Strand

I can't help but think I've used this title before. I feel like I've been in a holding pattern spinning and waiting for my clearance to land, only with no other traffic ahead of me. I've got so many things I want to do, combined with all my responsibilities I really can't seem to get started for deciding what comes first. I get my mind set to do something and before I can start I second-guess the best plan of attack and put it back on hold while I try to decide all over again.

I took today off work and actually did accomplish a little around here, and that's a start. I moved a lot of the scrap wood cluttering the basement to the garage and I got the old kitchen cabinets that the Hallman's replaced when they did their kitchen in too. They'll probably work good for garage storage if I ever get the insulation and the drywall (and their respective inspections) done. I'm too afraid of getting stuff in there and then having to juggle things around while I do the finish work, but I don't really have the money right now to attack more than one problem, and I have too many that need attention; which brings me back to needing to move stuff so I can get started on one project or another.

I made the temporary post and got it installed under the centerline beam in the basement to help support the sagging kitchen floor, and moved the jack to the front of the house to get the last of the adjustments made so I can hopefully start on the living room floor before too long. I was telling Jack the other day that I've been in my house for 10 years and it still feels like that first apartment when you moved out of your parents house and had the thrift-shop furniture and cinderblock-and-pine shelves. Before I got married I had my kayak in the living room for 2 years because I didn't have anywhere big enough to put it. Sure, it made a conversation piece, but it's not like I got enough company to justify it.

Somehow, I also got a week out of sync. I thought I had one more week until the Clay Arts Utah Potters Workshop with Brian Jensen, and that it was going to work out great because it would be on spring break Saturday when the studio would be closed and I couldn't work. Now I have a bunch of stuff languishing in the studio that I won't be able to finish unless I take a day off next week too. I may have to take one, though, I don't think most of it will last more than a week without drying out.

And speaking of Clay Arts Utah, I don't think I've posted anything about my new position. I was nominated (and ran uncontested, I guess) for the Secretary position for the next year. We had our first officer meeting a couple weeks ago, and I think it's going to be a good thing for me to have to have responsibilities associated with my membership so I actually get out and see what's going on in the community. I really need some sort of gallery representation, or at least get my online presence going because I'm kind of stuck artistically too. I keep making the same stuff over and over, and while I get a lot of wows from people that see my stuff I think I need something more concrete that will force me to grow a little, or maybe even give me some incentive.

Posted by at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It's windy, and I can't sleep. Looking out the back door, the flag at the church a block away is blowing west hard enough that it looks like a school child's drawing of a flag. My maternal grandmother hated the East wind. She told me as a child that a strong East wind blew a brick off of the chimney and it hit her. I thought at the time that was a funny reason to not like a particular subset of air movement, but whenever I notice that a strong East wind is blowing I think of that story now. There has always been something unsettling to me about wind out of the East, even before I was told that story. I don't know what it is, maybe there's a part of my subconscious that expects the general weather to move from the West and gets riled up if it encounters something contrary to its expectations.

It sounds like the random junk in the driveway is clattering around, which is funny because I've moved it all inside the garage. On Friday I even gathered up all the spare lumber from the build and moved it into a semi-organized pile near the back of the garage in expectation for this weeks storms, and I even managed to get a couple lengths of rain gutter hung up. It's almost strange to look out the back and not see the big silver tarp looming over the back corner where the sheeting lay for almost a year. I really wanted to get more done before a lasting snowfall, but it looks like this may be it.

To be honest, though, this has never been a good time of the year for me. Not anything to do with the holidays in and of themselves, but from when the days start getting noticeably shorter the dark depression hangs over me. I often wonder if it's as silly as being afraid of the East wind. Does it hit because I expect it to come with a sun that doesn't rise very far above the horizon?

This year has even had an added bonus. The first cold and stormy day I found a pair of gloves in a hat and bundled up to go to work. Something in the combination of the extra outerwear and the snow took me back to the January before last when I was going for my chemotherapy every weekday, and for a few minutes I had a reaction just like I was back on the Interferon. They had told me that I needed to dress extra warm and take precautions so I didn't get sick, because the chemo would have me weakened anyway, and if I got sick then my immune system would have to fight two battles, or something like that. Normally I don't wear anything other than a coat, and in High School I even toughed it out a couple years in an unlined Levi jacket. Maybe it's my way of saying that if it's not winter, then I won't get depressed.

Anyway, when I would go for the infusion I wore a nice coat that Jack gave me when he ungrew out of it. I'd also put on gloves, a hat and scarf. Something about the ritual of it every morning was comforting and unusual. Combined with the pain of the treatment and the cheerfulness and compassion of the Huntsmen Cancer Center staff it made a complex impression on me that I think is embedded in my already turbulent winter gestalt. There's something really confusing about a feeling that makes your joints ache, your stomach fall and puts a happy smile on your face at the same time. But I hadn't expected the feeling to hang on this long, and for some reason I don't remember it happening last year.

And maybe that's why sleep just won't come right now. The East wind is blowing and I fear that somewhere out there lurks a brick with my name on it...

Posted by at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm coming back from taking Debbie her lunch and I'm passing some angled parking and someone backs out, so I let them de-park and start to move forward when someone else starts to back out ahead of us. The car I just let out speeds up so the new backer cant get out, and swerves way around them exaggerating the danger and whips off down the lane. I let the second person back out and we proceed down the line when the exact same situation happens a second time and the new person ahead of me swerves around and pulls off into the sunset leaving me to wait a third time for someone to back out.

Just another example of why I dislike going out in public. And it's not even Christmas yet.

Posted by at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Now it's not unusual to hear one of our cats growling, but it is weird when it persists for very long. I was sitting here playing my little game and Norman, the Siamese child was growling and being angry. I ignored it for a few minutes, but when it didn't go away I went into the kitchen to see who was pestering who. I should have known something was up because there were two puffy cat-children looking out the back window and not at each other. But I was thinking about how close I was to getting Elath to 39 and just thinking they REALLY wanted out. As I reached for the handle I saw a gray shape outside the window and thinking it was Stan I almost let it in. Lucky for me I got a second glance before opening the door, because the nose was a little long and pointy for Stan, and I don't remember him having a black mask, or him being a big raccoon. I swear for an instant the bandit smiled at me, and then him and his friend slunk off around the side of the house.

I was a bit worried about Stan being out there, because he thinks he's a mighty hunter. I don't think he could have taken these guys, though. But he eventually made it in and is happy on my lap, trying to keep me from telling this story so I'll scratch his head some more.

Posted by at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So we got a refrigerator last year and one of our requirements for replacing it was we wanted to make sure it had a filtered water dispenser. I replaced the filter last time by going in to the dealership where we bought it and the salesman just grabbed one for me. This time I decided it would be different. I googled the model of the fridge wanting to find the type of filter I needed and see if I could find it somewhere cheaper. After pouring through whirlpool's site I couldn't find anything describing the make of filter I needed. I did find where you could order one by saying, "That's my fridge, send me a filter", but it was even more expensive. So I gave in and figured if I went to the dealership one more time I'd save the box and go from there in another six months. So, again, I wrote down the model number and went in to the dealership, but this time the salesman wasn't sure what type of filter it took. He asked me if it was a "push in" or a "turn" and I really couldn't remember. A couple times I offered him the card with the number on it, but he said that wouldn't help. Finally he gave up on my memory and googled the model number I had with me, but to my surprise he didn't look at any of the fridge info, he opened the picture of the fridge and squinted at the bottom of the photo where the filter goes. He then dragged me to a floor model and asked if the "...cover plate lookes like this", pointing at the corner of the fridge. I said that I thought so, and he grabbed me a filter, which of course, worked. But wouldn't it be simpler to just say, this fridge needs a type 'X' filter, right on the fridge?

Posted by at 4:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I was kind of looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, and I thought I'd do a couple things around the house. I don't much like to go out in public (or wilderness) on the big weekends, there's too many bozos out and you can't throw a rock without hitting one of them. My todo list wasn't big, or at least I didn't perceive it as anything tremendous. I even thought that by hitting the hardware store on Friday night I'd be ahead of the game.

When I got back from Home Depot I scurried up onto the roof and replaced the cooler pads as it was getting dark and I wanted some time to just sit and watch the world go by Monday. I've been kind of excited, in a nerdly-homeowner sort of way in that I finally got the swamp cooler thermostat hooked up that Debbie bought me last year. I retired just after midnight with the plans to get the water going up to the cooler before it got hot.

I actually slept a solid night, and that doesn't happen often. I awoke just after eight and was about to roll over and doze a bit more when I realized I needed to get on the roof before the sun got to blazing. That woke me right up, and kind of disappointed me, but I figured I'd get all my stuff done by lunch and laze around this afternoon. The cooler went pretty slick, and I don't often have any projects that go off without a hitch, but the only thing this one threw at me was I had to move the hose from the front yard to the back. It seems my back yard is cursed for hoses. A couple summers ago mine got eaten, but I replaced it with one from Debbie's house. When I went to pick this one up it was split in several places and the casing was falling apart. I guess I should know to get them in, but the last couple winters have snuck up on me so fast that I didn't get a lot of the winter-prep done.

Continue reading "Big Workin' Weekend" »

Posted by at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I came into work today (with my surgery I wasn't supposed to be up and around til tomorrow) because we were having our mandatory HIPAA training again and I didn't want to have to go to a special session, even though I find it fairly unlikely that I'll even touch anything HIPAA related before the next mandatory training session rolls around. I tried to make it a good time, though, as I do with all meetings.

It started off with a bang when the presenter asked us to all fill out an amusing form for which we would each receive a prize, the fastest three receiving a better prize than the rest of us. It was full of silly things along the lines of certain internet quizzes which obviously required putting down personal information. I guess it wasn't really obvious because at first I was trying to figure out what they meant by 'your nascar name' and figured since I didn't know anything about nascar I was failing some sort of quiz. To my relief, it seems as though Brian thought so too as he started asking the questions I was thinking. Once I got it I figured out it was an example of social engineering, so I lied on all the pieces of information that aren't readily available. I did salt it with truth in that I drive an S-10 Pickup and my middle name. Unfortunately my thought experiment in deciding how much of a lie would be believable kept me from finishing in the money. When it came time for the presenter to divulge that we'd all been socially engineered it resulted in this conversation:

Presenter: "So for a little toy you gave me all this personal information."
Me: "But I lied on all of it."
Presenter (smiling): "But you gave me information."
Me: "Yes, but It was incorrect information."
Presenter (still smiling): "But it was still information, correct?"
Me: "Incorrect information"

It might have gone on, but Guy pointed out I'm one of the tinfoil hat guys that deals with security. The presenter* said that we should go so far as to make the entries in our cell phones anonymous. We shouldn't have a HOME phone number detailed with that moniker because someone who finds our lost phone would know that bit of information easily. I spoke up and said that I thought that was going a bit far, because my home address and phone number are easily obtained through google or the phone book, so saving some malicious person a hand full of seconds on finding my home number really buys them nothing.**

As the meeting was wrapping up the presenter noted that none of us were wearing our badges. Upper campus is pretty strict about badge wearing and display, where down among us working people it's generally not required. The presenter seemed a bit concerned that an interloper could just walk among us unchallenged because they didn't have the proper piece of plastic affixed to a lapel.*** I piped up with one last little thing:

"Well, I can see that badge you're wearing there, and you've just given me a bit of information."

One of my finer meetings. Lucky for me it's recorded, and probably on our wiki. I'd give you the URL, but...

--------------------

*I'll diverge here and say that I've habitually removed personalization even in the gender of the presenter for some compulsive reason, so maybe the training was preaching to the choir on this one

**And it makes it harder for an honest person to do the right thing.

*** Which is silly, really.****

**** comment redacted... stupid anicdotal information availability protection getting in the way of entertainment.

Posted by at 1:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

cross-posted from my facebook page (thanks alot Jared!)

1. My nerdiness knows no bounds. I've caught myself graphing (in my head) the ratio of chocolate coating to jelly center in various shapes of candy deciding which shape is optimum for chocolate lovers vs candy center lovers.

2. Waiting doesn't bother me. I can sit for an hour somewhere and there's always something going on in my head that keeps me occupied.

3. I don't believe that spans of time breaks down friendships. I really enjoyed seeing people at my wedding reception I hadn't seen in 15 or 20 years. The problem lies in that I worry that I'm bothering people if I contact them. I have a hard time thinking of things to do to get together and put off social things because I can't think of a reason to call someone up. But when I do get together with old friends it's like no time has passed at all.

4. I got into the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games with Dark Age of Camelot and spent about a third of my time on the game several years ago. I've tempered my addiction and now play Warhammer Online (I never really got into WOW) and have made several friendships with people I've never met in real life.

5. Related to #4... When Ixa died (IRL) it really hurt, despite the fact I never played in-game with him. The closest we ever got to even communicating is responding to each others posts in an online forum thread. He was really funny, though, and when he was suddenly gone it left a hole that I hadn't known was going to be there. It often makes me think of the far-reaching effect of everything we do that touches people we barely even know.

6. The question "what if" plagues my waking thoughts. More often it's the crazy creative "what if I replaced all these things with something slightly different and wierd" type thoughts that lead to more art projects or stories, but sometimes it's the fear "what if I end up living under a bridge" -type extreme situation questions.

7. I've assimilated entirely too much pop-culture into my life. Hardly a conversation goes by that I don't segue into some sort of "It's like on Casablanca when..." type-statements. And it frequently involves "The Simpsons".

8. "The Simpsons" lost me several years back. I don't think I've seen a new episode in years. In fact, I didn't see the movie until more than a year after it had been out on DVD. It's kind of like on the Simpsons where Bart doesn't get to see the itchy and scratchy movie till after he's been made the chief justice on the Supreme Court.

9. I frequently do stuff that amuses me to no end, but if nobody catches it I don't let people in on the joke.

10. I've read the entire (so far) Discworld series. Superficially that can be taken as light, easy reading, but there is a depth there that is as good as any serious literature. I don't want them to end.

11.Apophenia

12. I've rated over 1600 movies on netflix. And since I don't rate movies I've not seen (and even haven't rated ones I've known I've seen, but can't remember clearly) that means I've spent about a third of a year of my life watching films. And that doesn't count ones I've seen more than once, or ones that I've not rated or netflix doesn't have.

13. I find it funny that I work at the University in a specialized field and that I don't have a degree, despite all my hours of schooling. I find it even funnier that I work with other people who are all smarter than me that don't have degrees either. But despite it's amusement I wish I'd finished at least one of the degrees I worked on.

14. I love math, but my intellect topped out at Calculus when I stopped being able to apply story problems to make the calculations make sense. I was the weird kid that loved story problems.

15. Spell checkers save my life. I can't spell for anything.

16. I love The Daily Show and watch every episode. But I find it makes me somewhat more cynical that they can point out something completely ridiculous in what government or business is doing, but the only attention given to it is on a comedy show for laughs.

17. I miss being able to rock climb more than anything else in my past that I can think of.

18. I love helping out with the pottery classes, but interacting with the new college students boggles my mind. I mean, I remember being clueless at that age and doing the same stupid things to get acceptance from my peers, but really.

19. I don't understand greed. I'd love to be out of debt and to be able to do something fun every now and then that is out of the ordinary, but I don't understand the need for $15,000 umbrella stands or accumulating wealth in the billions.

20. I love crowds in which I can be anonymous --like concerts or fireworks. It's the groups I'm supposed to be social in that freeze me up --like in church. Christmas Shopping crowds make me bonkers, however.

21. I've not bought a (non-dress) shirt for myself in several years. I live off the give-away t-shirts vendors give out at the Supercomputing Conferences. Hence, I look the nerd as well. I did have to buy a Hawaii baseball cap so I don't end up wearing two pieces of nerd-ware. I am somewhat fashion conscious.

22. Despite my nerdsona, I can't maintain a windows computer for anything. I'm constantly asking the windows guys at work what I should do for a particular problem. This despite keeping a webserver in my bedroom for over a decade. I'm not sure that Linux is that much easier than windows, I just perceive it as less petty niggling.

23. I'm no bandwagoner. I don't have an iPhone or even an iPod, even though I think they're cool, I didn't play Magic the Gathering until it's waning popularity, and I pretty much just got on the Facebook boat.

24. Despite my brother's influence and a couple of bands like Beulah or Granddaddy, I pretty much listen to the same music as I did 15 or more years ago. This perplexes me, as I had an inordinate love of music.

25. I hate top XX lists. (this isn't a 'top', it's random, so it's ok). The rage online these days seems to be "top 10 action movies" or "top 100 birdcalls". You just can't do it. Leave it alone. The best song ever, though is "For What it's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield.

Posted by at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So the Aloha from Austin entry was supposed to lead to the Howdy from Hawaii one, but it never materialized. I've been thinking a lot, and the time on the cruise gave me ample fodder and opportunity for pages and pages... and yet nothing gets down. I guess it's because mostly nothing has really grabbed me by the collar and shook me till I had to get it out.

I can't sleep. For the first (extended) time since my wedding I find myself back with the racing thoughts that keep me up. Debbie gets me up early, or at least earlier than is my habit. We do the car park ballet in the mornings so Kayla can get off to school. After that, I'm pretty much up and at the email between the spurts of preparing for the day I go through till I'm out the door about 9:00 or 9:30. Today was a good one. At 7:30 I found a hit in the morning logs from work that showed a university ip address probing my machine. I confirmed it through several machines that were open to the world and one that refused because it is closed. I composed a short notice to the Institutional Security Office (ISO) and said we'd been probed and gave the originating ip address. As an afterthought I did a host translation on the name and it showed it came through the ip space run by ISO itself. Here's where my laziness kicks in. I figure it's got to be some sort of test, but as I've gone through the trouble of composing the email after verifying the threat I feel it would be wasted if I just chucked it, so I sent it. I found out from Guy later that Joe had sent a notice out that we were going to be probed as a test from ISO. I don't remember seeing that email, maybe it got block-deleted as we got off the cruise. I did get a nice note back from jonzy (link redacted) telling me it was ok, and that my prompt attention would be duly noted.

Anyway, up early and not sleeping till well after midnight kind of has me on the rocks. The cruise was very nice. It used to be that whenever I got like this, I'd head for the ocean. There's something about just sitting and watching all that water that draws out whatever is ailing me, and being on a ship in the middle of it was even better. Probably dropping everything else in the world for two weeks helped, also. I read a really good book which gave me lots to think about while I just sat on the tail of the ship. By the last few days I felt like a totally different person. Maybe it felt a lot like I did when I was 25 or so. I seemed purposeful and full of promise. Now I'm back and it feels a lot like I missed the train or something. I'm back at the same job I've been working for over seven years. Not that it's a bad thing. I think this job is good for me, but lately I'm wondering if I wouldn't grow more elsewhere.

So much happened that I want to write about, but I'm just not in the mood for writing. I'm tempted to Excerpt it all here, but that seems cop-out'ish. Were it not for friends and family I think I would seek a change of venue. Not that I think I could find a niche in Hawaii, but closer to the ocean would be nice. Besides, after living in paradise how could you go on (or even visit) elsewhere? Kauai was heart-breakingly beautiful. The ocean was warm. There are chickens everywhere.

Posted by at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So this last couple weeks have been a frenzy of preparation for the CAU Holiday Sale. (along with preparations for SC in Austin and Christmas in Hawaii [although Debbie is mostly handling Hawaii*])

Anyway, I had list after list of things that I needed to remember to handle taking up little bits of paper in my pockets, among which was a note to get some butchers paper in which to wrap the sales.*** I remembered from a past life where I worked in a book bindery that they used to give out the ends of the rolls of paper (endrolls --clever, eh?) to people who wanted them. I thought that as it was a greener time recycling places may have worked deals with them, but I hauled myself on over anyway.

I walked in to an empty reception area and caught the eye of a guy standing in the hall. He looked familiar, but for me, who doesn't? As he walked up I started to say, "I used to work here a long time ago and remembered you used to give out endrolls." No sooner did I say this than my brain clicked and I recoginzed one of the women standing in the hall as one of the girls who ran the collator when I worked there. Time did that funny thing where it rubber-bands back to an earlier time and flashes around for a minute. Suddenly it was 20-ish years ago when I worked there all the guys would have chased her, but she was queen of the 'you creep' stare down. She was one of those girls who wouldn't give anyone the time of day. I asked her once, because I really wondered what time it was. She gave me the look, turned and walked away. I knew she was out of my league, I really just wanted to know the time.

Then time snapped back and the weight of two decades whalluped me. I was completely floored that someone I still knew worked there, the job just wasn't that promising. She still had the same haircut even, and I would have been hard pressed to admit they weren't the exact same clothes when last I saw her, so maybe change wasn't her thing. The guy I started talking to told me to drive around to the loading dock, "you remember where that is, right?" I had to admit I didn't because the old printing house is now a strip club a few blocks away. They moved a few years after the bindery and I parted ways. He told me where it was and I beat a hasty retreat. I don't know if I could have withstood another timefugue.

I picked up three rolls of good paper. I've got to remember to check out more production cast-offs for supplies more often.

* good thing I didn't need to subreference again**
** doh!
*** if any

Posted by at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So on Sunday afternoon I went to take the recycling out to the can by the side of my house and I noticed a strange cat sitting on the new garage pad at the back of the yard. Now this cat was strange, not merely unfamiliar, so I walked back a bit to get a better look. As I walked back the cat arose from it's haunches and began to lurch towards me. My first impression was how an arthritic cat, who was unfamiliar, in addition to being strange, came to be in my back yard. Generally all our cats run off all feline interlopers, even ones that used to be welcome. As I got closer what I had mistaken for a cat shaved from the neck down developed (to my horror) to be afflicted with some sort of malady, nutritional or otherwise, that had rendered it nude. In addition I could clearly see every bone in the poor creatures body as malnutrition had taken a toll on the beasts mass. Startled, I recoiled a pace or two as a preservational proximity alert chimed in my head. With cinematic timing that would have made George Romero proud the cat's jaw dropped and it let out a gravely cry. Now, I'm not one to have ever interpreted tongues, but in my head I heard the zombie call. "Braaaaiins!" I scooped up a handful of gravel from the ground and tossed it in the general direction of the cat, afraid that if the pebbles actually struck it they might tear through the beast like tissue paper. Undeterred, the cat continued to close distance at a snails pace. Equally appropriately to the situation, I failed to use my superior coordination to get safely away.

I yelled (and backed up a step). I stamped my foot (and took two more steps back). The cat was closing on me. Any second now it would be in reach. I finally let out a manly wail and broke into a run for the front door.
"What's the matter with you?" my wife asked, turning from her computer.
"Where are our cats?" I couldn't keep the tremor out of my voice. I started searching on chairs under tables trying to count pets.
She got up and started for the door, "What happened?"
"Don't open it!" I shreaked. "Zombie Cat!"
She went to the door, "Oh the poor thing!"
One of us sent Kayla out back to gather up Stan and Narby.
"What's it doing?" I managed, cracking open the brand new phne book.
"It's eating the food on the porch."
I found the number for animal control and began dialing. I wondered what percentage of brains was in the cat food. An automated message told me the phone number for animal control had been changed. At this point the phone should have gone dead, but my luck held out. I dialed the new number. An automated message came up telling me to listen to the options and to push 1 for some non-zombie animal situation. I sat listening to my choices waiting for some sort of Buffy option but none came. I finally pushed 0 to talk to an operator. After a moment a synthetic voice came back telling me to listen to the options and push 1 for... I pushed 0 again.

And again.

Again-again-again!

"Please listen to our options."

Animal control was out. So I went to get my cell phone because it has the number for police dispatch on it from a car accident a couple years ago. Debbie was still looking at the door making sympathetic comments. I love her for caring about everything, even the undead pets.

Dispatch answers and I describe the zombie cat on my porch eating cat food. They tell me to call animal control and I told them I'd tried, and maybe everyone there was dead already. (ok, I didn't say that last part, but it did cross my mind.) They say there's nothing they can do.

"Can I kill it?" I ask.
"That will probably result in animal cruelty charges." I'm told.
"It wouldn't be cruelty, it would be..." and here I can't think of the word merciful so I end up muttering, "better... stopping... Well, it's not in good shape." I finish lamely.

They asked if I called a certain number and I said I didn't that I'd tried one number and gotten a changed number and then the other one just told me to listen to my options. The kind, yet dispassionate dispatch officer, knowing how to deal with the over imaginative, adrenaline-addled horror movie susceptible segment of the population gave me a fourth number.

I dial the fourth number and begin to tell another person of my brush with the feline undead. I get a quick response, "Do you have the animal trapped?"
"What?" I'm a bit taken aback, as this seems like a step in a positive direction.
"Do you have it in a cardboard box, or something?"
"I'm not going near that," and again I imagine the tissue-paper thin skin tearing as I try to pick it up in my welding-gloved hands.
"Well, if you catch it we can send somebody out, otherwise..."
"Isn't this animal control?" I ask, wondering if I could borrow a protective storm-trooper outfit or something.
"No, they're closed on Sundays, this is the County Sheriff's office. Do you still have a visual on the animal?"
"Can you see it?" I ask my wife who is still at the door.
"No, it went back around the side of the house."
I relay the information to the sheriff.
"Sorry, if you don't have at least a visual and we send an officer out, he's just going to wander around your yard a second and leave, so it's really not worth the time."
It makes sense, yet I feel somehow let down.
"Ok," I tell her.
"Call us back if you catch it." and she rings off.

I ask Debbie where the cat went, and bravely (in my mind, as I still am unprotected from my knees to my toes) walk out on the porch. She tells me back up the driveway and I go investigate, but it seems the zombie cat has disappeared into the dark of the afternoon.

Posted by at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So I can't sleep, I feel like when I was in the middle of chemo with my liver giving me a hard time. My left shoulder aches deep in the socket and I just feel run down. Generally I let bygones be bygones and don't try to catch up here, but as I can't sleep and have a few pics floating around my camera still, I figured what the hey. So let's see what we missed...

Back when I was getting the chemo I noticed that all my fingernails had a weak spot that resulted in a ridge like that one on my thumb. The thumb was the worst, and it all coincided with the start of the chemo in January. The ridge has since grown out, right around the end of may on most of the fingernails, but they are all weak and flexible. It's hard to peel labels off anything. Peeling labels is a kind of compulsional hobby with me, so I'm excited for when they get stronger.

As I went through the chemo my liver test numbers started to come back with alarmingly high numbers, although I wasn't jaundiced at all. The doc said I ought to be Homer Simpson colored, but never showed. They gave me time off, but when I started back the numbers would creep upwards again. At the end of June they decided I'd had enough chemo. They said I just couldn't take it anymore and they wanted to stop before the liver damage became permanent. I had no complaints by then, and as luck would have it, I would have had to go through the $3000.00 out-of-pocket expense again starting July, and was just as happy to have it gone.

On the 4th of July I was starting to feel a bit better and we did the (now traditional) trip down to Mt. Pleasant for the celebration. I've always thought the above sign in Fairview was hilarious, so I finally took a picture.

We did the usual hang out at the park gathering, visiting, parade and fireworks. While hanging out at John and Laura's BBQ I found this little guy. I'm always amazed at the scale some things go through during a lifetime.

We had a conference for work in Cedar City in August, so we figured we'd go golfing at the local course one afternoon. We couldn't figure out why the groundskeepers didn't drive off the swarms of mammal hazards. Later we were told that they're a protected species, and can't be killed. Looks like they're thriving, and it makes golf a bit more interesting.

I suppose there's more, but it's not nearly as fun catching up as it is to write about what I'm thinking about. Unfortunately, I often think about things and wish I could just sit down right then and put it in the record, but I'm usually busy at the time and can't do it until later. And later never feels like the time to write.

Posted by at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Walking back to my car today I noticed that the Mines Building cacti were in bloom. With the building marked for demolition this might be the last year.

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Posted by at 8:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I've been dawdling and not really getting anything done since I got back from Reno. Had I brought the right cable for the camera I may have tried to write coherently on a daily basis, but the internet was so slow at the hotel I may have given up anyway.

One of the shipping crates got forked by the airways shipping people.

Our hotel had a driving range into a cee-ment pond that was one of the highlights of the trip. Reno is such a hole.

Posted by at 9:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I lagged off again...

Posted by at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I mentioned that my truck got hit while parked on the street. It seemed fairly minor, and I only took it in to the appraisal to get it checked so I could claim the valid loss on my taxes. I figured if I fixed anything I'd just do it myself and leave the dent in mainly as I plan to just drive it into the ground anyway. But as the damage was over $1000 I figured I'd just get it done. So I was told it could be done as early as wednsday but probably not later than friday.

I get a call Tuesday saying the car won't be ready on Wednsday but probably Thursday.

I get a call on Wednsday saying it will be ready on Thursday.

I get a call on Thursday saying it won't be ready today, but it will be ready Friday.

Any bets on tomorrow?

Posted by at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Seems like I don't find the time to write ever. Even when I have something, I always find some reason to let it pass. Like the time last week (the week before?) where dell delivered the 160-odd servers for our new mini cluster each packaged in its own individual box complete with power cord, 2manuals, 2 cd's and service disclaimer, none of which we were going to use. And we spent two days unpacking them and finding places to recycle the cardboard and packageing.

Then there was sunday when I decided to try to surprise Debbie while she was at work by making her favorite dessert creme brulee. I've never tried to make it (or even know what it should taste like) but it seemed simple enough, and in the end it turned out delicious, despite being cooked in two phases and enough topping of carmelized sugar to make it like breaking plate glass to get to the custard.

Or the fact that my truck got hit while parked on the street in the middle of the day and whoever did it got away scott free.

And Kirk moved out leaving a couple of stuffed garbage cans and a big empty house that lacks the noise of the two fishtanks that I found aggravating until they were gone and no dog to clean up my kitchen spills.

I guess it's possible I just need to find a routine that lets me post at some other time besides when I go to bed, but that seems to be the time that is most fitting. I guess I just like hanging with my honey too much to stop and write about something. But when she's not here I sit up like a petulant child refusing to go to bed, despite the sleep in my eyes.

I'm not tired!

I'm not!

Just 5 more minutes?

Posted by at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's incentive to post more. I gotta push this image off the front page :)

Posted by at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

... in which we are to wed. We went last night and filled out the paperwork for the opera house last night, but I didn't get around to posting about it. When we went to the car to leave there were at least 5 deer in Debbie's back yard. Stan the cat was pretty curious, but I guess the deer didn't eat him, as he was around this morning.

Today was a bit more relaxed. I spent some time being domestic and cleaning a bit of the house for my honey, and then went and took her lunch at work. I'm getting pretty good at folding towels and sheets, much to (I assume) the amusement of the housekeeping staff. At least they make little jokes about it.

Posted by at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We got the marriage license today in Manti. And it snowed on the way back and made everything white and pretty.

Posted by at 9:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got to go hang out with Debbie's Mt. Pleasant family tonight in their annual Christmas eve get-together. I had a pretty good time. Hunter really seemed to enjoy his helicopter, along with several others there, so it was good to have made the trip yesterday. Although, I'm a bit discouraged with it's level of functionality, although I'm not surprised. I may have to have an air-war with my brothers tomorrow.

Posted by at 9:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So today I went and picked out my wedding ring.

Posted by at 10:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So the actual first day of winter starts tomorrow, which means in my self-prevaricating ways I'm cheerfull that winter is almost over. The days are going to start to get longer and I can start looking forward to the January thaw. Not that winter has been too bad, but it's only 18 degrees farenheit out there right now and it doesn't feel much warmer in here.

Debbie loves the winter, and so we're having a winter themed wedding, and I have to admit she's doing a really nice job with the decorating planning and I think it's going to be really pretty. Maybe having a January anniversary will give me something to look forward to every year.

Posted by at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the most part I've rated these 5 stars on netflix for a combination of their quality and repeated watchability. I'm a little generous here and there, I think. But for the most part I think these are my favorite movies I've seen come up on netflix for me to rate.

12 Angry Men (1957)
1941 (1979)
The Addams Family (1991)
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984)
Aliens: Collector's Edition (1986)
Almost Famous (2000)
Amelie (2001)
Amistad (1997)
And Now for Something Completely Different (1971)
Better Off Dead (1985)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Blade Runner (1982)
Blazing Saddles: Special Edition (1974)
Brazil (1985)
A Bug's Life (1998)
Casablanca (1942)
Chicken Run (2000)
Crimson Tide (1995)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Die Hard (1988)
Duck Soup (1933)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Firefly (4-Disc Series) (2002)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
The General (Silent) (1927)
Gilda (1946)
Gone with the Wind: Collector's Edition (1939)
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
Harvey (1950)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Hero (2002)
High Fidelity (2000)
Hopscotch (1980)
Horse Feathers (1932)
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
Hudson Hawk (1991)
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
Incredible Adventures of Wallace & Gromit (2001)
The Incredibles (2004)
Key Largo (1948)
Kung Fu Hustle (2004)
The Lady Eve (1941)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Led Zeppelin (2-Disc Series) (2003)
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Lost in Translation (2003) Top 100
Love Potion #9 (1991)
The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix: Reloaded (2003)
The Matrix: Revolutions (2003)
Memento (2000)
Midnight Run (1988)
Midnight Run (1988)
Monkey Business (1931)
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Python's Flying Circus (14-Disc Series) (1969)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
Moonstruck (1987)
North by Northwest (1959)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Odd Couple (1968)
Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii (1974)
Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon (2003)
Powaqqatsi (1988)
The Professional (1994)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raising Arizona (1987)
Real Genius (1985)
Red (1994)
Trois Couleurs: Rouge
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Serenity (2005)
The Shawshank Redemption: Special Edition (1994)
The Simpsons: Season 4 (4-Disc Series) (1992)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
Strange Brew (1983)
The Terminator (1984)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
Thunderball (1965)
To Have and Have Not (1944)
To Live (1994)
Toy Story (1995)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
V for Vendetta (2006)
Wallace & Gromit: Three Amazing Adventures (2001)
Young Frankenstein (1974)

Posted by at 9:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So last night Debbie stayed up late with me and we watched Casablanca, probably my favorite movie. Sounds cliche'd, but it is. And as the habit isn't new yet, I went to bed afterward and didn't think to write. Today we started out with plans for a couple short errands and then we were going to come down to Mt. Pleasant. The errands took a bit longer than we'd planned and my back ended up hurting real bad. We decided that it wouldn't hurt us if we didn't spend the weekend together for the first time since we'd started going out (I believe it would have been) as we'd had Monday to shop for Abby's dress, and Thursday for the CHPC Christmas party. But in the end we decided to let Debbie drive me down and I could lounge my pain around her house and she'll bring me back Monday morning for work and she can finish some stuff up in Salt Lake before going back. It's kind of odd driving the full Salt Lake to Mt. Pleasant trip. We had to think hard to figure out we had actually done it once before, on Thanksgiving, because it seems we've each done it so many times alone on the way to the other's house.

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So tonight we had dinner at the Porcupine Grill for the CHPC office party and Debbie made a special trip up to go with me. I haven't ever taken somone with me to the office party, so it was a real nice change. The food was pretty good, but I made the mistake of taking some advice from some of the people and went with the surf and turf option because the ahi tasted very nice. I can't really complain about the filet, however. It was very nicely done. Debbie did hijack my choice of desserts, though, and I ended up with the porcupine-- a chocolate encrusted chocolate cake/chocolate moose concoction shaped like a porcupine and served with ice and whipped creams. On that choice, though, it turned out to be the right one.

Posted by at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I have started lots of entries that haven't gone anywhere explaining lots of things. Maybe I'll finish them, but maybe I won't. In any case, I'm getting married one month from today, and I'm going to try to post something every day until then. Even if it's just a picture. Today I came back, as has been my routine lately, starting with a 5:30 a.m. drive from Mt. Pleasant. This time I brought the three kittens with me to try to find a home for them before they stop being cute. They've been playing and napping all day in my room, much to the displeasure of shino, the resident cat. He's still upset in his hidey-hole behind the amps under my desk. I'm not sure how I'm going find them homes, but maybe I'll have a Christmas Miracle.

Then I'll have something to write about.

Posted by at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So with Labor Day Weekend upon me I figured I'd document my summer reading list, just to show I did do something with the summer.

By Terry Pratchett:
Discworld 01 - The Colour of Magic
Discworld 02 - The Light Fantastic
Discworld 03 - Equal Rites
Discworld 04 - Mort
Discworld 05 - Sourcery
Discworld 06 - Wyrd Sisters
Discworld 07 - Pyramids
Discworld 08 - Guards! Guards!
Discworld 09 - Eric
Discworld 10 - Moving Pictures
Discworld 11 - Reaper Man
Discworld 12 - Witches Abroad
Discworld 13 - Small Gods
Discworld 14 - Lords And Ladies
Discworld 15 - Men at Arms
Discworld 16 - Soul Music
Discworld 17 - Interesting Times
Discworld 18 - Maskerade
Discworld 20 - Hogfather

Making Movies by Sidney Lumet (see, some variety)

And then the old standby Favorites:
Illusions by Richard Bach (reread)
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein (reread)
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinliein (reread)

I'd recommend any of them to anybody who likes to read.

Posted by at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday evening I met Jared, his wife Jamie, and his dad Wayne up at the Albion Basin to go backpacking. I'd kind of gone nuts and got a new tent because I didn't have a good one for backpacking. While I was at it, the boy scout motto, long dormant, flared up and I ended up with a decent first aid kit, new sleeping pad, headlamp and various other items I thought I might need.
We got up to the parking lot and headed out just after 6:00 p.m. for the pass between Sugarloaf and Devils Castle. We had a lot of fun along the way joking about the out-of-shape city dwellers attempting to scale mountains. Surprisingly, I was almost able to keep up, despite carrying all that unacustomed gear and on a swollen ankle that probably should have kept me from going. Around sunset we made the saddle and were rewarded with quite a view. Unfortunately this view included a line of lightning laced storm coming right towards us from the Timpanoges side. We debated the situation for a few minutes and decided that it was probably wiser to not camp on the peak in a lightning storm, a solution not often reached if you watch the local news often enough. So after a few blessed minutes of packlessness we hitched back up and started for lower ground. We made it back down in less than a third of the time it took us to make the ascent with the judicious use of flashlights.
By the time I got to the bottom my ankle had really had it. I didn't notice till we turned around and started up the road at the campsites, but decided I'd probably not be able to make the same trip up the next morning, even with leaving most of my kit at the campsite. If there had been someplace to camp readily available, I'd have probably endured the weather just to give all my new toys a try and stuck it out, but I knew I couldn't go farther, so I bailed and came back. I was sitting back in my chair by 10:30, so it was quite the adventure.
I did have my gps with me but I can't seem to locate the cord that connects it to the computer, but when I find it or get the new one I'll have to update this entry for statistical content. I also hope to get a little video, or some pictures from Jared to add too.

Posted by at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I tried to get the kayak out again yesterday, but the weather didn't cooperate so I just took the kayak for a ride. I had thought it was a great idea to head up to the Uintahs, but evidently so did about another hundred-thousand people. Just before we got to Washington Lake we saw the remains of a really bad car wreck with one car upside down and another that looked like it had been hit head on at high speed. I've looked at the news and havn't seen any reports, but I can't imagine everyone survived it.

When we got to Washington it was wall to wall people in the campgrounds, so we backtracked to Trial Lake and the shore was lined with people fishing. It had been really hot when we were loading up the truck but by the time we got to the lake it was pretty cold and windy. We hiked around across the dam and just down from the cabin where I always fish when I go to trial and just left the kayak in the truck. I was dressed for warm wet kayaking and not for rain, but it wasn't too bad. We did get rained on a bit, but not bad enough that I wanted to get my jacket out of the truck.

We took chance along, but the lightning was really scaring him, so he kept trying to climb under Kirk every time there was any thunder.

Kirk caught the first fish on some powerbait, but it wasn't quite big enough to keep so he let it go. I was having a good time laughing at the little fingerlings trying to take my hooks that were bigger than their mouthes every time my line came within a couple feet of the shore. I ended up hooking a couple tiny fish with flies. I landed a really pretty brook trout that had some really funky markings, and one rainbow that was... er not so pretty


A couple more pictires of the lake...

Posted by at 6:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I finally got out on the water with the kayak today. I still need to name her, but havn't come up with anything good yet. We had decided to go to huntington reservoir to do a little fishing and get a taste of what I'm going to need to do to get better. I guess I need to work out some on shoulders because I'm pretty tight tonight after just a couple hours on the water. It was worth it, though, I shouldn't have waited so long to get into this. I kept telling Kirk that it was so much better than sitting here in front of the computer. I struck out across to the opposite side and came back and decided that purist philosophy aside, the rudder is a valuable addition, without it I have quite a time getting turned around. I'd read that this kayak was a really stable one, and I only had a few bobbles at the start where I almost took on water, but I've found out that I can't turn my head to look behind me without almost capsising.

This was the first fishing trip I've ever gone on where I forgot my fishing pole. I had everything out before kirk got up, and it took some finding, as I havn't been fishing in over a year. I laid everything out on my bed and started getting the car loaded up. When I finally got the kayak and everything in, I hadn't realized that I'd left the fishing pole leaning against my bed. Kirk caught one little fish and let it go, but I wasn't too disappointed that I didn't get to fish, I had enough fun just fooling around.

When I was getting the kayak loaded up I had put a tiedown around the kayak and was tightening up one of the tiedowns and it came loose and I got hit in the bridge of the nose with the metal clamp. I have a pretty good cut, and it is really sore, so I guess I'll get a good scar out of it. I tried to take a picture of it, but man, I'm looking old, so I'm not posting it.

After a few hours out the clouds started looking really threatening and the thunder started to roll, so we headed back to the beach. While we were trying to decide if we should wait it out, or see if it looked like it was going to get serious, it suddenly got serious. It started to pour rain and we started getting everything packed up. While I was tieing down the Kayak the rain got really cold and turned to hail. We got drenched within a few minutes to where my shirt wouldn't hold more water.

Kirk wants to try to go up to the Uintahs and maybe fish Washington Lake or Trial next saturday. I may try to go up to somewhere close during the week, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to get the kayak in and out of the car. I may have to build some sort of assistance device this week. I also need to come up with an anchor device, and probably create one for kirk's pontoon boat too.

Posted by at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

     I decided to take Thursday and Friday off work for a four-day weekend and thought I'd get out a bit and try to get over the miserable last couple of weeks I've had.
     I went to lunch with Jack and after we came back to my house I showed him the fishtank I brought home from work on saturday. I'd had it at work for a couple years, ever since Stickboy brought it back after it made the rounds of his family. The tank has a long history. It started out as an advertisment in a Chinese take out place for Oceans realm, a pet store owned by, my brother and me. It's changed hands several times, ruining a tv in an apartment below it along the way. I had (and have, when you really think about it) nowhere to put it, so I took it to work. Only I didn't like maintianing it at work and it got to be a real drag to have around. Kirk fixed it up really nice on saturday and filled it with fish. He mostly got South American Cichlids and some tiger barbs as dither fish, and I still had 2 Marleri, 1 Lelupi and a pictus cat from work.
     After we had taken in the fish we went and took a quick look at my metal cutting bandsaw that I'd been having trouble setting up. Jack quickly spotted the loose set screw that was keeping the blade from turning efficiently and now I'm on my way to being able to finish the kayak rack for my truck... assuming I can get the gumption to work on it more. As we were heading back out I told Jack he ought to see the 4 Kentucky Coffee Trees I'm getting set up to play Bonsai, I purposefully stepped off the deck's 2 foot drop to the ground, but somehow my toes got the instruction to roll over and play dead on the way down. I fell forward and knew I'd crunched my ankle really bad. Now that I think about it, it has been a year without crutches, and I only get one of them in a row, so after a $75 worthless visit to the emergency room I know I have a sprained ankle. I'd already had Jack pull the crutches out of the basement before we went, so I was pretty much set up. I should have had him get my old air splint so I would have had everything I needed. I guess I ought to know that unless it's a compound fracture I should just bag going to the hospital to save me the money, because unless it's a compound fracture it really doesn't make a difference. I say this because of the last part of the radiologists comment:

... No significant tibiotalar joint effusion is present however anterior soft tissue swelling is apparent as well. A bone island is noted in the posterior aspect of the calcaneus.

     So I have a broken off hunk of bone in my OTHER ankle now too. They don't know when it happened and were puzzled that I wasn't aware of the break. I told them the only other time I was aware of breaking my left ankle it was, I believe, a tiny crack down inside one of the tarcels.

     Anyway, I'm down for a few days and then have the long rehabilitation to get it working right again. I guess I'll be lucky to get the Kayak out before autumn.

Posted by at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So yesterday morning I wake up to a call from Chuck saying his work plans had fallen through and he wanted to know if I wanted to knock down my garage. It was a couple weeks earlier than expected but welcome, so we got right to it. Moving all the garbage out of the garage and into the backyard took far less time than I had expected. I had hoped to have moved the Hallman's swingset, trampoline and other stuff I've been holding for them while they redo their yard so I could keep my junk off to one side and allow for construction area in the back. I'd also hoped to mow the lawn, but you can't put off good help when the help can come. I'm sure Chuck would have helped me organize and get ready, but I just jump into things a lot.

And speaking of jumping into things, we found out quite soon that the celing had an odd build. Every roof joist had it's own set of boards nailed between the joists, so there was constant joint across every joist the whole width of the roof. Which explains why it was falling apart, but it made it really easy to knock down. Chuck pretty much just knocked out the crossbars on the celing and then jumped on the roof till it caved in. One of the reasons the roof was falling apart is it had several layers of shingels on it, but the layers weren't consistant across it. Some places had many layers, then it would drop off to just one. I hadn't noticed that a strip of the tar paper shingle roll had blown off two winters ago till I tried to discover where all the black wet junk on the floor of the garage was coming from last spring. Turns out the east side of the garage (which I never see) had lost a roll in a big wind storm or something and I had gone at least part of the winter with just tar paper to cover the boards. I didn't decide what to do before the first snow fell last october or november, so I just covered the east side of the roof with visquine. Now that I have the refi money in hand I'm going to build a little workshop so I can take the welding and some of the other fabrication tools out of my basement. Maybe then I'll spend a little more time working on fun stuff and less time moving tools to make room to make fun stuff.

Posted by at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I'm on my way to play European Boardgames at a friends house, and I pick up a blue Raspberry slurpee for the evening, disdaining the usual cola products. Now, I'm not sure how things are done in your corner of the world, but here when we get slurpees we tap the cup a few times on the counter after filling to disgorge some of the air pockets from filling and top 'er off. I only mention this, not only because this little ritual baffled a Bostonite, but it also lends to the story. I noticed that the semi-solid beverage did not settle in any appreciable fashion and little room for topping off was procured. I shrugged it off as just one of those things, and proceeded to the checkout counter.

Now I diverge here to mention the patron in front of me was a beeeeutiful woman in a fairly snazzy red dress and was worth the second glance. Unfortunately, upon that second glance I noticed she was wearing one brightly colored knee-sock with the other leg bare. Upon further inspection the supposed hosiery turned out to be an ankle-to-knee tatoo of some beach scene, or acid-induced cloud flight, or something. Tatoos cause me to lose interest in the fairer sex fairly quickly when they distract from a good scanning. It's like taking a refreshing drink of a beverage, only to be jolted by an astringent aftertaste.

Which brings me back to the matter at hand. As I sat contemplating that magnificent dress with a texture that looked like three inches of soft crimson butter, I took a pull on my slurpee. "That's odd", I thought. Tastes a bit funny. But things do from time to time, and I moved up to the counter as the tatoo sauntered off. I caught the eye of the ubiquitous middle-eastern clerk who seemed stunned, almost to the point of speechlessness by the woman in red. But this was understandable, as from his vantage point he was not hindered by the distracting ink. Seeing what I took for a bit of embarassment at the overt distraction present on his face, I smiled, rolled my eyes a bit, and nodded my appreciation.

As I drove out of the lot and took another cool draught of the slurpee I started to formulate a theory as to the odd aftertaste. It seemed to strike some chord back from my past. Through the haze of the years a memory floated back of sitting in an emergency room as a nurse scrubbed out the inside of my bottom lip with a toothbrush. It seems back in my Junior year of highschool I had slepwalked out of my mothers van on the way home from work at about 25 mph. I'd landed on my head and done a fair job of removing all the skin from one side of my face. In the emergency room the nurse cleaned the asphalt out my wounds, including the one in my mouth with a toothbrush and...

Soap!

There was soap in my slurpee, which was now about 3 inches from the top of the dome! Upon reflection I realized that the lack of compaction in my slurpee preparation ritual was probably due to surface tension in the soap in the slurpee. So here it is about 66 hours later and I'm still having problems, um... processing... solid food. Not that I've been that hungry. I did propose late tuesday that in the reversal of the Dawn ads from my youth that maybe a really greasy meal, say 4 strips of baccon and eggs, might help rid my system of the offending material. They said on the ad that the soap would, "..break up the grease, Actually surround it.." and finally I'd hoped the bacon grease would take the soap out of my way.

Such are the things I think when blood sugar gets low.

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A while back Jack told me a little about this site that was kind of an online puzzle game. You can order these perplexcity cards and each one has a brain teaser on them of varying difficulty. Each card is part of a 4 card set and you earn points for solving the cards and bonus points for solving the sets. Between the hints on the cards and the clues you get from solving sets, along with online information you're supposed to be able to figure out where the stolen Receda Cube has been hidden here on earth. If you find the cube you win $200,000. Theres a map of Perplexcity on the back of some of the cards, so as you solve them you begin to get a map of the city with information about different buildings and areas of the city. Jack's been ordering cards for awhile now and he's handed me down his seconds, so I finally broke down and started figuring them out. It's pretty addictive and some of the puzzles are really challenging so I've ordered a set just to see what I can do. So far I've solved 25 of the 256 cards and I'm ranked an even 4000. I'm not sure how many cards have been released altogether, but most of the cards from the third series have been solved. I've been showing the duplicates of the duplicates around and nobody has shown much interest, except Sam at work. He's helped me with a couple and is curious enough to have looked into buying some, although I don't know if he's set up an account yet.
There's a mountain of information to catch up on that has been published because, evidently, this has been going on since 2004. I'm not sure if I have it in me to do all the backstory research. I like the instant (or in some cases, eventual) gratification from solving the cards. I guess the bigger puzzle could be cool, but I'm not sure how layerd the rewards are where you can actually figure stuff out and have noticable progress after the cards are done.

Posted by at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So I forgot I had a blog and thought maybe this belonged in it...

Tuesday morning I had considered not getting out of bed in the morning because I felt kinda crappy, but finally dragged my sorry self into work because of a couple meetings I figured required my attendance. Jack thought we ought to go grab lunch and run to REI so he cold look at some insoles for his running shoes. When we got to REI Jack asked if I was still planning on getting a Kayak this year after I swore in my wrath that this was the year I'd do it. I kind of shrugged the question off with a "mrhh" noise.

I had lusted after kayaks but generally resisted the temptation due to the initial expense for quite awhile. Last year I decided to get one and really put some time into researching what I wanted and came up with the Perception Carolina 16.0 as the object of my lust. Unfortunately the 16.0 alone costs around $1000, and I'm still a starving artist. I just couldn't find a way to get into a touring kayak last year and finally gave up on the idea mid-summer. This spring I began looking at cheaper models and wondering if I could find a used kayak of some kind to at least get out and enjoy this summer in some little way, unlike last summer.

This brings me back to REI. Jack wasn't finding what he wanted and I wandered off towards the boats for a little moment of forbidden fantasy. A salesman approached me, asking if he could help. I told him I didn't think so, that I had wanted to get into kayaking for some time, but hadn't had the funding. He said, "Well, if you've always wanted to, this is the day to do it." He led me around to the other side of the rack where they had a red Carolina 16.0 on the bottom rack with a 50% off pricetag. He told me that the $600-odd dollar price was due to them trying to get rid of a last years model before the season. I waffled for about 10 seconds, but realized that this was my chance, so I had him pull the pricetag so I could pay for it. He told me to bring back a hold sign from the register and I could pick it up after work when I had my truck. After payment I got back in time to disappoint someone talking to the salesman about the same Kayak. I guess I snaked it out from under him.

Maybe I'll have something to write about if the lakes ever thaw.

Posted by at 1:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I picked up a flight sim game because I hadn't played one in a long time and I've been playing the Battlefield 1942 scenarios over and over where I could easily get into a plane. I'm not so sure I'm all that keen on the PF deal, but I did find out I could make quick-and-dirty skins for the planes without a whole lot of effort and thinking, so I kind of threw camoflauge to the wind and made some skins for random planes as they came up.

I do like the fact that when your fighter gets shot up it starts showing the damage.

Posted by at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I saw a couple weeks ago or so on Slashdot (I think) that there was a website that you could upload your picture and it would show what celebs you looked like. I picked out a fine shot and waited for the results. I'm pretty sure it's just random, and not comparative. But if you wanna give it a try it's here: Myheratage.com

But if you want to see the results

The picture of me I submitted:

My Doppelgangers

Top Row: Joseph_Conrad, Werner Herzog, Strom Thurmond, Perl Buck, Matthew Perry
Second Row: Paul Wittgenstein, Morton Stanley, Michael J. Fox, Melvin Calvin, Bing Crosby

Ya gotta feel sorry for the people that matched.

Posted by at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So the times (again) they are a-changing. Since the fall of 1998 or so I've had a dedicated webserver at home. I guess it made me one of the really cool nerds, but in reality it just sucked away money down a hole. I had grand plans of a ceramics portal website where I could showcase my work along with the other artists I know, and possibly make some sales on the side. The truth of it is, I'm lazy and don't have much in the way of sales skills. The Cone Ten ceramics site started to get bogged down with personal minutia so I registered this site as the Eclectic Archipelago just to make things cleaner (and harder to spell). With the coming of the Archipelago I started blogging (before blogging was blogging) and made a couple entries in the first two years before, once again, the site got bogged down due to laziness.

I finally came to the decision to wipe my home server and host where it was more economical. I have to thank Jack for providing non profit space for me as well as my brother as well as keeping the blog services going where I'm more inclined to shut comments off rather than deal with spam and updates. Perhaps (before it becomes a new years resolution or some other nonsense) I'll make more of an effort to do something with my sites. Hopefully, I'll at least fix the style sheet.

Posted by at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So it gets to be 4:00 a.m. and bing! I'm awake and can't go back to sleep. It's times like this that I wish I could at least fix something at work, but I checked in and everything seems to be running smoothly. Of course the emails I get at night are only log stuff so they just browse really quick with nothing surprising. But that's better than finding out we've been hacked, I guess.

I found out yesterday that of the three pieces I entered into the inter collegiate show the helmet actually made it in. From what I remember from the stats, there were over 170 pieces entered from the U alone, and a handfull from Utah State, BYU, Weber State, and one from one other school in Utah, I think. Or maybe the single one was from Weber State. Anyway, they accepted 71 of the pieces for the show. For some wierd reason I always feel self concious about getting a piece in, especially when so many of the good pieces that other people I know didn't make it in. Anyway, it was wierd because all night at class I had people coming up to me congratulating me for getting in and telling me how good the helmet looks. I guess the wierdness comes because I really wasn't aware that so many people know who I am, or made the connection between the helmet and me. I do still feel like an outsider in the program, but that isn't unusual. I feel like an outsider almost everywhere.

If I ever get the pictures off my phone I snapped today in the gallery I'll post one of the helmet here. And someday I'll take a real slide of it.

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Posted by at 5:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I went out today and picked up a bunch of stuff for the small metals class and to make up some assignments for foundry. I think the silver stock is pretty cool, maybe I'll have to just carry one around awhile.

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Posted by at 6:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I finally got my webcam doing something other than occupying space at work. Not that it'll be a heavy usage but if anyone is interested to see if I'm picking my nose, slacking off or having lunch here is the way to do it.

http://www.chpc.utah.edu/~erik/webcam/

updates once a minute...

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Posted by at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I think the weather channel is running a conspiracy to keep people from slitting their wrists. Every day it's the same report. Foggy today, highs in the low thirtys, rain and snow tonight, warmer tomorrow. It's a lie, every day I wake up to fog.

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Posted by at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I went tonight with Kirk to his radio show and he let me pick out most of the playlist from my old 70's and early 80's music. We got a ton of calls and had people requesting all kinds of stuff, a lot of which we didn't have, but we were able to at least make second or third choices on most peoples things. It was really fun and if I'm able to get the show we recorded ripped to mp3's I'll try to get them up somewhere they can be downloaded.

It was much better than my first effort at the show a couple years ago.

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Posted by at 4:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Played for a few hours in the Molvik (35-39) battleground after going to a party at Guy's house. The party was pretty fun and there was a lot of good food. Brian smoked up some of Guy's elk and Guy barbequed some Salmon. Steve brought shrimp and California rolls and I brought Jumbalaya. Wayne and Irv brought pie and we ate tons then played some wordgames.

The battleground has been much more frustrating than the Thidranki one 15 levels ago, now I seem to die as often as I kill. But tonight just to take a look at it I logged up the whole thing and ran it through Neill's log parser The output can be found here if you are at all interested.

The actual log can be found here.

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Posted by at 11:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We got together to play unhinged tonight. It's the second set of joke-ish cards for Magic the Gathering. Lance bought a few boxes of expansion cards and we did a semi draft and came up with a deck of cards each and played some. It was pretty fun, but we only had time for a few games. I played Russell and went down 2 games to 1, but at least I got that one. We are going to play again with these cards, I think, and it would be fun to give it a go again.

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Posted by at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

looks like from the last post the gmt offset was wrong. I think I fixed it, thanks once more to google.

ok, from the last post I meant the one at 4 a.m. Proof, once again, I shouldn't get up when I can't sleep and muck with things.

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Posted by at 5:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just once this month I'd like to make it all the way through the night without waking up.

(fixed time coding, will it set this back?)

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Posted by at 5:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Went out to Lara and Russell's house for a night of fun and magic, but ended up getting whupped on several times. The last game I was holding out ok, but got done in anyway.

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Posted by at 1:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't know how much I even want to write about this, and it's late enough that I'm sure I don't want to write it all tonight. In addition I'm so paranoid even without funky happenings but with it I'm loathe to write much detail.

Two fridays previous to today (the fog on this is so thick I can't hardly believe it's that long ago) I discovered what I believed to be a hacked box at work. Unluckily enough, I was the only one at work minding the store as that very day most of my team was flying out to a conference for 10 days. So working mostly by myself on it I managed to kick over an ants nest that is fairly broad. Things are only starting to come back into shape and I'm going to have to rebuild my whole cluster to be sure it's more maintainable than in the past.

I've been poking around on my server tonight making sure the securing I did earlier in the week was ok I found an ssh key on my account created November 1 that I didn't make. The earliest signs I had that things were bad at work seemed to go back to Nov 1 at work, so I'm not sure at what point someone looked here, but as I connect home from work from time to time I'm not surprised.

Well, I get to talk to the FBI, so I guess it wasn't a total loss...

Posted by at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So after yesterdays 13 hour day I decided to push it all day today with work, class, work, class and a movie.

At least the movie was good.

Posted by at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by at 1:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So I signed up for Second Life today. It's like a mmorpg, but with more customization and less game. Reading about it reminded me of William Gibson's descriptions of cyberspace. Kind of a place where you could go do pretty much anything you want. So far I havn't done much besides run around a bit, but I did modify one of the t-shirt samples to make it blue and put my logo on the back. It's got some definant potential for a big time sink.

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Posted by at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, Jack pinted out that William Gibson, one of my favorite authors, had begun blogging again and I found a quote in there I really liked and thought I'd pass it along.

In some more cheerful historical continuum, I could be quite happy with a decent centrist Republican as president. Indeed, from what I take to be the perspective of the extreme left, the problem with Kerry would be that he's merely that: a decent centrist Republican. There are, in fact, decent centrist Republicans who quite rightly regard themselves as true conservatives, and it was not my intention yesterday to tell people like that to buzz off. If you're a decent centrist Republican, or a true conservative, today, I feel for you; your party has been carjacked by some sort of radical movement, and driven right around the spectrum -- people who've bathed their brains all too thoroughly in the White Light of the far, bad side.

In very much the sense that Bush is not actually a Christian, likewise is he nothing remotely conservative. Believing Bush is conservative in any traditional sense is like believing that a Formula One racer with the Perrier logo on its side is full of mineral water.

Gibson paints pictures in my head that have a life all their own, which makes it difficult to read sometimes as ideas jump to life behind my eyes and distract me from the story with their own little capers.

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Posted by at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, the personalization begins. I have an image up, but I don't much like the header. I may have to rework it. I also have some links in for Marc, Jack and Circus.

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Posted by at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So Marc (http://www.mecworks.com) talked me into giving this wordpress software a try. I have it set up, now just to do the customizations...

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Posted by at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)