| Summer Vacation |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|11:21 am] |
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Some of you may remember that after last year's magnificent trip to Maine, we spent the next several days rebuilding several rooms of the house after an unfortunate fishtank accident. I am happy to report that this years trip was twice as long, twice as fun, and utterly lacking in post-trip trauma. In spite of an awful lot of rain: one 2:00 AM wakeup call included enough lightning to make me think I was living in a neon tube on the Las Vegas strip for a few minutes. Photos when (and if) I get around to it :-) |
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| Vacation Hints |
[Aug. 16th, 2008|08:18 pm] |
Do
- Go to Bar Harbor and see the pretty scenery
- Escape the August heat
- Camp in the woods
- See bald eagles
- Climb over rocks and into tidal pools
- See a shooting star as bright as any fireworks display
Don't
- Develop back spasms the week before you leave. It's a long drive. Having pretty girls massage your back in PT at insurance company expense is gratifying, but not worth it in the end.
- Take your SO to the ER the weekend before you leave, even if it does turn out to be only an ocular migraine.
- Tell your SO that the the drops falling onto her face in the night are "only condensation". The fact that it is true makes it worse.
- Return to find that a hose burst on your fish tank and that 70 gallons of water have gone missing.
- Spend the three days after your return, carefully set aside to "recover from your vacation", moving a 125 gallon fish tank, and all the furniture in your house so the contractors can tear out two floors and two walls once they find the 70 gallons.
- Especially not if you didn't listen about the back spasms.
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| Clone Wars Review |
[Aug. 15th, 2008|10:07 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
Short Form: Watch this if you are one of the following
- an 8-12 year old male
- thought the Geonosis sequence in Episode II was too short
- Enjoy watching Star Wars Battlefront while someone else plays
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| 'nuff said |
[Jul. 8th, 2008|07:22 am] |
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Your result for The Imaginary-Job Employment Test... The Rugged Adventurer!
Multiple choice. Why did it have to be... Multiple Choice? Your high score in Skill and moderate scores in Humor and Morality qualify you for a career as a rugged adventurer! You'll need some distinctive attire, an unusual weapon, and maybe a catchphrase or two. Oh, and a cool name. If you're stumped, just look to the family pet for inspiration. Just remember to look out for those Nazis! Which, come to think of it, is good advice for anyone... Take The Imaginary-Job Employment Test at HelloQuizzy |
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| It's good to be walking again |
[Feb. 25th, 2008|04:27 pm] |
Between bad weather, a dead pedometer battery, and flu at the end ofJ anuary that is still holding me back, it's been over a month since I posted any mileage to the Rivendell walk. Good to be back on the road. Hopefully, I can get back into a groove. |
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| As long as we're meming |
[Dec. 31st, 2007|10:44 am] |
I Am A: Neutral Good Elf Wizard (6th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength-12
Dexterity-10
Constitution-10
Intelligence-17
Wisdom-12
Charisma-15
Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.
Race:
Elves are known for their poetry, song, and magical arts, but when danger threatens they show great skill with weapons and strategy. Elves can live to be over 700 years old and, by human standards, are slow to make friends and enemies, and even slower to forget them. Elves are slim and stand 4.5 to 5.5 feet tall. They have no facial or body hair, prefer comfortable clothes, and possess unearthly grace. Many others races find them hauntingly beautiful.
Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.
Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)
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| Dang |
[Dec. 13th, 2007|09:28 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sad | ] |
It would seem that Terry Pratchet had a really, really bad day recently.
This hits rather close to home for me. Pratchett is one of my "occasionally" authors, rather than all-time favorites. So my normal reaction on reading this article would have been "Bummer", then I'd move on.
But Mom's dementia, which was arrested for a time by Aricept (sp?) is progressing again. Unlike Alzheimer's, hers moves pretty slowly, so she can look forward to several more years of increasing confusion, interspersed with lucid moments when she knows precisely what is happening to her, before she entirely loses continuity of personality. By the time that happens, it will certainly be a mercy.
She's in excellent physical health for an 82 year old woman, and could easily last another 15. Which is not a mercy at all.
Dad, who is five years older, is in better mental shape, but fading fast physically
There's just no good way for this to end. |
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| Vacation! |
[Aug. 14th, 2007|04:53 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  pensive | ] |
Good: Myrtle Beach: Wednesday - Sunday.
- DS and DD should be delighted.
- Not at work
Bad:
- Waaaaaay too many opportunities for in-laws psychodrama
- 10 hour car trip with DD and DS
I hope I don't need a vacation to recover from the vacation. On the other hand, in the most pessimistic scenarios, the office might be looking pretty relaxing by Monday. |
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| Quiet Sunday |
[Jul. 29th, 2007|04:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  chipper | ] |
DS is vising a friend, and DD is asleep. DS is visiting her ailing father. I just scored a nap, and have time to read! Woot!
Yesterday, had a wonderful time at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) starfyrone's party. And the day before that, kugelblitz had a great run at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) theinstitute.
I don't think I want to know what the Lord of Karma have in mind for me tomorrow. Balance sucks when life is good. |
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| Recovered |
[May. 28th, 2007|08:11 pm] |
So, the Flu from hell has worked its slow, awful way through the family for the last two weeks: I can't honestly say that I've never been that sick in my life before, because I remember the other time vividly. It was in January 1997.
I find that getting back into stride walking afterwards has been hard. I had been averaging 4+ miles a day before I came down, and was thinking that I could bump that by a bit without too much effort. Now I find I'm dragging by the time I get to 3.5.
However, the weekend has been a blast, especially for Eric. Saturday we camped out in the yard: we pretended we were astronauts on Mars: we ate dehydrated space food (right down to the Tang!). Today we went to my sisters for a memorial day picnic: they had trampolines, squirt guns, and a bubble machine, so he was in heaven. |
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| Traveling |
[Mar. 30th, 2007|04:17 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | cheerful | ] |
Professionally, the trip has been a bit uncomfortable, but so far I have
and eaten
On the whole, not bad. But I'll be glad to be home.
Edward |
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| Sometimes Fatherhood pays off |
[Jan. 31st, 2007|07:35 pm] |
So I stayed home today with a nasty cold, and mostly slept. DS came home today with a fine report card, and as a reward, we let him go out to dinner at the restaurant of his choice. He could have chosen Pizza Hut, or Chuck E Cheese, or some other grease-laden child paradise. But he did not.
He wanted to go to Wasabi Zen and pig out on raw fish.
So we has miso and udon and salmon and eel and tamago and a generally glorious time. I'm so proud! |
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| Quiet Weekend |
[Jan. 28th, 2007|09:50 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | uncomfortable | ] |
Well, everyone here is mildly sick with one thing or another: DS is getting over pink-eye, DD has a cold, I am almost a month behind on allergy shots while I wait for them to reformulate the darned things, and Gale has something GI-related. No one's too uncomfortable, but we mostly just lie around the house.
Finally kicked off the main characters in the long-awaited (at least by me) Take Two SF game. Didn't handle pacing particularly well, and probably dialed the realism up a bit high on the job interviews, and didn't get to the action as a result. However, that will give me more time to work on props, which I'm hoping will be cool.
Changing Walk To Rivendell strategies has paid off fairly well for me: I used to just put in stuff my pedometer marked as aerobic: now I'm putting in total steps for the day, which makes going for walks with DD much more productive, shields-wise. |
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| Ernesto is making me sore . . . |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|08:26 pm] |
. . . actually it's our own dang fault.
See, Saturday night we decided that with all the rain, this was a fine time to do something about all the crabgrass that had overtaken the front flowerbeds.
Experimentation quickly revealed that we were past the point of no return. So today, we tore up the beds down to the weedblock: the next few weekends should see the gradual introduction of all the cool shrubs we went and ogled at Behnke's this afternoon.
Meanwhile, I am sore. Very sore. And I'm heading to the backyard to take DS camping tonight, so instead of soothing my aching joints in the soft support of my waterbed, I'll be lying on the ground. I am such a doofus.
But it should look cool when we're done! |
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| Back to the 20th century |
[Jul. 3rd, 2006|09:34 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | sad | ] |
One of the most marvelous things about driving a Prius is that it's a totally geek car: after it, everything else feels vaguely outdated. You need to put your key in the ignition, the engine turns on before you've gotten half a mile down the road, and suchlike gaucheries. A very good friend, kugelblitz, recently offered to trade me his BMW convertible for a week, and I turned him down. I mean, it may be sexy and all that, but you have to take your keys out of your pocket to unlock it! (Not to mention that we had a road trip planned. I'm not actually stupid enough to turn a Z down just because its engine's outdated.)
It turned out to be a darned good thing, though: DW was driving home late last night, and got slammed by a teenager making a left turn who didn't see her at all. DW is fine, and the car is not: we'll probably find out next week if it's weeks in the shop, or if we are getting a new car. Meanwhile, chickenhat can pull ahead of me in the mileage competition (we were at 55.6/417 before the engine died). |
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