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An Addendum

Now, I have to admit that, as I said in my last post, I did have an absolutely fabulous time in Chambana. But…

If I seemed somewhat quiet on Saturday it’s because I knew that while I was having fun, it would have been so much better to have Takaza there. I was worried about him, since he was DJ’ing that night for his employer’s Charlotte branch’s Holiday Party. I know my wolf, and I knew that he would do a fabulous job, but he was worried, and that made me worried. And that made me miss him all the more.

The absolute best part of the night was when he called a little before midnight to tell me what a smashing success the Holiday Party had been. It made me very happy to hear his voice, and to hear that everything had worked out well. Plus, he got a nice bonus for his efforts, too!

It’s ten days until I fly down to North Carolina for Christmas. I’m counting the hours.

I love you, Dan, and I miss you so much.

I Went Downstate and All I Got Was Muddy Shoes

It’s a slow day today, which is good considering the weekend was pretty busy.

First off, the court date on Friday went extremely well. I showed up about 45 minutes to the lovely Cook County 4th Circuit Court in Maywood. There’s were groups of courtrooms throughout the first floor of the building; looking at the schedule, I saw that the courtroom I was scheduled in was for Traffic Court for the Illinois State Police, 3rd District. The two courtrooms across the hall were scheduled for felony trials, which made me look at the other people waiting around for the courtrooms to open in a whole new light. The bailiff opened the courtroom door at 1 PM and I went and grabbed a seat and killed time for the next thirty minutes by people-watching and looking around at the courtroom. I noticed that only one state trooper was present and it wasn’t the officer who had written my ticket; that, coupled with the fact that I had a letter from my insurance company stating they had paid the damages on the other party’s vehicle, led me to think that I wouldn’t have any problems.

At 1:30, the judge came in and they did the “All Rise” thing. I was halfway looking forward to seeing some of the cases before the court, but I was called second. The judge called the name of the other party in the accident. When no one answered, he said, “Continuance denied. The case is dismissed. You’re free to go.” And that was it. I even looked at the bailiff, as if to ask “is that all there is?” and she made little shooing motions, sending me out the door. I walked out at 1:36 PM. Damn.
Then came an enjoyable weekend in Chambana

A quiet afternoon here at work. I’ve caught up with most of the stuff I intended to get done for today, so that gives me a few minutes to update.

The last few nights have been pretty uneventful – come home, geek a bit on the computer, maybe play some Katamari Damacy. Linnaeus bought a new Windows laptop so I’ve been helping him outfit that with the best free applications I know of.

On Tuesday we went over to the Thai place I mentioned earlier. Sadly, the food wasn’t quite as fabulous this time around, but at least the company was good. I guess now that I’ve determined that I actually like Thai food, I need to go to work finding some really good Thai food. I suspect there are an untold number of places to try through the Chicago area, so that goes onto my list of restaurants to find (right next to a good Vietnamese place, a decently-priced fondue restaurant, and a decent tapas bar).

I went ahead and reserved my room for the LAFF New Year’s Party. It would appear that I’ve volunteered to run, um, registration there. Quelle suprise! Fortunately, registration consists pretty much of just making sure that only people who have paid can get into the rooms that we have (and by extension, have access to the food). I also tried to reserve my room for Anthrocon, but the hotel keeps transferring me to national reservations, which has never heard of Anthrocon. I’ll try again tomorrow, I suppose. I’m thinking about pricing out a suite, but that will depend on how many people we’re going to have crashing in the room with us. There’s only 18 suites in the hotel, so I imagine they’ll go fast. If that doesn’t work out, I see that they have oversized rooms as well, and hopefully that would be comparable to a Junior Suite at the Adams Mark.

Speaking of Anthrocon, I touched base with Kage last night to check on the status of Artists Alley. It looks like we’re going to be reasonably well-off, though there are some things going on during the weekend that are going to make life interesting. More on that when I have more information.

By the way – I am looking for volunteers for Artists Alley and Con Store at Anthrocon. This would entail either running a cash register (and a free membership, if you’re willing to work enough hours), or helping out just an hour or so at the end of each day (no freebies there, but I might buy you a beverage of your choice afterwards!). Work scheduling would be rigidly structured (moreso than at MFF Registration), which means you’ll know where to be when and when you’ll be done, as well. Let me know either here or by e-mail if you’d be interested.

Tonight I’m headed back to Café Boost for another LAFF Coffee in the City. It’s always a nice, relaxing night and I’m looking forward to it. Then tomorrow I work half a day, then drive down to Maywood and traffic court. I need to remember to bring the letter from my insurance company that, although it admits no culpability, says that they paid for the damage to the other person’s car. That should help the judge dismiss the ticket, I hope. From there, I’ll pick up Linnaeus and we’ll head southwards, yay! Oh – I need to remember to pack my beer kegs and accoutrements into the car, tomorrow morning, too. Once more we’ll try to put a dent into the Great Stocks of Beer that I amassed before Midwest FurFest.

Now to find something to keep me occupied for the next 19 minutes…

Registration Data Analysis and Report for Midwest FurFest 2004

Executive Summary
In this report attendance, demographic and traffic data gathered at Midwest FurFest Registration over the past five years, the complete existence of the convention, is presented. Attendance data shows that we are continuing to maintain a healthy rate of growth (approximately 20%). Our sponsorship rate is improving as well, though not what it has been in past years. The rate of preregistered attendees is on the downward trend, something that we need to improve on if we hope to be able to provide reliable forecasts of attendees before the convention.

For the demographics data, the biggest trend was that was observed was a widening of the distribution of attendees over the United States and Canada, though attendance from outside of North America remains negligible. Traffic data shows that we continue to have an excellent throughput of attendees at peak times. It would also appear that more attendees are arriving earlier.

Click here for the full report

Twenty-Eight Years Ago

Twenty-eight years today something happened that has made me the happiest man on earth.

Twenty-eight years ago today, the most loving, most caring, most wondeful man was born, and he’s made me the luckiest guy I know.

Twenty-eight years ago today, takaza was born.

Happy birthday, my love! I hope you have a great day!

This is the final report on Registration at Midwest FurFest 2004, its fifth year of existence and my fourth year running Registration. Although I’m posting an executive summary of this to the staff mailing list, this is the comprehensive version. I’m going to be pretty detailed here, for two reasons: 1.) As a method of notes to myself for future years, and 2.) In the hopes that this might be useful information to other furry, and fannish in general, conventions. Any comments, suggestions, or constructive criticism is welcome!

Pre-Convention
Registration Materials Vendors

Hey Kids, Let’s Put On A Show!

Oh yeah, we just did. Midwest FurFest has come and gone, and now life is returning (slightly) to some semblence of normal.

This was a difficult year for me – between dealing with a new job, a killer commute, separation from my sweetheart, and the usual pre-con stress, I was pretty much a mess mentally by the time Thursday came around. Takaza was there to steady me, as always, and that helped a lot.

There is absolutely no way I can do a minute-by-minute or even hour-by-hour recap of the con, so I’m just going to hit the high points that I can recall:
Clickety-click for the details

You gotta laugh or you’ll cry

Just when I thought the stress was abating, well, silly me. We’ll muddle through somehow, though not without my blood pressure going through the roof in the meantime.

Now, I never post any of the memes that circulate (and usually ignore them, to be honest), but this one’s results amused the hell out of me. The Believe-O-Matic quiz, which selects what religion best fits your beliefs, had these results for me: Click to see

Head Splodey

In case anyone is wondering where I went, I’m still here. I’m completely snowed under by preparations for Midwest FurFest, though. Don’t expect any updates for about the next week or so, as I am going to be just too darned busy. To those of you who will be at MFF, be sure to stop by Registration and say hi! If you know me well enough, ask me about the ten gallons of beer and maybe we can work something out 🙂 For those not attending, well, I hope you can make it sometime to what I think is one of the most entertaining furry conventions around, even if you’re not “into” furry fandom.

And now, back to work!

A Convention Rant

People seem to have this misconception about conventions (be they furry, or SF, or SCA, or any large fannish gathering), that they are these big, faceless monolithic entities whose movements are mysterious and unknowable. Here’s a secret for you: they are made up of volunteers, people just like you.

Convention policies do not rise from the mysterious depths, spoken by blind oracles; they are arrived at through (hopefully) intelligent and thoughtful consideration by responsible adults. Do you have a problem with a convention policy? Have you considered maybe discussing it with the person responsible? It’s a wacky, crazy idea, but one that you just might want to take into consideration.

The people who help run conventions donate their time and effort and sometimes money so that others can have a good time. What do they get out of it? In most cases, absolutely nothing. With luck, they get the satisfaction of a job well done, of seeing the enjoyment of those around them having a good time, of hearing and seeing good reports after the convention. And if there’s criticism to be had (and of course there will be – I’ve been doing Registration for Midwest FurFest for four years and I have no illusion that it’s perfect, or that it will ever be perfect), it is perfectly reasonable to expect that that criticism might be offered constructively.

Do you have a problem with how something is done? Instead of saying, “I hate the way they did X!” try, “I didn’t like the way they did X, but perhaps it might work better if they tried Y instead.” Be prepared that solution you offered may not be used – there are many different ways to do the same thing, and there may be other factors involved that you haven’t taken into consideration. If this occurs, it isn’t because someone hates you, I assure you. There can always be a discussion about possible solutions, and possibly compromises to be made.

This isn’t a plea for sympathy, or a cheap attempt to garner attaboys for working for furry conventions. It is meant as a reality check, and a reminder to people that at the core of these conventions are people who are making sacrifices so others can have a good time. Show a little respect, be reasonable, and everyone can have a good time.

Chatty, aren’t we?

Yeah yeah – three posts from me in a day. I’m not allowed to be chatty? (or bored…)

I got the estimate back from the body shop last night: $1,891, just a hair more than the $1,800 that State Farm has set as a limit below which they won’t raise our insurance rates. I have a good feeling about this shop, though, and I think I can talk them down somehow to get them to drop the price by $91 (or a few more dollars). I also realized as I walked out last night that now I was driving a car with only on headlight. I called my insurance agent this mornign and they immediately took the attitude of, “Oh, we can’t have that!” and immediately set about arranging a rental car for me today. I’ll be dropping my car at the body shop at 5 PM and Enterprise should be there with a car waiting for me. We might be paying a bit more than with other insurance providers, but it’s nice to know we get good service for the extra bucks.

Not a lot planned for tonight, which is nice. I’ll probably be hanging around at home and working on editing the Restaurant and Services Guide together. My goal is to get it knocked out by the end of the weekend and e-mailed off to aureth.

Tomorrow, assuming that we can overcome weekend inertia, I plan to drive with linnaeus down to Bev-Art in some scary Southside neighborhood and see if there really is a decent homebrewing shop in the Chicago area (I certainly haven’t seen one yet!). The afternoon is set aside for Restraunt Guide work, then rumor has it that I’ll be joining daveqat and jimcyl for a trip up to Milwaukee for a trip to The Safe House. Should be an entertaining, if kitschy, evening. Then Sunday it’s off to justincheetah‘s Halloween party. Hmm, I should think about cooking something for that, if I have the time. We’ll see how things go tomorrow.

Argh! 5 PM can’t get here soon enough!

Fun at Cafe Boost last night

We had a fun night last night. The LAFF City Coffee Outing went well, with a total attendance of 12: duncandahusky, Linnaeus, chouette, perro, boixboi, daveqat, jimcyl, little_wolf, justincheetah, kittylad, Jamie (a gaymer gamer friend of Dave and Jim’s), and Sam (a new LAFFer!).

Much coffee was consumed, lots of con geekery, some political discussion, and general fun times ensued, followed by a pleasant walk through the Andersonville neighborhood. This is definitely going to be a regular thing, though I may keep it to every other week instead of weekly just to keep myself sane. We’ll probably do dinner at a restaurant next time around, but I have a week or so to figure out which one.

Want to see more? Click here for pics from my crappy cameraphone!

Crunchy…

So I’m trying to merge from Skokie Blvd. (aka US 41) on the northbound Edens Expressway this morning, as traffic is slowly creeping along. I looked to my left to find a gap in traffic, and the SUV in front of me stopped suddenly. WHUMP!

Well, that sucked

Mid-week Update

Work then home, work then home.

Been a pretty boring week so far. A couple of high points:
– I was able to get time off in November for MFF OK’d. So I’m off on November 18, 19, and 22. The first two for preparation and actually running the silly thing, the last for recovery. Man, if I had to come back to work the after con, I think I’d die (I know you tried that, Aureth – it couldn’t have been much fun!). The downside is that I don’t get paid for those days. Coupled with the fact that I don’t get paid for the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving, those are going to be some mighty lean weeks.

– 181 postcards later, I’m finally caught up on pre-registration notification cards. Did you know it costs $0.70 to send a postcard to the UK? I do now. (jarrodhenry, your postcard was in among them)

– I had written off to the Wake County Board of Elections in North Carolina back at the beginning of October to request an absentee ballot. Last night I finally got a response…a Request for Absentee Ballot Form. That was due yesterday. Well, that was useful. To be fair, the envelope was postmarked October 16, so the fault lies with the Post Office, not the Board of Elections. I take small comfort in knowing that my vote would be a drop in the bucket in what is overwhelming a Republican state, but it would have been nice anyway.

– I’m still trying to find a better location for Registration on Thursday night of the con. We registered 281 people on Thursday night of last year, and judging from the increase in room nights this year, we’ll easily hit 500 people Thursday night this year. I think that while registering 500 people in four hours in the downstairs hallway would be possible it might not be particularly pleasant, so I’m working with our hotel liaison (the esteemed linnaeus) to investigate other locations in the hotel. One possibility would be to share the downstairs ballroom (which after Thursday night becomes the Gaming Room and Dealers Room) with the Thursday Night Ice Cream Social, but that might get a little tight. We’ll see what alternatives we can work up.

– Still have a bunch of stuff to order from various vendors. Thank heavens that mirkowuff is gratifyingly quick on the reimbursements, or my credit card would be a smoldering wreck right now!

– I’ll be turning off our old cell phones tonight (the 919 numbers). If you need our new telephone numbers and haven’t gotten them yet, send me an e-mail and I’ll bounce ’em to you.

And now to get a little work done in the minutes before lunch…

I seem to have a big grin on my face

Last night was difficult. After a reasonably good day at work, I called takaza to chat as I fought my way through Chicago traffic. After talking about this and that, he mentioned that it would probably be the first of the year at the earliest before his company finishes rearranging their financial department, and thus that would be the soonest he might realistically transfer up to the Chicago area. This hit me pretty hard – I knew it might take a while, but to put an actual date on it made it a little more real.

I was a bit of a mess after we finished talking, and I wondered about going to rustitobuck‘s for dinner and to discuss development of registration system software. I did end up going, and I’m glad I did. Rusty was an excellent friend and made me feel better about things, reminding me that we’ll be seeing each other frequently for the rest of the year and generally keeping me occupied until I worked my way out of the funk I was in. Thanks, Rusty, I needed that.

On the way home I talked with Dan again and we made some plans for next weekend, when he flies up to visit. I went to bed feeling pretty good.

Today has been a pretty good day as well. Took care of paperwork all morning, and we ordered out for some tasty barbecue. I got a call just after lunch saying something was waiting for me at the guardhouse. Odd. Heck, officially I don’t even exist to most people since I’m not in their databases yet. I went down to find a huge bouquet of a dozen roses waiting for me. Dan wanted to do something to cheer me up, and he certainly succeeded! He’s such a wonderful husband, and I’m so very lucky. All of my cow-orkers are jealous now, and that’s just fine with me! And the roses smell lovely, too. Thanks to datahawk and moryssa for their sneaky, behind the scenes work to get Dan in touch with the right people to get the flowers here.

So looking ahead: tonight I’ll be heading down to a party in Willowbrook, heaven help me. Given how traffic goes, I might make it there in two hours…or not. We’ll see. Tomorrow it’s off to Schaumburg to scout out new additions for the Midwest FurFest Restaurant Guide, and then meet roho and genet (plus company, possibly) for lunch, then tomorrow night I’ll be meeting up with friends for hockey!

Well, back to work. Hope y’all have a great weekend!

I suppose I should do this too…

To follow daveqat‘s lead…

Are you going to Midwest FurFest? How would you like to help the convention out? We need help at Registration, especially on Thursday night! You can work as much or as little as you like. Just a few hours on Thursday night? That would be awesome, and we’d appreciate it! But remember, if you put in 10 hours or more, you get a free membership to Midwest FurFest 2005! We will also work to get you a work schedule before the convention, making sure that you have time to do the stuff you enjoy at the con as well. And Registration is a great place to meet people as they arrive at the convention and generally hang out throughout the convention.

Interested? Drop us a line at registration@furfest.org and we’ll set you right up!

The obligatory what’s up…

Been a busy week, for all that I’m still a relative nonentity at work (i.e. no computer access). No access means that I can’t access the databases that I need to do my job, which is frustrating. On the bright side, everyone seems to have this attitude that they’re not expecting any productivity from me for about the first month, but that doesn’t make me feel much better.

I’ve tried taking the train to work a few days this week and I’m finding I really enjoy it. It takes a little longer, and it means that I have to leave for work at 6:30 AM and don’t get back until 6:30 PM, but even though it costs an extra 30-45 minutes, I’m not stressed all to hell when I get home. That’s worth it. And surprisingly, with monthly passes, the cost is actually cheaper than driving. This is a Very Good Thing, with a month of construction about to start on the Edens Expressway…

Meanwhile, evenings have been devoted to taking care of Midwest FurFest stuff. I’d forgotten how spoiled I’ve been for the last two years, having pretty much as much time as I want to work on con-related stuff. These next few weeks are going to be stressful, and there’s a whole lot of work to be done between now and mid-November.

Unfortunately, none of that work will be done this weekend. I leave directly from work this evening and drive down to O’Hare to fly out to Raleigh. Dan and I will be moving this weekend, from the place in Apex to Durham, about 20 miles to the north or so. It’s going to be a crazy weekend, and we’ll have the able assistance of zenwolph, along with our fabulous friends in the Triangle area. Dan has been busting his ass to get the house packed up and I’m certain he’s done a fantastic job.

FYI, our old house phone number (919-367-xxxx) will be going away after Saturday. You can reach Dan or me on our cell phones. I’ll post those as well as our new address in a friends-only entry after this (Mom and Dad, I’ll call you with the info).

Y’all have a great weekend!

All Work And No Play Make Duncan Something Something

So, what the heck is going on in my life?

Well, here’s the deal.

First off, thanks to everyone who sent congratulations on Thursday. It’s much appreciated!

A quick recap of the weekend: Saturday – Frys, Sam’s Wine and Liquors, Caipirinhas, Brats, good company. Sunday: MFF Staff Meeting, dinner with friends, early bedtime.

On Monday I started work at Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, IL. I’m working in the Pharmaceutical Products Division (makers of Clear Eyes, Norvir, and other pharmaceutical goodness) as a Validation Engineer. It seems to be a pretty good gig, though the 60-80 minute commute each way is gonna wear on me. Right now I’m crashing at Linnaeus‘s place and enjoying the excellent company.

If it wasn’t clear from my last post, there’s a downside to this arrangement: Takaza is still back in North Carolina, and he’ll be staying there until he can transfer to a position somewhere in the Chicago area. I can’t begin to describe how much this sucks. But we’ll ride this out, and he’s got a line on some possibilities already. With luck, this separation will be brief and I can be back with my wuff soon.

To top things off, we need to move our stuff to thebroomecloset and ovrclokd‘s old place in Durham the weekend of October 8th. I’ll be flying down that weekend to join in the fun (nothing like starting the money coming in then sending it right back out!).

And now I’m going to space out before heading off to bed.

Midwest FurFest: The End Is Near!

The end is near!

Well, the end of cheap pre-registration for Midwest FurFest 2004, anyway. Yes, after September 30 pre-registration jumps from $30 to $40, so if you’re going to pre-register, now is the time to do it!

Speaking purely hypothetically, since I’m sure you’re rushing to register right now, if you don’t pre-register by September 30, does that mean you can’t attend the convention?

Of course not! We will continue to accept mail-in registrations until November 1 and online registrations until November 13. And you can always just come to the convention and register at the door. But if you want to pre-register and save ten bucks, well, you’ll have to do it by Thursday, September 30! And just think of what you can buy in the Dealers Room with the ten bucks you’ve saved. Or in the Artists Alley. Or that’s ten bucks that you could donate to our charity, Furry Friends Foundation. Heck, you could even walk to one of the many nearby restaurants and get a meal with that ten bucks. So pre-register now and make your plans on how to best spend the ten dollars that you so wisely saved!

Online registration and mail-in forms are available at http://www.furfest.org/registration

Whiling away the time

So, last night was quite lovely. Linnaeus returned from his long northward sojourn, and datahawk and posi_cat came over for dinner. We ordered some tasty pizza from Leona’s (and of course, some Twinkie-sized cheese sticks!) and watched the finale to The Amazing Race. I won’t go into any spoilers except to say this is one of the most satisfying race finishes I’ve seen in the five seasons we’ve been watching the show.

I got word from one of my references yesterday that he received a voice mail from the person I interviewed with earlier this week at Abbott. I’m taking this as a good sign. He’s going to call her back today (with an excellent reference), so we’ll see what happens. I also have a phone interview this afternoon with the company out in the middle of freakin’ nowhere, Illinois. Hey, if it could lead to a well-paying, permanent position I’d gladly consider it. Still waiting to hear back on the Gastonia position, too.

Meanwhile, back in North Carolina, life is interesting for takaza. The good news is that it appears that we’ve got a good short-term solution thanks to thebroomeclosetMike and ovrclokdLisa (y’all are awesome!). It saves us a little bit of money monthly, though hopefully that will just be a month or two until Dan can transfer to a position up in the Chicago area. It sounds like things are moving along on the moving-out front, and friends have been volunteering to assist with that process. I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to make it back to help. This sucks, but we have to do what we can afford (and, if I’m working, what time I can or can’t get off from work. “Gee, boss, can I take a few days off?” = Bad way to start a new job).

So now we’re into the downhill slide to the weekend. Besides the phone interview this afternoon, I hope to swing by an art supply store and pick up the remaining easels I need to buy for MFF. Mirkowuff, I’m gonna have a pile of receipts for you this weekend! Tomorrow, Dan flies in and we’ll be hanging out with a ferenGin-Soaked Panther all weekend. Got the staff meeting on Sunday, which should be good. We’re getting a lot of stuff done, and there’s always more to do!

Well, off to go shower and start the day. Yay!

…And then things changed

Well!

Yesterday was interesting. First off, the Gastonia job: I called the recruiter, and well, he hasn’t had a lot of luck. I interviewed the Monday before Labor Day; the HR rep left for maternity leave the Friday afterwards. Ever since then, the recruiter hasn’t had any luck contacting anyone at the plant or getting them to return his calls about this position. I gave him the names of the two people this position would report to, one of whom had told me he would be taking over the hiring process – both of these names were new to him. Sheesh. This doesn’t reflect poorly on the job, necessarily, but I’m not particularly impressed with this recruiter. So that’s currently up in the air.

I called to check on the Abbott position again. The guy there is still interviewing people (I think he’s been through ten or twelve candidates so far). This does not inspire confidence, and it tells me that the probabilities of that one are diminishing. As I was afraid would happen, the recruiter indicated that the client probably thought I was overqualified for the position. I technically am, but at the same time it would be a good return to chemical engineering fundamentals. On the bright side, the recruiter got an interview for another position for me. Yay! The interview is on Tuesday, September 21, at 3 PM.

And so it looks again like I’ll be driving up to Chicago. And since it would be stupid to turn around and come home when the MFF staff meeting is on the 26th, I’ll be sticking around for that. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for jobs and trying to nail down something. Current plans are that I might be driving up on Sunday, though a lot depends on where Ivan tracks – right now it’s forecast to advance to the southern Appalachians and just sit there through Monday, so that would make the first 6-or-so hours of driving extremely unpleasant. Hmm, if only I knew a couple of foxes who lived along the way so I could break the trip up. Whoever would that be, I wonder? (Hey, aerofox or loriana – gimme a shout and let me know if you already have plans for this weekend. I’m assuming that your bright.net addresses no longer apply. I can drive straight through if need be, but with the slowdown from the rain, well, it’s not my first choice.)

I need to fire off an e-mail to my contact at Corn Products and let him know I’ll be available for an interview next week or the one after, too. Off to be useful…

Geeknotes

A couple of geeky things for folks this morning:
First off, there’s a new Windows vulnerability. Yay. This one’s kinda nasty – it’s a security hole in JPEG image files, and it affects Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Office XP, Office 2003, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Project, Visio, Picture It and Digital Image Pro. Anyone who’s already installed Service Pack 2 is OK, but for the rest of us who are too cautious/just waiting/don’t want the hassle, here’s Microsoft’s site on the vulnerability and how to patch it.

Next up, a note to T-Mobile Sidekick owners: that trade-in for $100 credit on a new SK2? Yeah, they’re having a few problems with it. Apparently, it’s still on, but they are completely swamped. Just an FYI.

And finally, something non-geeky for the rest of us: ZOMBIE CAKE! (link cribbed from lokilinks, a collection of fun links that I picked up yesterday)

Mmm, beer

So, I’m sitting in me_not_youDonald‘s garage right now, working on my latest creation, a Mackeson’s XXX Stout clone. Donald, wildmouseJanelle, takazaDan, and I went to out local homebrew supply store yesterday, and while I picked up supplies for this batch and my next one (a McEwan’s Scotch ale clone), Donald and Janelle decided to upgrade to the Cadillac of brewing equipment: a nice 60-quart brew pot, with built-in thermometer and spigot. Add to this a nice wort chiller and a couple of other items, well, that’s why we’re brewing at his house today 🙂 I’m all jealous, I might add, but I really appreciate his sharing his equipment. Pictures should come later, once Dan arrives with the digital camera.

So, after homebrew supply shopping yesterday, Dan, Janelle, and I went over to Thomas and scarlett_fireSherry‘s place. We were joined by Rich and had an enjoyable evening playing a bit of poker, followed by a rousing game of Dork Tower. Much fun was had, and we packed it in around 11:30.

And today, we brew. Well, for now, anyway. After this batch, we’re going to make a Guinness clone for Donald, then the Scotch ale will come later this week. And of course the MFF staff meeting tonight. Busy busy busy!

Another quiet week. That sucks. Still waiting to hear back on the Gastonia job, as well as the position at Abbott. Apparently, the story on the latter position is that the guy is interviewing a crazy number of people for it – wants to be sure he gets right one, I guess. The recruiter has also submitted my resume for another validation position with Abbott. We’ll see if they want to interview me or what.

Having a bunch of folks over for dinner tonight, so I’m doing my usual thing to distract myself: cook 🙂 On the menu for tonight is Boeuf Bourguignon, as well as a simpler beef stew for folks that aren’t big fans of wine or mushrooms. There’s rumors of brownies for dessert, and I’m sure that Donald will be supplying some tasty wine. I had to pick up a Dutch oven, but it’s been something I’ve been wanting for quite a while – more stews for the winter, yay!

Not a lot planned for the weekend, except that we need to clear out by 11 AM tomorrow so they can show the house. Dan’s a bit grumpy, as this means an early wake-up for him, but I suggested we make use of the time to do…something. We’ll see what comes of that. Other than that, there’s the MFF staff meeting online on Sunday, and that’s about it. Crunch time is on the horizon!

Edit: Just got a phone call from Corn Products – they’re interested in possibly setting up an interview. Yeah! That was a call I was definitely waiting for. We’ll see when they want to do it; I mentioned I would already be up there at the end of the month.

And also…

After the Puzzle Party on Monday, we drove over to Brier Creek and saw Garden State. This is Zach Braff’s new movie (he stars in “Scrubs”), which he wrote, directed, and starred in. I have to say, I thought it was a genuinely outstanding and convincing movie. It’s frustrating the way Braff underplays his role early in the movie, then you learn that there’s a very good reason for it.

This isn’t one of those epic, globe- and time-spanning stories, this is an almost-claustrophobic view into a few days of one man’s life, and that takes some getting used to after some of the summer blockbusters drek I’ve seen lately. I can’t say it had quite the resonance for me that kittylad found in it, but at the same time I can see why he would feel that way. I left feeling like I had seen an excellent story played out by excellent actors who immersed themselves in their roles. Braff, Peter Sarsgaard, and Natalie Portman (!) all were fabulous. I need that soundtrack, too.

You really should see this movie. Interestingly, a lot of other people feel the same way. Wow. That’s pretty damn cool.

Incidentally, be sure to check out Zach Braff’s weblog -fun stuff!

It’s Puzzlicious!

Saturday and Sunday were pretty dull, unfortunately. We didn’t get too much done around the house, though we did get a start on bringing boxes up from the basement and going through them. We sorted through five partially-filled boxes of kitchen equipment, threw out the stuff we didn’t want/need any more, and reduced that down to two boxes. There’s a lot more of that sort of thing to be done, including several bags to be prepared for Goodwill.

On Monday, though, we finally got some motivation into ourselves and headed out to the News and Observer’s Downtown Puzzle Party in Raleigh. The weather was pretty spotty – on-again, off-again rain, which is never fun. We braved it, though, along with about 400 other people. The idea was that you would visit four locations throughout downtown Raleigh (the clues to which were given in the newspaper earlier in the week). In reality, it wasn’t that hard, since they advised that everyone visit the locations in order. This meant that even if you had no idea what the clues were, you could just follow the mob. That was kind of a bummer, but oh well.

The first clue was a couple of street preachers extolling the virtues of suffering to get what you desire. They cited Job, Chapter 8, verses 3 through 6 repeatedly. Hmm. OK. Is it a cryptogram? We puzzled over it a bit while heading over to the second location.

There, we found a couple debating what shows to see. They mentioned Broadway Series South prominently, that he liked shows about death while she liked perky shows about rainbows. As this was going on, a homeless guy behind them held a sign that said, “Please Help” and kept asking for $2.88 for bus fare. Takaza started to piece it together at this point – I admit I was still mystified.

At the third location, a duo on guitar and bass played a cover of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” while a chalk artist drew pictures on the sidewalk in front of them – five stick-figures, five suns, five hearts. When they were done, they talked about how they really wished they had more people – a quintet, even. Dan had a pretty good idea of what the answer was at this point, but I was withholding judgment until we hit the fourth location.

At the final location, we found a mother who was trying to get her son to call her on the phone. She kept telling him that the last number of the phone number was five, and stressed that he really needed to call her more often. That confirmed to us that Dan had the right answer.

So, what was the answer, and what was the outcome?

Gmail Invite – who wants?

I seem to have six Gmail invitations. Comment here with your e-mail address or e-mail me and let me know if you’d like a Gmail account (though it looks like they seem to be flooding the market a bit).

Update – All gone, folks! Sorry. I’ll post again when I have more.