Found this over in the ever-entertaining lj_nifty community…

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

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

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

It’s a Monday morning ramble, whee.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time to go!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…and into the fridge?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ten things you don’t know about me…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from…Anderson, South Carolina?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some wonderful quotable passages from my daily weblog reading.

From b-may:

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

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

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

From dooce.com:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then I’d sterilize them.

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

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

Interesting Enneagram test results below

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

Click here for something truly yummy!

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

Click here for the minutae of my last few days

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

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

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

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

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

(Finally got around to updating this)

Wow. Bunch of stuff to do tonight, in spite of the fact that I got way too little sleep last night.

Bookshire and Toddfox moved into their new apartment in Durham yesterday, and we went up to lend a hand and pick up Stevie. We put in some time hauling heavy stuff, then had to take off, since it was 10 PM and we still had to get food for Stevie and drive the 45 minutes home. We went by Ninth Street near Duke University (which Stevie said reminds him of Green Street in Champaign – yeah, I can see the resemblance) and got Stevie a nice gyros platter for munchies and got us a yummy dessert at Francesca’s. a wonderful lesbian-owned ice cream place. We headed home from there, and I crashed early while Stevie and takaza chatted until about 1 AM. Needless to say, da wolf is a wee bit tired today. Takaza took Stevie to the airport this morning, and apparently there were no problems there.

Tonight…well, in spite of the fact that I need to get some sleep, we’ve got a wealth of stuff to do before going to bed:
– I need to work up the final budget for MFF Registration for aureth as well as send off a Registration report to the MFF Staff list since there’s a meeting this weekend.
– We need to get all of our laundry done.
– We need to pack for the weekend.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll drop Takaza off at work. In the afternoon, I’ll pick him up and we’ll continue out of town, headed north for Blacksburg, Virginia to attend Technicon. Reminds me – I need to confirm our room reservation.

Also tonight, we need to finish prepping for the panel that we’re doing at Technicon, “What Is All This Furry Stuff, Anyway?” I figure we’ll run through a timeline of the fandom (drawing heavily from Fred Patten’s excellent article), then talk about the rise of different interests making furry the hodgepodge that it is today, then mention some of the Internet resources available, and hand out a list of said resources. Then we’ll take questions. Naturally, the first time someone mentions MTV or Vanity Fair, we have a perfectly sensible response prepared: we’ll point at the door and scream, “Oh my god, it’s William Shatner!” and jump out the window.

OK, maybe not 🙂 Actually, I think we can defuse and disabuse any hostile or warped interpretations of what furry fandom is and isn’t in a reasonable fashion.

Oh, and one more thing – Let’s all welcome Osiris (kittylad) to LiveJournal! Yay!

I’m in the lab across campus for most of the day today, making the first of what will eventually be 27 batches of materials for testing. Theoretically, this is supposed to be done by the end of June…we’ll see.

Naturally, I have to stop in the middle of making the batch (it’s about a five-hour process) so I can attend the mandatory “Zero-Tolerance Sexual Harassment Policy Training Seminar.” Whew, that’s a mouthful. These things always amuse me because I’d like to think they don’t apply much to me – 99.99% of the materials is all about heterosexuals. This actually surprises me because 1.) I’m sure I’m not the only non-straight person working on this campus, and 2.) Same-sex sexual harassment has been proven to be a valid workplace issue. Typically, they dance around the whole issue of same-sex harassment, never even bringing it up.

Though on the other hand, I guess if it was identified as a problem, that would make me a possible bad guy. Do I want that? Not particularly. I suppose it would just be interesting to see Corporate America acknowledge that there are non-heterosexual employees in the workforce, however backhandedly they go about it.

Hm. We need to work up an outline for the Technicon panel tonight, if we’re not too tired after working out. If nothing else, it’s stuff to think about while zoning out on the treadmill.

So we begin a new week, though I’m not sure I’m ready yet. Where’d I leave my jumper cables?

So as I mentioned before, partran drove in to spend the weekend with us. Yep, we got him hooked on LiveJournal too. We’re just evil that way – it’s a hobby, y’know.

Rundown of our weekend – read if you’re interested

As jenwolf reminded me, I was remiss in posting the Final Jeopardy question. My apologies – a pile of meetings this afternoon, then having to rush out right after work messed me up. Without further ado, here’s the answer:

The Final Jeopardy category is “Biblical People”

He was the first person who died in the Book of Exodus.

This is for all the marbles!

Big fun coming up.

We’re meeting Partran in about 15 minutes, then going out to dinner. Tomorrow is Adventures in Retail Hell (aka venturing out to the new mall that opened today – all 1.3 million square feet of it) (but they have an Apple Store!) followed by possibly a nice wine tasting and then, who knows?

It’s gonna be a fun weekend!

Not a bad showing for us today. See how you do:

$200
Competition began in 1900 for this cup awarded to a national men’s tennis team.
$400
Before and After
The lead singer of Hole appearing on Chuck Woolery’s old dating show.
$600
Title occupation of Caleb Carr’s Dr. Laszlo Kreizler.
$800
This “giant” ocean dweller has the largest eyes of any creature.
$1000
This St. Louis University founded in 1853 has a 169 acre hilltop campus.

Give up? Here are the questions

Big surprises today, but you’ll have to read below what they are. First, the answers:

$200
The con in con man is short for this.
$400
Category is Tom Swifties
It’s the secret or enigmatic way Tom said, “Let’s go look at those tombs”
$600
This cartoonist who created Beavis and Butthead was influenced by Monty Python.
$800
Ellen must have been burstyn with pride when she won an oscar for this 1974 road movie.
$1000
It’s a sequence such as the 4, 6, 7, & 8 needing one tantalizing card to fill it.

The suspense is killing me!

(Three posts in one day. Unusual for me…)

This song has been rattling around in my head for the past day or so. The lyrics apply to a recent incident very well, I think.

Gratuitous song-lyric posting alert

Well, at least we met and talked about the questions. Not that that did us much good…

$100
The last name of the woman who’s cow allegedly started the great Chicago fire.
$200
TV’s Dr. David Banner.
$300
It’s a monk’s hood or a draped neckline for women that falls in soft folds.
$400
The White House wasn’t yet finished in 1800 when this president moved in.
$500
Trader Vic claimed credit for inventing this rum drink & said it was named by a Tahitian friend.

And the questions are…

It never fails – after several months of not a whole lot to do (projects delayed before the reach me, or cancelled altogether, or waiting for customer feedback), three project hit at once. Theoretically, I’m supposed to be over in another building three days each week starting next week working on the conductive adhesive. Additionally, I got three process records yesterday that the customer wants yesterday. I can’t even get the raw materials in for that within a week. And today I got word that we need to make three or four batches of a urethane for a customer and my boss promised to have it for them two weeks after we get the raw materials in, which works out to within four weeks. That’d be great except each batch takes about 25 hours, or three days (at 8 hours/day) to make.

Something’s gotta give. I’ll be talking to my boss this afternoon about whether I can get some help for all of these batches I’m supposed to make.

Something else that’s weighing heavily on my mind is the fact that my review, which was originally scheduled for Friday, then moved to this afternoon, got pushed back to tomorrow morning so that his boss would have time to read what my boss wrote about me. I assume this is standard practice (his boss is a micromanager to the nth degree), but it makes me nervous nonetheless. I freely admit I don’t have the greatest work ethic, and I’ve been called on spending too much time on the net before. My boss doesn’t seem to like me that much, and communication is almost always instigated on my part, not on his, though talking to people they’ve supervised in the past this is pretty much exactly the way they’ve always worked. We had a few layoffs here last year, but the word since then is that “the budget is secure” which I read as code words for, “no one’s getting laid off anytime soon.” Still, I’m the second-least senior engineer in the department, and before these three projects hit there really wasn’t much for me to do.

On the bright side, this can’t really affect my promotion or raise: I’m not getting one. No one is. We’ve been under a 12-month hiring/promotion freeze since last May, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was extended for another six months before all is said and done.

Maybe I just worry too much. I guess I’ll know tomorrow morning…

UPDATE at 16:41 on Tuesday: I do worry too much. I got a printed copy of my review in advance of the meeting tomorrow morning. Essentially, it says I’m a competent, if not stellar, employee. This is just fine by me, since it’s been proven time and again here that there is precious little reward for excellence.

So this week we’re starting another “team building” exercise here at work (something far less horrid than other such exercises documented elsewhere). This time around they’ve divided us into six groups of three and we have to work together to answer five Jeopardy! questions each day. As a “team building” exercise I don’t think much of it, but I enjoy it because my brain is full of useless trivia. Anyway, here’s the answers for today:

$100
The last name of Moe (of Three Stooges fame)
$200
In 1997 Bill Cosby won favorite male in a new series, his 15th of these awards.
$300
In 1988, 9 years after her father’s execution, she became prime minister of Pakistan.
$400
Police warnings stem from the 1966 Supreme Court case of this man vs. Arizona.
$500
This star of “China Beach” is the heiress to a toilet flush valve fortune.

What, you want the questions, too?

Mmm…Boomtown Rats, baby.

So anyway…It was our last quiet weekend for a while. Saturday Dan and I had appointments at the health club for equipment orientation and such, and we really didn’t get a whole lot accomplished. Dan wasn’t feeling well that night and went to bed early, I bummed around online ’til way too late.

Sunday was a bit better – we got our weekly shopping done, and I had dinner over at Donald and Janelle’s with the gaming group. I got to chat with Brad and his new girlfriend (!) about Carbon Leaf (a great band in which his brother plays bass) and Technicon. Came home, chilled out a bit, and went to bed. Yay.

We also finally started making preparations for our annual Memorial Day party. We’ve sent out invitations and hope to see a lot of familiar faces and a few new faces, too. Eventually, this may evolve into something bigger, but for now we’re just looking to have a good time with friends. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to find someplace for all of them to sleep now that most of the beds have been claimed. I’m looking forward to spending some good times with friends, trying out cool new recipes, grilling burgers, playing games, and other fun stuff.

So, looking into the future, we have Partran coming to visit next weekend, then Technicon the following weekend, then I’ll be all by my lonesome while takaza has fun up in Chicago. No plans for Easter weekend yet, but that’s likely to change.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really miss a good, heavy snowfall. Not any of these rinky-dink two-or-three inch jobs they usually get down here in North Carolina, but a park-the-car-curl-up-by-the-fire-with-some-hot-cocoa-and-stock-up-you-ain’t-going-nowhere-for-a-few-days kind of snowfall. Looks like y’all in the Chicago area are getting one of those tonight and I’m jealous. Looks like the forecast is for 8-12 inches in the metro area, 6 to 12 inches in Milwaukee. Meanwhile, we’re going to get…rain. Whee.

As an aside for you weather geeks out there, if you want to see the scoop on what’s going on behind the forecasts, and how meteorologists figure out what to publicize, here’s a nifty page (for the discussions in your area, just change the state abbreviation in the URL as needed).

It’s wrestlers versus pandas in a battle royale! Who will win? My money’s on the pandas.

I had to go back into my e-mail archive (yes, I keep e-mail forever – my archive goes back to 1995, and before) to verify this since my memory for dates is terrible.

Three years ago on February 27, takaza and I had our first date. We went and saw “Payback” in Crystal Lake and had dinner at a so-so family restaurant, then adjourned back to Dan’s place and hung out and watched roller coaster videos and what aver was on TV. And I, uh, spent the night. Anyway…

It’s hard to believe it’s been three years. Those first few months were a wild ride – just weeks before that first date, we had both broken up from previous relationships (can you say rebound?). Dan lived in McHenry, while I lived in Joliet, about an hour and 45 minutes away. Not bad as long-distance relationships go, but it was an added stress. And right after Duckon ’99, Dan’s former employer (K Mart) started giving him crap about not showing up to work the weekend of the con even though he had scheduled it off months in advance. We talked, and even though we had agreed that moving in together was something that would have been good to wait on, the job prospects were much better in Joliet. Four months into the relationship, Dan moved in. With all that going for us, it shouldn’t have worked.

But it did, somehow, and it has worked amazingly well.

Two years, nine months, and 22 days after that first date, we stood before our friends and families and declared our love in a ceremony celebrating our commitment to one another for the rest of our lives.

Dan, you’re the best damn thing that ever happened to me, and I love you very, very much.

A link stolen from BoingBoing:

Freeze a can of shaving cream and then peel the can away from the cream. Put the canless cream into someone’s car. Let the oven-like heat from the car’s sitting in the sun defrost the shaving cream. 2 cans will fill an entire car. (Coulter C. Henry, Jr.)

– 1001 things to do with Liquid Nitrogen