haven’t exactly been the shyest person int he world about my life, but I’ll give it a shot:

Ten things you don’t know about me…

I’ve been wanting to write in my LiveJournal this week, but haven’t much had a chance, unfortunately. Lame excuse, eh? Ah well…

Since Tuesday, work has pretty much kept me occupied. I’ve had one project that has pretty much been eating all my time and really wearing me out (and leaving little time for LJ entries from work).

So anyway, Wednesday and Thursday were a wash – work, gym, home, eat sleep, repeat. Pretty boring.

Friday, well…Friday I had the day off because I had an appointment for an esophageal endoscopy. For those coming in late, this is because I was diagnosed with gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD) and the doctor wanted to check to see if there was any damage to my throat from the acid reflux. takaza took me in to the doctor’s office and waited patiently in the waiting room to take me home. After taking my temperature (normal) and blood pressure (elevated – I can’t imagine why), the nurse took me back to a large room with 16 different cubbies arrayed around a central nurses station. In every cubby was a bed and each was surrounded by a curtain. Just about every cubby was occupied. Geeze – seems like they had a real assembly line set up there.

I was deposited in one of the cubbies and told to change into the standard-issue modesty-free hospital gown. After I was changed, the nurse tucked me into the bed (it was chilly there!) and installed an IV catheter in my arm. Next, they wheeled me into the darkened procedure room where I met my gastroenterologist. She injected something into my IV and as the ceiling started melting, I commented that that must have been the Demerol. That was pretty much the last thing I remember.

I woke up (i’m told) shortly thereafter to find myself back in my little cubby and Takaza walking back to be with me as I woke up. That made me feel much, much better. (Side note: this whole thing reminded me that we really need to get a lawyer and sign all of the powers of attorney and legal papers so that each of us can be present for medical procedures and make decisions as necessary). I was predictably woozy. The doctor explained to Takaza that from what she saw everything was just fine and there were no problems. I entertained Takaza for the next 45 minutes by asking what the doctor had said, then forgetting and asking again. Finally, I was mostly over the Demerol and they let me go home. I took a nice nap and felt fine after that – not even a sore throat. I even felt good enough to join some friends for dinner that night a local steakhouse.

Saturday was a fun, low-key day. Some early-morning hiking with friends, followed by some yummy pizza at Homegrown Pizza just down the road from us, then some fun games back at our place, then dinner at a local Mexican joint. Good food, good company – it was fun way to spend the day.

Today…well, not much on the table for today. Leftovers from yesterday for lunch, then I have to mow the lawn while Takaza does laundry. Mmm…domestication. What fun.

Random stuff on this beautiful (but hot!) day…

Don’t know that it’s a beautiful day outside? You might want to go here.

I’ve been spinning my wheels a lot today. The reaction I was supposed to run got halted in its first stage because I couldn’t get the in-process testing to work properly. It’s on hold until tomorrow, when I’ll start it up first thing.

Or second thing, really. First thing, I have to meet my good buddy Drew from Handyman Connection so he can finish off the ceiling repair in the living room. Yeah, I decided to bring in a pro, because the patch is in the middle of a smooth ceiling, right in front of the patio door. Any flaw in the repair will be quite noticeable in the light and shadows that come through the patio door, so I figured I’d best let someone who knows what they’re doing take care of it. It’s a hundred and fifty bucks for a sheetrock repair, which galls me, but it’s an investment in the future resale value of the house, too, so I’ll console myself with that. At least I saved myself the cost of the plumbers by fixing the shower leak myself.

Been having great fun playing with the new MP3 player – got approximately 1,300 songs on it now and working to get them all organized into some usable fashion.. The latest problem is figuring out how to easily tote it around the gym. It’s about the size of a Walkman cassette player, but it’s a bit heavy for a portable audio gadget – about 12 ounces. I’m afraid if I put it in the pocket of my gym shorts, it’ll pull them right down 🙂 I think what I want is something like a canteen that goes around the waist for hiking, but that the belt is detachable – that way I could use it for both the canteen and the MP3 player. Le Monde du Wally didn’t have what I was looking for – I might have to try Target, or (heaven help me) REI.

Finally, we have this, courtesy of User Friendly‘s Link of the Day: If you think your neighbors are bad, you haven’t seen the dreaded Redneck Neighbor. Scary.

More proof that it’s a small world coming up.

So, to continue the story from Sunday: following a tasty breakfast (thanks, Mom!) we hit the road at about 10:30. We figured we’d try a shortcut through South Carolina, cutting off the boring stretch of I-85 through Gastonia and Charlotte, to reach Carowinds which is south of Charlotte, on the NC/SC state line. So I’m driving along, about a mile and a half before our exit, when I notice a car in the left lane pass quickly, then suddenly slow down. It takes a moment to register…red Explorer…rainbow paw, cool…Maryland plates…hmmm…”I’d rather be playing pinball” license holder…holy crap, it’s Brophey! I pulled up next to him and waved and he almost drove off the road 🙂 We both pulled off at the next exit and had a nice chat. He was headed from Atlanta to Baltimore, and just happened to pass by right before we left the interstate. It was a pleasant surprise, and kind of livened up the trip.

The shortcut through South Carolina actually was a shortcut – it probably shaved about 15 minutes off the trip, and it was a pretty drive too. Carowinds was fun – we picked up our season passes (since we’ll be driving past Kings Dominion at least twice this summer and the pass is good there, too), and we got to ride Vortex (Arrow), The Hurler (woodie), The Carolina Cyclone (stand-up), Drop Zone (freefall-type ride), and Thunder Road forwards and backwards (their racing coaster). We skipped Top Gun and Ricochet, their new Wild Mouse, because both had too many people in the queue; most every other ride was walk-on.

We left at about 4 PM and decided to try a new way home from Charlotte, by way of Rockingham and Southern Pines. Let’s just say that this is not a short-cut and leave it at that. Bleah.

Greetings from…Anderson, South Carolina?

Well, I didn’t wake up yesterday intending to be here. I spent most of yesterday morning noodling with my new MP3 player and dumping about 1,300 files onto it (organization and playlists are still to come – that’ll take a while). After that, it was on to the one big job of the day: mowing the lawn. Since we’d let it slide for two weeks, it was a bit tall and the fact that it was still slightly damp didn’t help. With judicious use of the bagger (and a couple of passes over the thickest areas) we got the job done.

Now, before I’d started on the grass, Mom called. Dad had been away on a business trip since last Sunday, and it looked like he wouldn’t be back until late next week. She was home alone, just her and Bela, their schipperke. After a week at home alone, I think she was starting to wonder how good of a conversationalist Bela might be – starved for company is a good way to describe it 🙂

Well, takaza and I were wanting to drive someplace this weekend anyway, so we jumped in the car at about 3 PM and told mom we’d be there for dinner. Five hours later, there we were. We got a tasty dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and apple pie, plus good company, and Mom isn’t talking to the dog anymore – I think it was a win-win situation all around 😉

Today, we’ll be heading back home, with a stop at Carowinds along the way to pick up our Paramount Parks season passes and maybe ride on their new coaster, if it’s open. Gee, we really wish we could be up in Chicago for that oh-so-exciting staff meeting, but instead we’ll ride some roller coasters for ya.

You know, I didn’t write about it here, but a few months back I had a really disheartening experience. First, the background: there’s a collection of kids, mostly boys ages 10-14, that usually plays in front of our neighbor’s house across the street – sometimes in the street as well. No biggie, this happens in neighborhoods with lots of kids and lightly-traveled streets. I was driving home from work one afternoon and one of the older boys flagged me down. I rolled down my window.
Me: “Hi, What’s on your mind?”
Kid: “What’s that tag on the front of your car mean?”
Me: “The rainbow flag? That’s a symbol of gay and lesbian pride.”
Kid: “So you’re gay?”
Me: “Yes.”
Kid: “Ewww.”
And he made a face of disgust and walked away. I replayed that scene in my head a few times, and I’m glad I didn’t lie or try to evade him. I have had pride in my identity for eight years now, and there’s no way I’m going to change that for the sake of some neighborhood kid.

Not much ever really came of that, with the exception of one morning as Dan took out the trash to the curb one of the neighbor’s kids (the one I’d vote Most Likely To Encounter Law Enforcement) shouted “Fucking faggot!” to him. Infuriating at the time, but not worthy of much notice in retrospect.

So, why dredge all this up? Well, today I stopped for lunch at Pop’s (my new favorite local joint for burgers and shakes) and the Hispanic woman who took my order saw my car and asked me what the rainbow flag meant. When I told her it was for gay and lesbian pride, she smiled and nodded, saying she was a lesbian. We had an interesting conversation about how hard life is for gays and lesbians in Mexico which is why she came to America, and how it’s so difficult meeting gayfolk in this area unless you go to clubs or something. I gave her directions to the local gay bookstore, and some pointers on some places she might try (like the lesbian club in Durham) and she was very happy.

So, the next time I ask myself if it’s worth it to have a rainbow flag tag on my car, I’m going to remember her smile, and the great feeling of finding someone you can connect with. Hell yes, it’s worth it.

In celebration of a certain someone becoming TiVofied, I present…our Season Pass list (this is the list of shows we record on a regular basis):
Click here to learn the juicy details of our TV habits

So in celebration of extended daylight hours and spring and all that other stuff, I did a little sprucing up. Check out the new style for my journal. I’ll be tweaking it a bit over the next few days (need to improve the spacing of the headers and maybe change the date format), but I’m pleased that I’ve gotten this far.

Credit-where-credit-is-due Department: this is based on millenia‘s Millenial Paper style. If you want to mess around with the style of your journal, be sure to check out the lj_style community.

OK, I have a new object of geek desire: this MP3 player. The little radios we have for working out are nice, but the reception at the gym is rather spotty at times and I’d prefer to be able to have something pre-recorded sometimes. I also like Takaza’s suggestion of renting audio books, ripping them, and storing them on each of our MP3 players so we can each listen to them at our own pace (then deleting them, of course).

It’s cheaper than an iPod and has about as much memory. The only drawback is the slowness of the USB interface versus iPod’s Firewire interface, but I’m willing to work with that.

All I need is the two hundred bucks…well, that may take a while.

I wasn’t much fun last night, I’m afraid. I was having one of those days where things seem to break all around me – first my car, then my computer. Bleah.

My car decided on April 1 that it didn’t want to start. No, not just wouldn’t turn over, the key wouldn’t turn in the ignition, period. April Fools! Not.

takaza came over to pick me up, and after I had called the local dealer (just a half-mile away) and the national roadside service, he managed to wiggle the key enough to get it to start. We took it down to the dealer and left it with instructions to fix it (along with giving it its 12,000 maintenance, which it needed anyway). The service rep found that she, too, couldn’t turn the key after she parked it, so that confirmed the problem.

So I got a call yesterday that I could come pick up the car. I asked what was wrong with the ignition, and was told that the technician couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Fortunately, it was the same service rep, and she assured me they’d look into it, and to hold off on picking up the car. Later, I got a call that they’re having a locksmith come and look at it, but that he couldn’t be there until this morning. Which is why I’m driving a shiny new Ford Focus this morning, since they’re providing me with a freebies rental. Not a great car, but the headroom in the Focus is surprisingly large. Pity it’s slow, Spartan, and uncomfortable. Anyway, I should get a call sometime today for me to pick up my Alero and all with be right with the world. And the ignition problem is covered under warranty, thank the gods.

Then there’s the computer. The laptop took a slight spill off the coffee table over the weekend and bent the wireless networking card. Now my transfer speeds have dropped to half (or less) unless I push the card a certain way, and even that’s not a surefire fix. This definitely means I’ll be buying a new wireless card soon – that’s about a hundred bucks down the drain. Damn.

These add up to being in a crabby, unsociable mood yesterday evening. Bless his heart, Dan put up with me, and I got over it eventually. Working out helped, too – good to work out your aggressions on the bicycle and treadmill. I’m feeling much better today, fortunately, and even have a blessedly light day at work, so I don’t feel so stressed out.

Some wonderful quotable passages from my daily weblog reading.

From b-may:

There is just no socially acceptable situation in which a person may smell their fingers in front of another person.

From diveintomark (bonus points for usage of the word oubliette):

She watches, she swoons, she is overwhelmed by his stunning display of machismo, his confidence, his raw virility that oozes from his every pore. She watches as, with one swift stroke, he severs the main cable line, thus sending the entire household spiraling down an oubliette of disconnectivity.

From dooce.com:

If I can bring light and hope to a dreary canine-cum-elephantine existence, why not scratch a little chaffed hind leg? Who wouldn’t?

And finally…
From Adam Curry (yes, that Adam Curry):

Currently I’m in Dubai, dialed into the net at about 21k/sec, a far cry from the DSL speeds I’m used to. ‘Checking mail’ results in 20 minutes of downloading penis enlargers.

By the way, check out Curry’s inside scoop on stars he met during his MTV days – pretty funny stuff.

Goodness, I’m getting bad about keeping this updated.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were contemplating the leak in the living room ceiling. Well, we have graduated to no leak, but a nice big hole in the ceiling. I’m telling myself this is an improvement.

What happened is, the plumbers used some kind of crappy gasketing material between the drain opening of the fiberglass shower insert and the PVC piping; when I unscrewed the drain head, I could see that the gasket was pretty much completely deteriorated and half gone. A trip to Homo Depot later and I picked up some good waterproof silicone caulk, which sealed everything right up. I found something called “Plumber’s Putty” which seems to be what the plumbers used, in spite of the large warning on the back, “DO NOT USE ON PLASTIC”. Anyway, now that the drain is sealed, I can go to work repairing the 20″ x 6″ hole in the living room ceiling that I made to determine just where the leak was coming from. Actually, the hole will get bigger before I’m through, because I need to cut away the water-damaged sheetrock, too. Fortunately, I got the sheetrock I needed from Home Depot for free (came from a damaged sheet), but I also had to buy all the accoutrements to make the repairs: joint compound, trowel, sanding block, sandpaper, paint roller, paint tray. Not too expensive, fortunately. I’ve been putting off starting the ceiling repair, but I’ll probably go to work on that tonight – at least cutting the sheetrock and screwing it to the rafters, as well as putting on the first layer of joint compound.

That’s what I did on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday we did approximately diddly, and it was lovely. Well, we got the grill into working order (had to repair the burner – it was whistling. After whistling comes fire from inappropriate places, and That’s Bad), mowed the lawn, fixed the track light in the kitchen, and did some laundry.

This coming weekend should be fun. What began as Todd and Bookshire coming over for dinner and games has blossomed into a full Gang event and cookout (thus the rush to get the ceiling repaired 🙂 We’ll need to do a bit of cleaning and other preparation for that, but it should be fun. Looks like the weather will cooperate, too, though it might be a bit chilly.

I won’t go into my tale of woe from work – suffice to say that it involves lots of fun (and not so much fun) with chemistry, cow-orkers with their heads up their asses, and deadlines that are completely impossible. This has eaten all my time this week, which explains why I’ve been so silent.

Now, I’ve an hour to go before I take off for a three-day weekend. Whee!

Looks like the weekend will be spent doing a lot of work around the house. No sooner do I mow the lawn for the first time this season than it needs to be mowed (mown? moan?) again. I think this time I’ll lower the mowing deck a bit. Then there’s the hole in the living room ceiling…

Mind you, our house was built in July of 2000 and is very new. Why is it that a few weeks ago I was lying on the sofa and looked up to see a lovely water spot on the living room ceiling? I ignored it, figuring it was a leftover from a past incident (the brain-damaged plumbers didn’t put in the gasket between the tub and the tub overflow pipe – water slopped over and went down the side of the tub and down the wall, not the pipe). Every so often I’d look up and wonder if the spot had gotten bigger, or was damp. Last weekend I finally poked at it a bit…and my finger went though the sheetrock. Well, that answers that question. The master bathroom shower is now out of commission, and tomorrow afternoon I’ll be spreading out a tarp on the living room floor, pulling out my trusty sheetrock saw, and doing a bit of exploratory surgery to determine the source of the water leak. Given past experiences with the plumbers for our house (see previous example), I’m halfway afraid of what sort of idiocy I’m going to encounter when I start poking around. I’m reasonably handy, but if it looks like it’ll be a big job, I’m calling the plumbers. Different plumbers.

Oh yeah, I still need to do taxes this weekend, too…

In today’s N&O, Dennis Rogers has an interesting column on “Operation Catnip,” an effort in the city of Raleigh to trap, sterilize, vaccinate, and release 1,800 to 2,400 feral cats per year. Mind you, that’s a drop in the bucket – the SPCA of Wake County estimates that there are 57,000 – 85,000 feral cats in the county.

While I’m not wild about the idea of releasing them back to an uncertain fate, I suppose it’s an improvement on keeping them for a while then killing them (euthanize is just another pretty euphemism). What really grabbed me was Rogers’ closing paragraphs:

I wish I had the answer. I don’t want to see any animal destroyed. I also don’t want to see them lost, cold and huddling by the side of a busy road, waiting for death or rescue.

“At least the Operation Catnip people are not just sitting back and complaining about it,” [Mondy] Lamb [of SPCA of Wake County] said. “We all have to do what we can, not because it will solve all the problems, but because it is the right thing to do.”

My project is to find people who cruelly abandon their unwanted pets for the rest of us to take care of. I’d like to leave people like that in the woods for a few nights so they’d know what it is like to be cold, hungry, lost and unloved.

Then I’d sterilize them.

Here’s a link especially for bookwurm. I saw it and thought of her 🙂 (See especially “Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian“)

You know, I’ve always found those “What X Are You?” tests really freakin’ annoying, but this one is actually not too bad…

Interesting Enneagram test results below

As promised, here’s the recipe for Bul Kogi, Korean Barbecued Beef:

Click here for something truly yummy!

I was thinking today that in the three+ years that takaza and I have been together, I can’t recall that I’ve ever been home alone while he was out of town. I’ve been out of town numerous times, leaving him alone, but never the other way around. It’s a weird feeling, and it hearkens back to my days of bachelorhood. I am and always have been an independent sort, so it’s not like my world is crumbling apart in the four days that he’s gone; in fact, I think occasional separations are a Very Good Thing. They remind us of how we rely on one another, what our identities are as a couple and as individuals. And absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder.

Click here for the minutae of my last few days

Wow, having one of those “Fun With Health Care” weeks.

First, the good news: went to the gastroenterologist yesterday and she said that the fatty liver thing was pretty much nothing to worry about. I’m doing what is called for to relieve it – exercising and losing weight (or I will be losing weight after a while, anyway. I hope). She could have called for a liver biopsy (basically sticking a needle in my abdomen a few times and pulling liver samples) but since there’s really not much to do for the condition regardless of what the results may be, she opted not to. Whew.

Then we got to the fun part. I’ve always had a problem with heartburn, and typically have relied on Pepcid Complete about four or five times a week. In the last few months have had an occasional problem where, while I’m asleep, stomach acid creeps up into my throat and I wake up feeling like I’m about to vomit. Bleah. It’s about as pleasant as it sounds. Turns out these are all classic symptoms of Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). What this means is the sphincter at the base of the esophagus into the stomach which is supposed to act like a one-way valve has been weakened and allows stomach acid back into the esophagus. This is a pretty common condition, really.

The biggest concern is that while the stomach lining is made to deal with stomach acid, the esophagus is not so there concerns that ulcers or scar tissue have formed. The only way to know for sure is to get an esophageal endoscopy, where they stick a camera down your throat and see what’s up down there. I get to partake in this little bit of entertainment in about a month. Sounds like it’s going to be interesting – intravenous sedation, have someone there to drive you home, don’t plan on doing anything else for the rest of the day. Still, it’s a necessary evil – I’d rather know what’s going on down there, I suppose.

You can be a computer whiz and still be a moron.