Why Chicago weather amuses me so much

The weather forecast for the coming weekend:

Friday
Mostly sunny and mild. High around 70. Low in the lower 50s.
Saturday
Partly cloudy. High in the upper 60s. Low around 50.
Sunday
Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain. High around 60. Low in the middle or upper 30s.
Monday
Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain and snow. Much colder. High in the middle or upper 30s. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Something for everyone!

Last minute preparations

Putting boxes, boxes, and more boxes inside The Box. We didn’t actually need to see out the back window, did we? Still need to leave room for the suitcase and for the boxes arriving by FedEx tomorrow. Everything fits – barely.

So for tomorrow:

  • Mail tax info on Saturn to Wake County (yes! It’s gone! No, I don’t have to pay taxes on it!)
  • Do laundry
  • Pack suitcase and toiletries
  • Clean house (finally, we can get rid of the clutter!)
  • Pack last bits of stuff into the Element
  • Wash inside windows of the Element
  • Fill Element with gas
  • Pick up Takaza at work at 3 PM and hit the road!

And for now…to bed!

Updata

So, we’re into another week. Another day closer to MFF. Yeek.

No new word on the job front, but that’s cool. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on the job in Ohio – it would be a good position, I think, even if the location may not be the greatest. We could certainly do worse.

We had a busy weekend. On Friday, me_not_you and wildmouse and Thomas and Sherry came over and we cooked up steaks and enjoyed some excellent wine. Hey, Rasslor – we finally cracked open the Habersham Winery Georgia Scarlett and, I have to say, it was excellent! Thanks again from bringing it up, and maybe next time you bring a bottle we’ll actually open it while you’re here so you can have some 🙂

Saturday was an interesting bit of choreography. After seeing takaza off to a physical therapy appointment, I joined Donald and Janelle in a trip up to the local homebrewing shop (the only one in a 50-mile radius, I might add). We picked up another carboy and the ingredients for a brown ale. We met up with Dan in time for lunch at the tasty MacGregor Ale House (mmm, good food and football. Yeah!), then adjourned back to the house. Dan squeezed in a bit of work on the con book and also made a tasty beef stew while I made brownies. Then it was time to hustle over to Thomas and Sherry’s for their Halloween party. Great food, great company, lots of really good wine and champagne. Mmmm, yummy,

Was the night over after that? No! It was time to stop by Clyde and Pony’s Halloween shindig that they threw for the CarolinaFurs (hell, it was all of five minutes from our house – it’s not like we had any excuse not to stop by and be sociable). It was a pleasure to meet Clyde and Pony, and it’s always great to see Perro. We met the elusive tervicz, played with Pooka, Clyde and Pony’s adorable husky, and got to meet Pony’s neurotic bird and his ill-tempered mutant lake bass. Somehow, we also wound up talking MFF business while we were there (how the hell did that happen?) and put some folks’ minds to rest about some misinterpretations of the Artists’ Den rules. Anyway, we also saw zenwolph there and, as planned, he crashed for the night at our place not long after.

On Sunday, after a lovely morning of chatting with Zen and enjoying some tasty French toast, Donald and Thomas came over and we cooked up the brown ale we had bought the ingredients for on Saturday. All went well and I sent five gallons on beer home with Donald, where I’m sure it’s bubbling and foaming away even as I type this. Zen sacked out on the couch for a few hours, which was cool because that gave us a bit of time to unwind and read the newspaper. Once he got motivated again, we grabbed dinner at Chili’s, then sent him on his way back to Richmond. We spent the evening working on the Restaurant Guide and conbook stuff – a quiet night, but pleasant.

So, for the near future: More work on the restaurant guide today, putting together a map for it. Possibly might work up a big map with numbers keyed to the individual restaurants that we could post someplace – we’ll see how motivated I am. I need to get the attendee badge layout to Dan tonight so it can go to the printer tomorrow, and sometime soon, as soon as it’s all finalized, grab the programming schedule off the web and convert it into some format suitable for the con book. Oh, and somewhere in there I have to continue working on the HACCP course – I finished all the coursework on the other two classes I’m taking, but the HACCP course is going to require more time. With luck I can wrap it up before MFF, though.

Beer-wise, thebroomecloset and ovrclockd expressed interest in making a batch of stout, so that may well be next on the agenda. I also want to make a batch of Christmas beer (similar to Anchor’s fabulous annual Christmas brews) that I can put into the keg and serve at the Gang Christmas party (and probably for a good while thereafter, but that’s OK). Those might have to wait until after we get back from Chicago, though, since the next two weeks are going to be somewhat insane. We’ll definitely be bottling the English Special Bitter that I currently have in the fermenter this week, probably on Tuesday. That should be ready for MFF – talk to me if you’d like to try a sample 😉 On a side note, I found that the venerable Cat’s Meow, the immense compendium of homebrew recipes that was a great reference when I was brewing back at Virginia Tech, is still around and even downloadable in PDF – all 310 pages of it (the first link is browsable in HTML, though). It’s a great resource, and I’m awed as ever by the compiled wisdom of the net working together to continue to keep it around and available (and even providing an updated way to share recipes!)

And now, off to start the day!

And on the job front…

After a long, long drought things are finally starting to look up. I had a phone interview with Noveon this morning for a job at their Avon Lake, OH plant. Yeah, I know – directly on the receiving end of lake effect snow. Well, that’s bearable, I think. The position sounds like a good one – extremely similar to my last position except with some different technologies. The phone interview went well, I think – I established a great rapport with the engineer I spoke with, and he seemed to think I’d be a good fit for the job. I should hear in two weeks if they want me to come in to interview. Hmm – I may be flying out for a job interview from Chicago, for the second year in a row. Well, that keeps life interesting.

I also have a line on a job in a much less desirable place. Initially, the job is in Edison, NJ, then after six months moves out to Hackettstown, NJ. The latter is bearable, even pleasant, the former…well, I’d rather not, but it is a job. I kind of doubt I have the background they’re looking for on that one, but it continues to be a possibility.

Takaza went up to Duke Medical Center this morning to get a second opinion on some of the medical issues he’s had lately. No immediate answers there, but I feel a lot better knowing that several people are looking into the problem. Duke has a good reputation, and I’m confident that he’ll get excellent care from there.

Not too much else going on this week. Frantic preparations for MFF continue apace, with lots of editing still to be done for Dan. We’re getting together tonight to carve pumpkins over at me_not_you and wildmouse‘s, then there’s Thomas and Sherry’s Halloween party on Saturday. And yes, Perro and ZenWolph, we’ll see you at the CarolinaFur Halloween party later that night – we may not show until 10 PM or so, though.

And now, I’m heading out to do a bit of grocery shopping, pick up some pumpkins, and maybe even get a hair cut. Ah, the glamour and excitement that is my life!

It’s that time of the year!

Not My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
duncandahusky goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Magellan Meridian GPS Receiver.
aerofox gives you a cute plush foxie!
brophey gives you two passes to see Brother Bear
damnbear tricks you! You get to run MFF Registration for the next three years.
datahawk gives you a hockey stick and a Carbon Leaf bumper sticker.
feren gives you a snarky comment and a bowlful of very spicy stir-fried food.
linnaeus gives you a bottle of exploding root beer.
me_not_you tricks you! You get peanut butter buttcheeks.
partran gives you something that can’t be described in polite company.
rustitobuck gives you a copy of Panther and a Goose Island Orange Cream soda.
takaza tricks you! But he gives you a kiss anyway.
duncandahusky ends up with lots of cool stuff and you didn’t, nyeah nyeah nyeah.
Another fun hijacked meme brought to you by Duncan da Husky.

Laptop update

Well, the good news is that I was able to save all of my data off the drive. The bad news is that after attempting to reinstall with the OEM CD’s several times only to have the laptop shut itself off at random intervals in the middle of the install, it’s abundantly clear that what we have here is a hardware problem.

I’ve faxed in my proof of purchase to Sony, and theoretically, within three days they should ship me a nice empty box. I send that back to them and (again, theoretically), within seven days they send me back my laptop, all fixed and purty. In the meantime, I’ll probably be using my old Windows 98 box that had been exiled to the basement, at least until Dan’s new laptop comes in.

Yes, because Dan has to surrender his laptop come MFF (since it is, after all, property of the convention, and will pass on to the next Publications Director), we need to get a new laptop. After much hemming and hawing, we’re going with an HP Windows laptop instead of getting another iBook. Although the iBook would be preferable, it’s a couple hundred dollars more expensive and we just can’t beat the twelve-months-same-as-cash deal with Best Buy. It’s a shame, because OS X is infinitely more stable than Windows and Dan really prefers it, but when your finances are as ugly as ours right now, well, sacrifices musty be made.

So that’s where things stand right now. By the way, Feren – I did get your email, thanks! I appreciate the offer of assistance but right now it’s in the hands of Sony. With luck we’ll get a quick resolution and life can get back to normal, or as normal as my life gets anyway.

Laptop go down da hoooole

So, I’m typing this up in the basement. I’d like to be upstairs with Takaza but you see, this is where one of the few working computers at my disposal is. I knew that my laptop was in one of those infamous Windows Death Spirals, but I was caught off-guard when I tried to reboot and got “WindowsConfigSyetem is missing or corrupt”. Now it just won’t boot, period, and even when it tries it sometimes shuts off on its own. I have a sneaking suspicion that while there is a problem with the drive there’s also problems elsewhere as well.

We were able to procure an IDE/Mini-IDE interface last night and get the drive hooked up to the roommate’s Win2K box. It reads the drive fine, which is cool. I tried to copy over the contents of my My Documents folder and started getting CRC after CRC error. Badness. So, I set it to run Scandisk last night and went to bed. As soon as John is up and I can gain access to the Win2K box I’ll try copying the data over again. I don’t think I’ve lost any recent data, though some random files from the past are toast. Man, this sucks.

Once I can get everything I need to off the drive, I hope to put it back into the laptop, try to reinstall with the OEM CD’s that I know don’t work, call Sony and get replacement CD’s, and then we’ll see what happens after that. I hope I don’t have to pack it up and send it off, but that’s definitely a possibility. The good news is that I bought the thing on October 30 last year, so we’re still (just) inside the 1-year warranty.

Anyway, if you’re trying to reach me, be aware that I don’t quite have the easy net access that I have in the past. I’ll be checking e-mail regularly, though, somehow, and will endeavor to keep up with friends, email, and MFF business (and to not go insane as I try to fix all this).

A scattered update

Pretty quiet week last week – not too much to report. One bit of good news: The unemployment benefits that I thought were pretty much gone for good are suddenly back! With the renewed benefit year (i.e. I’ve been out of work for over a year now), my weekly benefit goes up slightly and I get fourteen weeks of benefits. This is genuinely good news! It means that we’re covered through the middle of January, which is cool, and our savings will hold out that much longer. We’re going into the November-December job drought, and virtually no one is going to be hiring after Halloween. Still, I’ll keep trying. I do get nibbles from recruiters a few times a week still, which is good. We’ll keep hoping something will come of this.

On the downside, jlfranklin, our roommate/landlord, joined the ranks of the unemployed last week. Not sure yet exactly what this might mean. He’s meeting with a realtor this week to discuss his options on the house here, and looking at fixing up his townhouse in Blacksburg, VA, and moving up there. This would leave us in the market for a place to live, and if we have to move I wonder if we’re better off sticking it out around here or just biting the bullet and heading up to Chicago (presupposing takaza could get a job at his company’s HQ in Buffalo Grove). Well, we live in exciting times.

One item of note last week, though: Takaza finally got fed up with the local radio market. We took the plunge and picked up a Sirius satellite radio for the Element. It’s pretty damn cool, I’ve got to say, and is going to be a godsend when we drive up to Chicago. A great selection of music, plus two channels of NPR, one of PRI, and a whole host of other interesting, offbeat stations. I like it!

We spent the weekend hanging out with zenwolph. It was great fun, although we didn’t do too much. Spent some time at the NC State Fair, and we did a little shopping for homebrewing equipment. Yes, after eight years away from the hobby, it looks like I’m getting back into it. I’ll blame Linnaeus for rekindling my interest in it. I’ll probably have some of my first batch available at MFF, assuming everything goes well. More on that later this week.

Midwest Furfest is a little over a month away now. It sounds like we’re going to get a tremendous turnout for Thursday night, so I’m working hard to get staff for that night since most of the people working Registration won’t be in until Friday. Anyone interested in working a few hours on Thursday? It’s good for double gopher hours! It’s also just plain fun, in my opinion. Drop me a line here or at duncan [at] wolfhusky.org if you’re interested. Otherwise, I’ve been working hard ordering stuff for the con, and generally spending the con’s money (mmm, other people’s money. Always so much fun!) We’re going to have some great stuff for people, though, and I think they’re going to like it. Our guests of honor have really come through with some fabulous artwork for some of the items, and I think everyone is going to be pleased.

On my list of things to do this week is to finish editing down the Restaurant Guide. I’ve gotta say this: if you see Chouette at the convention, be sure to thank her for doing a purely fabulous job on updating the restaurant guide! She contacted every restaurant in there, updated all of their info on hours, addresses, and added other info, plus eliminated the places that are gone and added a good number of new restaurants. She’s done an amazing job and I’m sure everyone is going to like the finished product.

Finally, I’ve committed to finishing all of my classes by the end of the month. It’s going to be a near thing to do it all in the next two weeks, but I think it’s possible. And with that, I’m off to go to work on some classwork now. Have a great day, everyone!

Hey kids! It’s the Friday Five!

1. Do you watch sports? If so, which ones?

College football is a lot of fun. Baseball, though not until about the World Series, and only if there’s a team I give a damn about. I can even watch tennis. Hockey can be fun, too.

2. What/who are your favorite sports teams and/or favorite athletes?
The Clemson Tigers and Virginia Tech Hokies, my two alma maters. I halfheartedly cheer for the New Orleans Saints, in honor of the few years I spent down at Tulane University.

3. Are there any sports you hate?
Golf, without question. The culture around it, playing it, golf shows on television – all of these annoy me.

4. Have you ever been to a sports event?
Oh yes, many. Numerous high school and college football games, a minor league baseball game (Greenville [SC] Braves), a couple of minor league hockey games (Chicago Wolves), and some college soccer games.

My most interesting sporting events story was getting to cover a Tulane University football game at the Super Dome with the student television production group. It was homecoming and The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean were playing. We had the run of the field (and the press box – mmm, free food!), and spent the time during the concerts at the foot of the stage, in the center of the field. Getting the inside look at all the backstage areas of the Super Dome was very, very cool.

5. Do/did you play any sports (in school or other)? How long did you play?
I used to play tennis and even did a little horseback riding. Nowadays, my life is regrettably sedentary. Extremely rarely I’ll play tennis, and I always enjoy a good hike in the woods. That’s about it.

I Oughta Be In Pictures

It’s a gray, cloudy day here. 80% chance of rain all day, so it certainly won’t improve. It’s almost like typical autumn weather in the Carolinas, except that it’s hovering right around 70 degrees F – oddly warm for this time of year.

Not a whole lot going on this week, and that’s kind of nice. Got my first class project turned in yesterday (a week early, thankyouverymuch!), and I’m going to start on my first project for another class today – it’s due next Wednesday. No worries.

So. Let me tell y’all a little story.

Many years ago (OK, twenty years ago. Good gods, it’s been that long!), I was in high school in Anderson, South Carolina. Thomas Lucas Hanna High School, to be exact. Among my few extra-curricular activities (besides quiz bowl team) was acting as video manager for the football team. Yeah, I was the geek with the video camera set up on top of the press boxes of high school football stadiums all across northwestern South Carolina in all kinds of weather. As an extra bonus, I sometimes got to mix up the Gatorade for the football team on practice days and generally hang around. Hell, for a repressed, non-social high school student, I was doing pretty good. But enough about me.

One of the interesting things about the football team was that they had a guy who hung out with them a lot. He wasn’t a student – he was in his 30’s, actually. In fact I’m not sure he had ever been a student at Hanna. He was a black guy who was rather mentally challenged. I think his name was James, but I’m not sure – his nickname was Radio, after the radio he always carried with him. Radio was a pretty cool guy and the team usually (note that’s usually) treated him with respect. The coach, Harold Jones, took him under his wing and allowed him to help out the football team – as manager, as cheerleader, or whatever role he wanted. I never really talked to him much, but he was an amusing part of the scenery and added a little personality to the team.

I graduated from high school and pretty much forgot all about Hanna and Radio. Until I heard some interesting news last year. Apparently some people thought that the story of Radio and Coach Jones was a pretty inspirational one. Radio was featured in a spot on ESPN2, and on Harry Smith’s former CBS show, “Travels With Harry.” And lo and behold, now we have this: Radio, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Ed Harris, Debra Winger, and Alfre Woodard. Good grief. Hollywood comes to my hometown. The movie premieres in the next few weeks, and I’ve been seeing previews on network TV (though from the scenes I’ve seen, they didn’t actually shoot the football practice scenes on the Hanna practice football field. It’s not particularly photogenic, I guess). Looks to be a pretty big deal, though.

According to this article, it’s going to be set in the 1980’s. Hey, that was right when I was there – I graduated in 1986. I wonder who they’re going to get to play the deeply closeted gay video manager who liked to sneak peeks at the football players in the showers 🙂 I suppose I’ll see this movie at some point, if only to see what little bit they did film in Anderson. It looks like they also shot some of the movie further south, in Walterboro, SC.

Wow. I hung out with Radio, who was played by Cuba Gooding Jr., who was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon. I have a Bacon Number of 3!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

So, when last we left our intrepid heroes they were doing…well, not much.

Last week was pretty quiet, which was nice. On Friday night we drove down to visit my parents in the teeming metropolis of Anderson, South Carolina. It was a fun visit, and as usual we ate well and enjoyed their company. On the way back home on Sunday we made a brief stop at Concord Mills and picked up some Bounty candy bars. I was disappointed, though – they taste pretty much like Mounds bars, not like the gelato flavor I’m used to. It turns out that the European version of Bounty has hazelnuts in them, which makes all the difference. Oh well.

We did make one discovery on the trip home: our new Honda Element is a fabulous car for road trips. Why? Well, here’s a good picture why. Yes, the front passenger seat leans back and meets the rear seat, which also leans back. The net result is that you have something that, while not necessarily a bed, at least something in which you can comfortably stretch out fully and snooze. With the other rear seat folded up against the side as shown in that photo, I’m hoping that we’ll have enough room for all the crap we have to haul up to MFF in November and still have room to sack out between driving shifts. I’m really liking this car, and I think we made an excellent choice. Oh, and one other nice thing: on the trip down to SC, we averaged about 28-30 MPG. That’s about equivalent to what I get with my Alero on the highway. Can’t complain about that!

So, this week I have two projects to work on for my classes, both due October 15. I sat down yesterday and spent a few hours really working and damned if I didn’t get it finished. I need to do a little editing yet, but after that it’s done and ready to hand in. I’ll probably start on the other project tomorrow, then get back to regular classwork Thursday and Friday.

Not much going on this coming weekend, though we wanted to hit the Dream Home Tour. It’s been a few years since we went on one of them and it’s always good for a laugh ($800,000 houses on quarter-acre lots. Still, lots of neat features inside).

The weekend after that is the opening of the State Fair. zenwolph, you mentioned coming down. You still in? And hey, vt_komainu – any chance you could get the time off work to join us? I heard rumors of a couple of folks north of us looking at super-saver fares as well. Keep us up-to-date so we know if we need to make airport runs 🙂

Answers, Round One

feren — What one possession (hubby excluded, as he’s inherently obvious) would you take with you to the basement, if you knew a tornado were going to level your home and leave nothing salvageable?

That’s actually a pretty tough question. I realized a few months back that while it’s nice to have stuff, it isn’t the stuff that’s important in life – it’s the people. Family and friends. Losing your stuff is unpleasant and inconvenient, but in the grand scheme of things it’s a surmountable obstacle. That having been said, I would take something that would be of most help in rebuilding assuming we lost everything, and that would probably be my laptop, since it has stuff like insurance policy numbers, contact info for friends, etc. on it.

camstone — If I was on a train traveling 60 mph east from DC to Chicago, and you were on a train traveling west from Chicago to DC at 60mph… then how much would my registration be for me at MFF?

Leaving out the fact that the trains would be on a very long trip (I also somehow think that they don’t have transatlantic and transpacific railways just yet), this is actually an easy question to answer: $100, because you’re buying a sponsorship, of course! 🙂

street22 — what is the black market value of a kidney, or a spleen….I’m trying to afford college here. On that note, do you happen to have a spare liver?

Well, let’s see – not sure about the black market, but on the Internet market kidney seem to run about $5.50 per pound and spleen would appear to be $10.86. I seem to be using my liver right now (and you don’t want mine anyway), but you can always pick one up for about $5.99 per pound. (Besides, one should always keep one’s organs about them should they become necessary for other reasons)

snapcat — If you had to choose between 20 pounds of foam and 20 pounds of gravel, which would you choose and what would you do with it?

Well, given that we hauled around about that much foam for about three years with the intention of eventually making a fursuit head out of it (I think it got thrown away in the last move, though) I’d say it’s been proven that twenty pounds of gravel would be more useful 🙂 Maybe for some landscaping, maybe to keep in the trunk of the car to provide traction when needed….

kestral — How did you and Takaza meet? 🙂

Well, we first met back in 1998, at Duckon. I attended the Spirituality panel that Takaza was hosting. It was a great panel, and I found a lot that interested me, but we were both in “con-mode” – he was busy helping Robert King with the Furry Track, and I was dazzled by being at my first convention ever – and we really only briefly exchanged pleasantries. I met him again at a Christmas gathering later that year hosted by wyldekyttin and crim_ferret and that was when the sparks flew. After an amusing few months of is-he-interested? (on both our parts), we finally went out on a date on February 26, 1999 (we went and saw Payback – how’s that for a messed-up date movie?) and we’ve been together ever since.

datahawk — Do you remember the first time we met? 🙂

I believe it was at a Western Suburbs Dinner in 1998 – I thought it might have been at the at the (now closed) KC Masterpiece, but maybe it was at Buca di Beppo’s. I seem to recall one of your first questions to me was whether I was gay or straight 🙂

kehf — If you could have any job, what would it be?

Another tough question. For all that I’ve blown many years of my life in getting a masters in Chemical Engineering, I can honestly say it’s not my ideal job. I enjoy cooking a lot, but the long hours and low pay associated with being a professional cook aren’t attractive. I enjoy setting up events and entertaining, so possibly a party planning/catering gig would be a lot of fun. Ask me again in a year and I expect my answer will be totally different 🙂

Well, that’s round one. I’m open to more questions – ask away!

Yeah, yeah – here too.

Let’s keep it short and sweet: The deadline to pre-register for Midwest Furfest for $30 is today. Mail-in registrations must be postmarked by today, and online registrations must be completed by midnight CDT. If you miss the deadline you can certainly still pre-register and attend the convention, but the registration fee will increase to $40.

Questions? Check out the Midwest Furfest Registration FAQ.

See you in November!

Party planning update

So, a few weeks ago, I posted a little tidbit about getting folks together to go to the NC State Fair. This was before we realized that the proposed weekend also was the date for The Cooking Show in Raleigh (where Alton Brown will be giving two cooking demonstrations). So here’s the plan:
Friday, October 17: Folks assemble at our place in Apex, NC. Hanging out, fun, etc. etc.
Saturday, October 18: The Cooking Show in the afternoon, then adjourn to the State Fair thereafter. If anyone is not interested in attending The Cooking Show, we can also make plans to meet up with them afterwards. If we order tickets in advance, it’s $15 for The Cooking Show and $5 to get into the fair.
Sunday, October 19: Relax, have a nice breakfast, and chill out until folks have to head home (or do whatever sounds fun to people – we’re easy)

So – perro, zenwolph, pandaguy, you’re all welcome, as well as anyone else who sees this (Perro, you mentioned Tervicz?). Just let us know!

Back to the week…time to relax?

So, now we’re back to Monday. Weren’t we just here seven days ago?

On Friday we had lots of fun. After I got caught up on my schoolwork during the day, we met Thomas and Sherry (and eventually vileone, Janet, and associated vile-lings) over at Quail Ridge Bookstore for a book signing by one of my favorite television personalities: Alton Brown. We picked up a copy of his new book and settled down with a good hundred and fifty other folks for a good hour of entertainment. Alton is an extremely personable guy, and carries a crowd very well. He spent the first ten minutes explaining why he wrote his newest book (people know they want gear for their kitchen, but don’t know what gear to buy and what will be the most useful) then spent the balance of the hour answering questions. The man could do stand-up comedy, I swear. Two of his quips that I remember:
– After a question on the best way to use Reddi-Wip: I can’t think of any proper use for Reddi-Wip that doesn’t involve a pair of handcuffs, a hotel room in Tijuana, and Martha Stewart.
– After a question about how he developed his TV persona: You’ve found me out. I’m actually a short, Latino woman.

After the extremely amusing Q&A period, he then settled down to sign books and answer questions personally. I was very impressed that he was willing to stay for as long as it took for everyone to get their books signed, and to personally chat with each person. It made for a long wait, but it was worth it, I think. We even got some pictures from the evening, including a picture of Alton after he was finding himself feeling a bit short standing between me and Takaza:

After the book signing, we adjourned to Armadillo Grill and had an extremely nummy Tex-Mex. The restaurant is in the oh-so-trendy Glenwood South area of Raleigh, and it was quite amusing to watch the drunk yuppie poseurs stagger about as the evening progressed.

Saturday was given over to working 9-5 at Silvia’s. Not too bad, and Dan was nice enough to stop by, which always brightens my day. I think I’ve determined that I don’t want to work more than about two days out of the week there – yes, I’m sort of doing it for a lark, but there’s only so much I’ll endure for seven bucks an hour. When I came home I was a complete slug, but Dan cooked up a lovely pork roast and mashed potatoes and gave me a lovely foot massage, I love my wolf very much, and I’m going to keep him!

Sunday was going sort-of OK. We were just about to head over to Thomas and Sherry’s for our final Mage/Werewolf when I took a wrong step on the grass in the front yard and popped my right ankle. Now, I have a long history of spraining my right ankle. When I was attending Virginia Tech I reached the point where I had sprained it so many times that the ligament got stretched out and I virtually no lateral support – I could walk on a flat surface and sprain my ankle for no apparent reason. In 1994 I had reconstructive surgery to shore up the ligament and it’s mostly been OK since then. I really hope I’m not starting to repeat that cycle again, though. Anyway, we propped my ankle up in the car (the Element was actually really great for this!), then when we got over to Thomas and Sherry’s I propped it up and iced it down. That helped a lot and it kept the swelling to a minimum. When I woke up this morning I can walk on it, for the most part, though we’ll see what happens when I try to put on shoes and stand on it for six hours when I work tonight.

Not much else going on this week. Plans currently have us driving down to visit my parents on Friday night. I have a project that I’d like to have the first pass on it turned in for the professor to review by Wednesday, though it’s not due until October 15. Then I have another project to work on for another class that’s also due on the 15th – I’d like to get that done by the end of the week. My goal is to have these classes complete by the end of October, so I don’t have to worry about them come November. We’ll see if I can pull it off.

One final note: I use the adware-supported version of Opera (I’d like to register at some point, maybe when money isn’t so tight). They have a feature in their newest version that gives you the option to either show general ads or Google AdWords which are keyed to the content of the web pages you are viewing. I chose the latter, just for fun. I’ve noticed one disturbing thing: whenever I view my LiveJournal Friends Page I consistently get two ads:
1. Something to do with huskies or dogs in general, and
2. An ad for cheese. Gourmet cheese, goat cheese, some kind of cheese.
I think this is a disturbing commentary on my choice of friends, but I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to mean…

What the hell…one last time

Man, I feel like I’ve spammed the hell out of all the usual places, but let me go ahead the throw this out here just to be thorough:

The end is near!

Well, the end of cheap pre-registration for Midwest Furfest 2003, anyway. Yes, the $30.00 pre-registration jumps to $40.00 after September 30, so if you’re going to pre-register, now is the time to do it!

More information…

Having an animal companion can be difficult. It can be trying. But it can also be very, very worthwhile. This week’s Independent Weekly has a moving essay on the loss of a canine friend. When I pass from this world, I would be fortunate to have half as generous a remembrance of me as this.

And yes, this made me cry. But it’s worth reading even so.

And we’re back!

So, other stuff going on, besides the purchase of a new car…

I start my new job today. Well, it’s sort of a job, anyway. I’m to be a supervisor at Silvia d’Italia Gelato Cafe. I’m doing this mainly as a favor for Sylvia, the owner. She’s not had a single day off since she opened the place six months ago and I agreed to work a couple days a week to give her a break. This will be entertaining – it’s been about 20 years since I last worked retail food service, and now I get to be a big, nasty boss. Yay. It’s less than a hundred bucks a week, but hey – every little bit helps. I’m working 5-11 PM tonight, and 9-5 on Saturday.

Of course, once I committed to that, something else came up. No, not an actual job in my field (wouldn’t that be a wacky thought), but another part-time job. takaza‘s employer is looking for someone to work two days per week, about 6 hours a day, to fill in for their warehouse guy during football season. It’s all of eight bucks an hour, but that won’t hurt either. I limited it to two days a week so the other three days of the work week I can focus on getting work done for the classes I’m taking. I expect that the income from the two jobs put together will be right around the allowance that I can make before they start to deduct from my unemployment benefits, but I can hope that if they do actually deduct, they’ll just extend the length of time they pay benefits (since it’s based not on time but the total amount of money they pay out).

So today: work on classes, mainly. Read over the manual for Silvia’s so I can actually look like I know stuff when I go in to work tonight. And now I’m going to get my butt in gear…

A light at the end of the tunnel

Man, it’s been a crazy few days. It’s late, so you just get the short version.

On Saturday, we met up with fuzzytoedcollie and went to a flyball tournament. Great company, lots of dogs, lots of barking in an enclosed space, but a whole lot of fun. Got to pet da woofies, too – always a Good Thing. Fuzzytoes took some video of the fun, as well (1.85 Mb).

Sunday I cooked up a mess of chicken breasts and then we headed over to Thomas and Sherry’s for gaming and made chicken burritos. Yummy. Gaming was fun and productive, so much so that we’re doing it again next Sunday.

Monday was an annoying exercise in futility. Between going round and round trying to get the paperwork from my bank to the insurance company so they could pay us for totaling the Saturn and trying to work with the car dealership to line up financing, I couldn’t really concentrate on anything. A distracting, frustrating day.

Today was shaping up to be much the same, when suddenly everything fell into place. The bank got the fax to the insurance agency, the insurance agency had the check ready for us, and the car dealership worked up an acceptable financing package for us. All of this in the span of an hour. Wow. And so it was that after about an hour and a half of signing papers and surprisingly little hassle from the salesmen we found ourselves the proud owners of a new 2003 Honda Element. Dan was so happy when we got it home that I just had to get some pictures of him with his new toy.

There’s a few other things of note, but I’ll post about those tomorrow. Now me go sleep.

Safe and sound

Well, the storm has pretty much passed here. We got off light, compared to folks east and northeast of here – it was pretty much like a sustained strong thunderstorm here all day long. 30 MPH winds sustained, gusts of 50 MPH, and all of 1.5″ of rain. Naturally, the biggest excitement we had was right as the last bit was passing through: a couple of transformers in the woods behind the house blew. Big flashes, lots of sparks. very pretty, but guess what? No power. It came on again for about a half hour, then went out again just as Takaza had batter ready for banana bread ready to go into the oven.

We drove around a bit, then wound up at wildmouse and me_not_you‘s place, where they kindly lent us the use of their cooking facilities and we had a nummy steak dinner, with banana bread for dessert. Plus we watched the Virginia Tech/Texas A&M game, which was way cool.

So now we’re back snug in the house, the power is on, and the A/C unit is back in the window so our bedroom will be its customary refrigerator temperatures.

My thoughts turn to our friends in Tidewater and Richmond, Virginia. I hope y’all are safe, dry, and that they get power back to you as quickly as possible.

Oh, and thanks for your thoughts, werellama – we are indeed OK and much better off than I could have hoped after a sizable storm like this has rolled through.

Looking ahead to October

So, once we get past this little bitty rainstorm…

I mentioned before to a few people that the North Carolina State Fair is coming up in Raleigh. It’s a whole lot of fun – rides, educational and agricultural exhibits, music, and even pig racing! Woohoo! Plus, it’s good, cheap fun. (Hmmm, looks like the big concert that night is…Lou Gramm. Oh dear. We may have to take a miss on that…)

Judging from the attendance figures, it looks like the first Saturday (October 18, 2003) is probably the best day to go if we have to go on a weekend. So…anyone interested in hanging out on the weekend of the 18th? We’re happy to host, we can sleep a bunch of folks here, and we need to fulfill our quarterly hosting duties.

Incoming!

Well, Isabel has arrived. They’ve closed all the schools in the area and the roommate doesn’t have to go in to work (though takaza does due to his company’s moronic policies). They’re saying the storm isn’t really taking a westward turn which is good news for us, though worse news for our friends in Virginia Beach (batten down the hatches, dmlaenker, and geniealisa). On the bright side, the wind fields show that the worst of the winds won’t reach Richmond (good news for you, zenwolph!). Here in Raleigh, we’re supposed to get up to 4″ of rain and 20-40 MPH sustained winds with gusts up to 50 MPH. We should be OK, but fuzzytoedcollie and serenthia, y’all let us know if you need any help for anything!

Man, it looks like Atlantic Beach is kind of ground zero for the eye coming ashore. It’s weird because that’s right next to Emerald Isle, a beach that we visited a few years back at the kind invitation of me_not_you and wildmouse. I remember being struck by the fact that you had this long, thin barrier island twenty miles long with a bridge on each end; if a hurricane came through there, that’s not a lot of ways to get off the island (granted, a hurricane doesn’t exactly happen “suddenly” so I guess there’s lots of time to get out). Now a lot of that is probably going to be underwater – that’s what happens when you have 20′ – 30′ seas and 12 feet of storm surge.

This is amusing – watching the local news as they show the poor bastards that they’ve sent into the hurricane, one reporter commented that the largest population on the Outer Banks right now is the fifty satellite trucks with all the other poor bastards. Must suck to be low man on the totem pole when the disasters come through.

Down on the dole

Well, to start off here’s some good news: As of this week I am now receiving unemployment again. Yay! It’ll run for ten weeks, which gets us through to the end of November. This is a much-needed shot in the arm and means that we won’t be financially hemorrhaging quite as badly.

Then there’s the bad news. As expected, we got the call last Friday that the Saturn is officially totaled. Although we got a fair valuation for the car, I had to put on my “angry face” (a la Ralph Wiggum) and explain to the insurance agent that there was no way in hell that I was going to let him deduct the $200 of teardown work that the body shop did on the car from the settlement. He finally backed down, saying they would waive it “since it was such a small amount.” (Fine, let me take $200 out of your pocket, a**hole, and then you tell me how small an amount it is…) Anyway, they’re settling up with the bank that had the loan on the car and we should be getting a check for the balance of the settlement sometime this week. That’s good, since the rental car runs out on Friday.

So, we’ve been spending the last few days car shopping: researching, reading reviews, test driving. Thanks to Edmunds and Consumer Reports we have a pretty good picture of what’s up. Edmunds has some great articles on car salesmen (thanks for the pointer, Daveqat!) and buying over the net that were really helpful and I think will help us avoid a lot of hassle.

So, cars that we’ve investigated and discarded: Toyota RAV4 (too stiff a ride for me, and the 4-cylinder felt underpowered. Takaza liked it, though), Toyota Camry (nice car, too expensive), Honda Civic Hybrid (neither of us fit in the front seat), Honda Accord (too expensive), Saturn L-300 (gas pedal too close to the brake for people with big feet, trim was cheap and cut me [!] when we drove it), Saturn VUE (too stiff a ride for Dan, steering a bit too unresponsive for me). So, what does this leave? Two possibilities: the Ford Escape and the Honda Element. Yeah, the Element is gimmicky and astonishingly ugly, but there’s also a remarkable amount of room and it’s comfortable. It only comes with a 4-cylinder engine, but it’s pretty responsive for a four-banger. The Escape looks good and has all the appointments we’re looking for including the V-6 engine I prefer, but we still need to test drive it. Both of these cars have the big benefit that they’re cheap, too! We’ll have a decision on this by Thursday or so.

Financing is going to be interesting: I have great credit, but I’m unemployed. Dan has so-so credit, but he’s got a job. We may find ourselves delving the exciting world of joint ownership, particularly if we go with the Escape since Dan can get a supplier discount through his employer (Siemens). Negotiating the financing is going to be exciting, I’m sure.

So, stuff other than that. Classwork is going OK. I’m caught up with all my classes after my “vacation” in Chicago and now I have a projects to start in on in two of the classes, one of which will require me to hit the NC State library later today. No problems there.

Oh yeah, and that big freakin’ hurricane that’s headed for North Carolina. What fun! We’re situated far enough inland that if it followed the center of the track plotted at 5 AM this morning we’d probably only get grazed. But we’re also well within the possible track area, so I’m keeping a close eye on it. I lived in this area when Hurricane Fran came through in 1996, and I know what it’s like when a category 3 hurricane lands on your head. We’ll be ready – we picked up some water (good to have anyway) and I need to get some batteries for the radio today but other than that we should be fine. Our roommate mentioned that his back yard is in a 100-year flood plain, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on that as well. Although the creek out back would have to rise a good 10-12 feet to endanger the basement (which, incidentally, holds 80% of our possessions), we’re ready to move stuff in a hurry if we have to. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that it won’t be necessary, though.

Back

So, 13 hours and 45 minutes after leaving Champaign (thanks for putting me up, mirkowuff!), I got in last night at 7:15 PM. Gah. Remind me not to drive that distance solo again anytime soon. fuzzytoedcollie, you have my respect! It was nice to see some of the Chambana area furs Tuesday night, like siegferret, rcfoot, quasiskunk, lycaos_wolf, hartreefox, Wolftail, and a couple of folks whose names escape me.

I came home to a fabulously clean house and a delicious steak dinner. Takaza is such a wonderful husband! He really busted his butt for me, and it was very much appreciated.

And so, back to reality today: laundry (lots), catching up on class work, MFF website stuff, entering in memberships that I got at the staff meeting, and other good stuff. Tonight we do a little car shopping (need to check out the Ford Escape and the Honda Element – yeah, the latter is uglier than sin, but it gets good ratings from Consumer Reports and it’s cheap!), buy a scanner, and stop by our favorite gelato place to chat with the owner.

And so things change

Well, after a week-and-some of occupying rustitobuck‘s living room, I’m finally getting my butt in gear and heading out. In case I haven’t said it enough, many, many thanks for putting use up, Rusty! It’s a lot to ask to have a guest for so long (guests and fish…) but you and Colin have been gracious hosts and your hospitality has been very much appreciated!

So, today’s plans: Following lunch with Partran I’ll be driving down to the Urbana-Champaign metroplex, there to spend the night at mirkowuff‘s and hopefully see some of the furry types down that way. And tomorrow? Rise as early as possible and hit the road back to North Carolina.

Lots to talk about over the last few days. On Sunday there was the Midwest Furfest board and staff meetings. A lot of very useful stuff got accomplished and I got to see some friends I haven’t had a chance to see in far too long (hi Moryssa!). The big news of the day: Takaza is going to be chairman for Midwest Furfest 2004! Yay! I’m so very happy for my wolf, and I just know that he’ll do a fantastic job of it. This will be an opportunity for him to exercise those border collie tendencies of his 🙂

After the meeting the small gathering of folks we were going to hang out with at the Olive Garden somehow exploded to 23 people (gah!). It was fun, though, if a little cramped.

Yesterday I took Takaza to the airport, then relaxed a bit back at Rusty’s place. A couple of phone calls later and I found myself tromping through Caldwell Woods doing a bit of geocaching with Barbarian and Chouette. All too soon I had to take my leave and head up to Wheeling, where I joined Feren, Kestral, and Roho for dinner.

Dinner was a lot of fun. These are some fine folks that we just haven’t had the chance to spend much time with. I look forward to (with any luck) us getting back up to this area and remedying that fact!

Three items of note to close this entry:
1. Happy birthday, kittylad! Your AARP membership is in the mail.
2. Got a bit of great news when Takaza got home yesterday: a letter from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission stated that “due to economic conditions” (i.e. the unemployment rate being over 6.5%), they’re restarting my unemployment benefits! Woohoo! Not sure for how long, but at this point any money coming in is a Very Good Thing.
3. Got a call from our favorite gelato proprietor while I was out walking with Barbarian and Chouette yesterday. She might be in the market for a morning manager sometime soon. It’s not a lot of money, but it would keep me busy and might even be a bit of fun on the side. I’ll be talking to her again later this week.

Too busy to post?

It’s been a crazy week. I’m still in Chicago, and will be at least through Tuesday. I’ll spare you with a blow-by-blow rundown of the events of the last week except to say that I had fun hanging out with Partran, datahawk, linnaeus, rustitobuck, sylverfox, kittylad, Barbarian, and Chouette at various parts of the week. Got a lot of Midwest Furfest planning stuff done, and got to relax a bit. It was good.

Friday was quite busy. After a stop by Dick Blick in the morning to negotiate some goodies for MFF, we headed up to Wonder Lake, IL and spent the day with takaza‘s mom. Nice and low-key, though a reminder that everyone’s family has different dynamics. It was a pleasant visit though. After a late departure it was a somewhat panicked drive down to Morton Grove, sure that we’d be late…and we were exactly on time. Yay! We got to the Giordano’s and I was able to set up things with the staff there with relative ease. Then people started showing up. And showing up. And showing up. We had 32 people in all: duncandahusky, Takaza, DataHawk, Posicat, Foxen, FurtiveFox, Damnbear, Chouette, Barbarian, Ed, Rustitobuck, Colin, Partran, Aureth, evil_dwagon, Innerwolf, Neowolf2, Max, Tincrash, Little Wolf, Grey, Benjie, Ecostar, DaveQat, Synicism, Steviemaxwell, grabstein_69, Beth, justincheetah, wyldekyttin, crim_ferret, and Firewing. Much pizza was consumed, and folks generally seemed to have a good time. We took a sizable portion of the crowd (and picked up a few more) over to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind afterwards – I think we had about 25 or so people there. Which is pretty good, since I think their theater only holds 88 people 🙂 A couple members of our group got to participate in the entertainment (partran learned volunteering isn’t always a good thing, and aureth proved he could take directions…well, sort of). We had a really great time there and laughed a lot. I think we seemed to even pick up a non-fur to hang out with some of our group – not sure how that happened. We packed it in not long after, but I don’t think we got to bed until 3 that night.

And on Saturday? Well, I was exhausted. I slept as late as I could, but I was still dragging. After the night before both Takaza and I were feeling a bit tired and antisocial, so we kept things kind of quiet. We made a quick visit to the con hotel to check on a few things, and a long, lingering visit to Expo (drool, drool, drool…) then came back to Rusty’s place and ordered some yummy food from Leona’s. Linnaeus was able to stop by after work and that was good – we had some nice discussion and he got to unwind a bit.

So now it’s Sunday. We’ve got the Midwest Furry Fandom Board Meeting, and then the Midwest Furfest staff meeting. We’ll probably head out for dinner with folks afterwards, and it’ll be fun. Takaza flies back to NC tomorrow at about 5:30, and then I might be driving back on Tuesday – we’ll see how things work out today and tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe a stop along the way would be nice….

WSD + TML, 9/5 – CHANGES!

Hi all!

A reminder announcement here, but also a big change in location for dinner. READ CAREFULLY!

First off, a word to those of you new to our wacky little group. This announcement is for two events together – A Western Suburbs Dinner (WSD), and Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (TML…). A WSD is a gathering of furry folk from across the Illinois/Wisconsin area (and anyone else who wants to come) for a dinner to meet, hang out, and put some faces with names. TML… is an entertaining, at times interactive, late-night theater production that is memorable and lots of fun. Everyone is invited to these events, and we hope to see lots of new faces and old friends!

So, on to the changes…

In looking at our original choice of location for dinner, I realized that it was a bit too far west and too far south to conveniently head over to TML after dinner, plus it’s a bit far south for Wisconsinites to drive. So in the interest of improving logistics and making life a little easier for everyone, we have changed the venue for dinner.

TIME: 7:30 PM, Friday, September 5
NEW LOCATION: Giordano’s Pizza, 5990 W. Dempster, Morton Grove, IL (just west of the Edens Expressway), (847)966-4300

The good news is that with the change of location we’re getting a better deal. We’ll get all you can eat thin crust & stuffed crust pizza, pop, and house salad for $12 per person, tax and gratuity included. (Boring rules: pay me or Takaza as you arrive, cash only please, exact change really appreciated).

Followed by…

TOO MUCH LIGHT MAKES THE BABY GO BLIND (30 plays in 60 minutes)
(http://www.neofuturists.org/)
5153 N. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL
Meet by 10:15 PM (Out of fairness, and to prevent others in line from throwing things at us, we cannot let people cut into line if they arrive late)

Please RSVP for dinner and/or Too Much Light directly to Duncan NOW!

I have received the following RSVP’s (if you don’t see your name here, you didn’t send me an email like I told you to!):
Duncan & Takaza
DataHawk & Posicat
Bill (unforgiven18@ameritech.net)
Foxen
FurtiveFox
Kodian
Chouette, Barbarian, and Ed
Rusty & Colin
Partran

See y’all in a few days!
-Duncan

Why am I still awake?

Still running on adrenaline, I suppose.

Well, I underestimated the length of the drive – it was more like 14 hours, and would up being closer to 15 hours after delays on 80/94, an ill-advised detour through the surface streets of Gary, Indiana, and an exploration of how long delays can be on the Chicago Skyway. Anyway, I got in right at about 8 PM CDT – 14 hours and 45 minutes after I left Apex, NC. Oh boy, and I get to do it all again in a week and a half. Anyway, a nice dinner was had courtesy of a local grill and I shared a brief though fun evening with rustitobuck, linnaeus, partran, and sylverfox.

As for tomorrow? Well, I plan to sleep in as best I can. The weather forecast looks pretty bleak for tomorrow (though it looks great for the rest of the week!) so I don’t see a big trip out to venture across Chicago – more likely we’re probably going get the same crew together to hang out at Rusty’s and grill up some burgers. Aureth and jenwolf, y’all are welcome to join us if you’re inclined – get ahold of one of us and we can get you directions (unless you’ve been here before).

Meetings and pictures

Well, the meeting with the professors at NC State yesterday netted me a big ol’ bag of nothing. Well, maybe that’s overstating things. If nothing else, it’s contacts, and networking is always a Good Thing. Plus, one of them might have some small projects (10 hours total?) in a month or so. I’m dreadfully overqualified for them, but that just means he’s sure the finished product will be good. And I’d get paid – hey, that’s always a nice thing.

Stopped by to look at the Saturn as it sits in the repair shop’s parking lot. You know, it doesn’t look like $4,300 worth of damage, but what do I know?
Here’s some pictures of the damage

Because rigelkitty reminded me: The Friday Five

1. Are you going to school this year?
Oddly enough, yes. After graduating from college with a Master’s degree eight years ago, I’m back taking classes, though not technically for credit.

2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate?
The classes are from NC State’s Food Sciences program and are part of a battery of food safety training courses. Previously, I graduated from Clemson University with a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering in 1991 and from Virginia Tech with a Masters in Chemical Engineering in 1995.

3. What are/were your favorite school subjects?
Probably “The Rise of Rome,” taken in my freshman year when I attended Tulane University. It was a case of having a professor who was brilliant in making the material come alive and I enjoyed the class immensely. In my field, the Unit Operations Lab that I took over the summer while I was at Clemson was probably the hardest, most demanding class I ever had, and by far the most rewarding in preparing me for working in industry.

4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects?
Anything taught by Bud Rice in the Chemical Engineering department at Clemson. Not a particularly nice guy, and an absolutely horrible teacher. And naturally, I had him for five semesters running.

5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite?
Garth Wilkes (Chemical Engineering, Virginia Tech) does a good job at taking an immensely complex subject, polymer science, and making it understandable. Plus, he’s a pretty nice guy, which helps.

So, what’s going on?

Well, we got some good news yesterday. The other insurance company looked at the Saturn and is cutting us a check for the repairs – to the tune of $4,000+ dollars. Honestly, I’m not sure what they’re using as a value, but I would think that’s pushing the “let’s just total it” amount. I’m sure not going to complain, though! We’re going to have it towed over to the body shop today, get them a copy of the estimate (get a copy o the estimate ourselves, as well!) and see what we can do to get this show on the road.

Been a busy couple of days. The classes I’m taking now are interesting – a lot of information on food sanitation in food processing plants, standard operating procedures, and the like. I may or may not ever actually put this stuff to good use, but it’s useful and good to know regardless. Lots of reading involved in the these courses so far, though; the web is a wonderful thing, but the drawback is that it makes it easier to lose track of the scale of the readings. One of the classes had about 300 pages of “required reading” for the first assignment, most of it federal regulations. Gah!

This afternoon I have an appointment with a couple of professors in the NC State Food Sciences department to discuss the possibility of doing some work for them. It would pay about half of what I used to make, but at this point any income is good income. The only question is if we can set it up on a month-to-month basis, something that the NC State employment system doesn’t deal with too well. We’ll see how this works out.

So, the plan right now is that on Sunday morning I’m going to hop in the car at ohmygod O’clock and hit the road for Chicago. This should get me to rustitobuck‘s around 7-ish, probably. We’re going to get a few folks together on Monday to hang out, maybe see a bit of the town, and just enjoy the company (interested in joining us? Let me know!). Hazy plans for the week include driving out to Schaumburg with Barbarian and Chouette to scout new restaurants for the MFF Restaurant Guide, and making a trip to Boystown with Partran. Oh, and of course, dinner and a play on Friday night. I’m a bit concerned – I have all of seven RSVP’s so far, and the minimum number for Giordano’s is thirty. I expect things will pick up next week when I re-post the announcement, though – right now everyone’s focusing on Labor Day activities or Mephit Furmeet.

Speaking of MFM, I admit I have this ridiculous urge to jump in the car a couple of days early and make a 9-hour detour to Memphis. Of course, the lack of a hotel room and the additional gas and dining costs make this a Bad Idea, but hey, it would be fun.