None of the Above

[ good ] 2004-08-01
Meet "Denty": I have a new car! Well, new to me, anyway. Here's the story: my mom called me up one day out of the blue and offered to give me her Durango when she pays it off. A few days later, after having talked with my brother, she offers me another option: a 1999 Mazda 626 that my brother's coworker was selling. I said "sure", they bought it for me, and I flew out to Denver to pick it up.

Now, the car was bought while I still worked at the IRS, and I had to wait to go pick it up until they were done with me. About a week after they bought it, I wrecked my Honda by rear-ending a very nice lady in a Toyota 4-Runner at a stoplight.

It was totally my fault. I was coming up behind her, slowing down. Then I looked away at a church I had never noticed before, and I thought how nice it looked. Then I looked up, and I realized I had to brake hard, immediately. However, the pavement was wet, so my brakes locked and I slid (slowly) into her. Doh! All it did was dent her bumper, however. The main thing was that she wasn't hurt. Thank goodness. I would have had a very hard time forgiving myself if she had been harmed. I ended up with a bruise on my knee from the dashboard, but it was really nothing.

I had been planning to sell the Honda, but it would have cost more to make it road-worthy (it had hardly been damaged, but I managed to bust the radiator) than I could have gotten selling it, so I ended up just signing it over to the wrecker. Alas. Here is what it looked like:

I did, however, keep the little Honda symbol from the center of the steering wheel, and I keep it in a little dash compartment in my new car. I was sad to see that car go - it served my family well for fifteen years. First my mother, then my brother, and then me. It was my first car. And it had 235k miles on it.

Anyhow, my old Honda Accord had a dent in one of the front doors (that I never fixed). My mom's Durango has a dented door. And the Mazda I was given has a dented door. So, it seems I am fated to have a car with a dented door. This doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, I am thinking of calling my new car "Denty". Here is what it looks like (notice how subtle the dent is):

[ good ] 2004-05-29
Amazing playhouse: I was looking at the random picture thingie and found a neat page detailing the construction of a kid's really cool playhouse. Sweet! I wish I was that little kid.

[ good ] 2003-11-23
A quote from a comment at Steve Gilliard's blog: Behold:

How many times have I seen this in the business world too? Ignore problems and they just disappear. Anyone who points out problems isn't a team player, has an attitude problem, needs to think positive, etc etc.

[ good ] 2003-11-13
Mmmm, metafilter: Here are a couple good comments from metafilter that I saw recently:

number one:

People really are getting exceedingly stupid. Perhaps all food should be served in containers which require basic problem solving and cognitive skills to open, perhaps by following written instructions on the back. Thin the crowd out a little.

number two:

There's another argument to be made that doesn't specifically address Christianity - poor people who aren't cared for become a danger to any society. They riot, they commit crimes, they damage the social fabric, and worst of all, they embrace demogogues and revolutionaries. History has shown many times what the desperate will do to a society when they get desperate enough.

and here's a quote from somewhere else entirely:

When I hear right-wingers whine, it always strikes me as such petty jealousy. Like little kids who have a Mrs. Fields brownie but worry that their teacher gave some poor kid an extra cracker.

[ good work ] 2002-11-07
Oh goodie! Today, the DPS (Department of Public Safety) called, and I have not one but TWO interviews lined up for a clerk position and an administrative position. They are on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

I'm so thrilled! This is real, actual progress towards a job. Yippee!! I'm worried I'll get my hopes up and just fail, but at least I have two good chances. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed. Maybe I'll sew myself a nice new skirt for the interview... that would be nice.

I started out in a really horrid mood today, with a headache on top of it from crying last night when I wrote the last part of the previous entry (I couldn't post it at the time because The Internet Was Broken). But when I got the calls about the interviews, my mood immediately perked up quite a bit.

So today it's more organizing. I already put a bunch of stuff back in the garage. Now I need to unpack books onto my bookshelves, organize electronic stuff, organize office supply-type stuff, organize computer-related stuff, make a big trip to Goodwill, and organize my fabric. Also, I need to take a big walk today because I didn't get around to it yesterday. My back is still sore, but not nearly as bad as it was last night.

Also, I need to take Richard to the doctor - he's still feeling horrid, poor guy. He can hardly even talk or stand. I hope they can help him feel better.

That's it for now... I'm looking forward to my visit with Elena today. I really hope the nasty carrion-oid stink problem has been resolved. Eugh.

[ good ] 2002-10-29
Heh, cool: I found a couple of things worth blogging. First, via the incomparable Plurp, a page about St. Dymphna, patron saint of insanity and mental disorders, among other things. Neato! Maybe I'll have to get a little icon card of her at some point. Man, the Catholic church's card collection has got Pokemon beat - let's see those little monsters intercede for the oppressed, eh? I didn't think so!

(As a side note, Plurp is just about the last place I would have expected to find such a thing - a reference to any saint, much less one that I would find personally so applicable. Just goes to show, the forces of chaos are hard at work, putting the most unlikely things in the most unlikely places.)

Also, via my Girl Genius list that I'm on, someone posted this advice column from Dr. Hell. It's rather amusing, with every answer somehow involving huge destructive robots. I like it very much.

The fact that the sun finally came out today after umpteen days of rain and dreariness may have something to do with a slight brightening of my mood and actual posting of links to other sites, instead of my usual droning whine. So thank that big yellow thing in the sky, dear readers.

[ good mental ] 2002-10-20
The morning twilight greets me: and I rejoice that I have made it through the night.

It's darn early - 7:18am, and I still have 42 minutes until it's time to leave for Mass.

Last night, I slept from 1:something am til 3:something am. And I considered it a victory. :)

It's a strange, sad thing when the respite of sleep becomes something to be terrified of. Really, I wouldn't wish this on anyone. It's highly unpleasant, to say the least.

I managed to doze off, finally, and had some strange but not unpleasant dreams which immediately fled my head when I woke up. I also noticed I drooled rather excessively on my pillow, which is a side effect of my medication, I'm sure. (I've had that side effect with other meds that I've been on).

You know what really helped me last night? I said a rosary before I went to sleep. Go ahead and laugh if you think I'm a dork, but what would that say about the kind of person *you* are?

Anyhow, it helped me feel at peace and not alone. I set my little Virgin Mary rosary card next to my lamp (which stays on all night when I'm alone), and asked her to please watch over me as I slept. And by golly, she sure did. :)

I hope to get more sleep tonight. I think it will take a little while to get used to the medication. I'll be talking with the mental health people when I go in tomorrow, so if I need more fine-tuning, we can get it taken care of then.

I can't describe to you the anticipation with which I await the sunrise. It feels like getting out of prison, when I see the sun come up. I think to myself, "Ahhh, reprieved yet another day. I am so fortunate."

Someday I hope to look back on this time and be able to say that it was the toughest spot. I really hope things get better from here on out. Don't get me wrong - I don't expect a total cure or anything. I'm going to have to work hard at pestering my doctors to take the best care of me possible - it will be a strange dance with the medication, tuning my mind like the massively complex machine it is.

I mean, I know that sometimes a given medication doesn't work forever, and you have to be willing to try new things. I am willing, and I am so incredibly thankful for every day that I can get through without abject terror, or feeling as though I'd rather be dead.

It's a long, hard road, but damn it feels so good to be moving forward along it, know what I mean?

Peace be with you.

[ books good ] 2002-09-27
A Thousand Ships: is the title of the new graphic novel I'm reading, which is the birthday present I chose for myself from my sister this year. (Thanks, Kathy!)

It's the first book in a looong serialization about the Trojan war. The series is called Age Of Bronze, and it is extremely cool. I eagerly await future volumes, and I'm not even finished with the first one yet.

I'm rather big on Greek history and Greek mythology lately, so this is right up my alley. I like it a lot so far - it's quite character driven and complex.

In other comics news, I happened upon something amazingly suited to me called Girl Genius at the Half Price Books location that is magically specially tuned to my particular thoughtstreams (more details on this some other time).

At the end of the bin, one of the individual episodes caught my eye with its title, and within a couple seconds of looking at it, I knew I had to have it. Later, I found the compilation book I linked to above at the comic store, and I just love it! I can't wait for more stuff to come out. I even want the schwag from the publisher's website, especially the license plate frame from Transylvania Polygnostic University that reads "Know Enough To Be Afraid".

Damn, I like their style! :) I'm going to have to get signed up at the comic book shop across the road to get all the new issues as they come out, something I've never done before.

The other book I'm actively reading now is called The Giver, and I found it in the young adult section of the bookstore when I was there on Tuesday with Elena and her grandmother.

Sometimes young adult books are way cooler than adult books :). Anyhow, it's quite fascinating, I like it. It's also a quick read, which is a plus. And if I like it enough, it goes into Elena's library for future reading.

[ consume good ] 2002-09-25
Cool! Replacement ring is available: and it's only twenty bucks, just like the other one I got so long ago. Spiffy. I gotta make sure of my current size before I buy it, though.

I think I'll go for the bar style instead of the open style that I used to have. My heart is closed now - I got the one I want now :). And he treats me right, besides.

[ good ] 2002-09-24
Turn-around: Okay, here's the deal. I was talking through instant message chat to an old friend who mentioned that he was jokingly telling another friend of his to post a profile on a certain matchmaking website.

On a lark, for fun and amusement, I decided to do the same. I filled it out seriously, asking for what I really wanted in a man. I didn't really expect any serious takers.

Well, color me surprised! I've met a great guy named Richard - I had to drive all the way out to Blanco this weekend to meet him, but boy oh boy he's worth it. Picture a knight in shining armor wearing the disguise of an ordinary guy. Or something like that.

So I won't get into detail, I'll just say I think he's got an excellent head on his shoulders, a good heart, and a pair of strong arms that makes me swoon :). And, most importantly, he treats me with respect and caring. And much goodness is growing between us.

In part because of how I feel about myself since I've met him (read: good), I feel a renewed energy and hope for landing a job, so that's what I'll focus on for now. The more I think about getting social security disability, the more I think I probably shouldn't try, because I probably won't get it and more so because it wouldn't be proper because I *can* work. I just need to work harder at looking for jobs for now.

I'll have some help from the Texas Rehabilitation Commission when I have my appointment with them on September 30th, so that will maybe give me the leg up I need to get started working again. I think it will be good for me.

And for the moment, I'm going to head out for a bike ride...

[ body good mental ] 2002-09-17
Some promising signs: First, I went and exercised yesterday. Yea me! I got this really lovely green milk crate from David, and I attached it to the rack on the back of my bike with a little locking chain, so not only is it on there quite firmly, but it will be just that much harder for someone to steal. I still need to secure it even more firmly with zip ties, and clean it up a bit, though. It had been sitting outside on the ground for months or years, and has some snails attached to it, even. Dang, I should go take pictures so you can see what I mean.

Anyway, I pumped the tires up full of air and rode to the mailbox to get the mail, then I rode all the way to the big park and back, a journey of maybe a mile and a half all told. Then I got my bodyboard, my new swim fins, and my new swimming suit and went swimming at the park (I drove in my car). I had a lot of fun, and tired myself out quite thoroughly, I'm happy to say. This is what I need to do to lose weight and get in shape.

In the past year, partly due to my listlessness which caused me not to exercise, and partly due to one of my medications, depakote, which causes carbohydrate cravings, I have gained about fifty pounds. So I have a lot to shed!

It felt really good to be out and moving around. I hope I can keep it up, at least at a cursory level. I'm lucky in that my body usually responds really well to exercise and I get in shape quickly. I'm really looking forward to the day when my legs no longer rub together. That's the only reason why I'm not going on huge long walks, which is one of the things I intend to do later on.

I dropped off another application, to Jack In The Box nearby. We'll see if they call. Pizza Hut didn't. Feh.

I've decided to apply for social security disability, and I'll talk more about this later, but for now here's the gist: I can't work because of my disease - I simply fail to complete my duties, fail to keep showing up, and so on. In the past eighteen months I have worked twice, and the longer job only lasted about a week. Plus, I'm basically unhireable. Anyway, I think I have a decent chance of getting benefits, so today I'm driving up to Round Rock to the Social Security office to start the application process. It takes a long time, so we'll see how it goes. I can appeal if they refuse me the first time around.

I think I am going to have to sell my car. This makes me quite sad, but I can't afford to keep her. Her name is Bettina, by the way. I decided that a few weeks ago. She's served me well. She's my first car. Who knows, she may be my last, too. There's no way I can come up with enough money for basic survival *and* upkeep of a car. It just ain't gonna happen. If I get decent social security disability benefits, I may be able to afford a simple little car later on, but I kinda doubt it.

I ran into a friend from Lotus at a book sale this past weekend, and now I'm in contact with her again. Yea me! She's really nice, and has a little daughter now. She and her husband are active with the local Mensa group (no they're not elitists or anything, they're very down to earth), and she invited me to one of their get-togethers this Thursday. So that should be fun.

I also called up my old boss from Lotus, a lady named Peggy who was also my good friend. We never did much together except talk in her office, but we really connected and we haven't talked in years. She recommended the doctor I used for Elena's birth, and she was even there at the birth, helping Spencer comfort me. So I have a big connection with her there, too. She actually lives in the same neighborhood, too!

So I talked to Peggy and it was great, but she was busy so we kept it short (she's got three kids). I told her to call me when she can and we'll figure out a time to meet in person and catch up on what's been happening with each of us. I think reconnecting with her will be a Great Thing, even above a Good Thing.

So that's what's up. I'm feeling kind of sad that I'm abandoning the idea of productive work for the time being, but I *am* really sick in the head and even if I could get a job (but I can't), it would be irresponsible of me to sign up for that kind of commitment that I'm not sure I could live up to. I think I need to prove I can successfully volunteer for awhile, keep a schedule and continue showing up to something for some time before I can really even get a job.

Anyhoo, I gotta get going today, though I am going to wait until after the rush hour traffic calms down.

Have fun, peoples.

[ good my site ] 2002-08-27
Ahh, my minions: My plans for world domination are starting to come together nicely, I am pleased to say. I will unveil some spiffy stuff soon, but don't hold your breath.

At any rate, I feel invigorated and creative, and I hope this feeling will last long enough for me to create some actual content. I believe that you would be pleased. I hope so, anyway.

Time for me to get something to eat, and watch some tv. I'm way behind on my tv-watching lately, I'm afraid.

I was going to go out today, but the punishing heat is even worse than normal, and I didn't get up early enough to escape the worst of it, so I'll put off my errands until tomorrow.

For now, enjoy the last five minutes' worth of webcam pix that were taken before I left my seat at the computer. Perhaps I will one day have webcams throughout the house and you can watch me as I go about my mundane activities. Not yet, alas, though.

[ good mammalog ] 2002-08-17
I miss my Lena: very much. Very, very much. She's in Montana with her dad and their trip this year is particularly long and I just feel the need to express how much I miss her.

I sent her a package the other day, with a t-shirt, a letter, a Chinese finger prison, and a plastic baby goat (I have the matching mommy goat).

I hope she's doing well. My heart aches. I want to hug her, to hear her voice, to know that she's okay. I want to watch her sleeping, to stare at her little hands, the curve of her lips, and the flicker of her dreams across her eyelids.

And to think, this is only one particle of the ocean of longing that parents must feel who lose their children forever... No, I don't want to think on that too much.

I never thought I could love someone as much as I love her.

She is difficult and willful, complicated and brilliant, strong and sometimes cruel. She is so like me and unlike me at the same time. She surprises me every time I see her.

She has a sweetness and depth of compassion, even at such a tender age. I am remembering a day when I was particularly blue and she was visiting, and I was crying a bit, and she was *so* concerned about me, giving me extra hugs and trying to cheer me up and make sure I was okay.

And this wondrous creature, this thing greater than myself, she came through me - how amazing! What a privilege, even though it hurt so much (and continues to do so).

When she's here, I get stressed out. I worry that I'm not a very good mother. I do what I can, sometimes even my best. I am imperfect - I get tired, I get annoyed, I do not have infinite patience.

But I try... I hope she can forgive me for not being perfect. I hope she always knows how much I love her, how I would do anything to keep her from harm.

And maybe someday when she's older she might be able to understand how sweet and yet painful and twisted our relationship is. How she's only partly mine, and how I feel held hostage, how I continually struggle to be the best mom I can be for her, and how badly I wish everything could have been perfect.

But we work with what we have, and what we have is exquisite, really. She's a delight, and the most beautiful person I have ever known in my whole life, every last millimeter of her.

I love when she clings to me, or reaches out to hold my hand, because I know it will be so soon that she will be all grown up...

I want her to live her dreams. I want her to be strong where I was weak, to be rich where I was poor, to have laughter where I had tears.

The shape her life takes is up to her. It is my job to give her the tools, to teach her how to navigate for herself, and finally, to let go. But I have many years to prepare for that last part - thank goodness.

I miss her hugs and her little sweet kisses, and the way she nestles into my lap, and the way we read books together. I miss her giggle and her little toes.

I'm so lucky to be her mom. I don't take it for granted. Really, I don't.

I love my daughter. I want to make a better world for her. I want to live a long, long time so I can watch her grow and change and blossom. I hope that we will always be friends (and yes, she has the right to be pissed off at me of course).

Even if I had not a penny to my name, I would be rich - because I am Elena's mother.

I miss you, binny nootkin. Have a happy time, and never forget that I am thinking of you and sending love your way, my light.

[ good ] 2002-07-03
I want! Okay, so I looked thru the classifieds and found a job that I just applied for.

It's like... *so* perfect for me. I want it so badly, that I am worried if I think about it too much, that I'll jinx it or something. But it's silly to think that way, right?

Instead, I should share the news with people so they can send their good wishing-karma my way, right?

Well, I hope that's the right course. The job is with a textbook publishing company, and it's for a "Text Processor", which involves what looks like some light editing, probably lots of typing (ok with me), and desktop publishing and so forth.

So I filled out their web form and updated my resume and wrote a cover letter and all that. And looking at their website - sigh, well, let's just say it looks like a really good company to work for, and I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high, but it's happening anyway, so I might as well roll with it.

Well, if you've got a wish to spend (or even a partial wish), please send it my way - I'd use it to get the people at hrw.com to hire me, cuz I think I'd be great for this job, and I would *not* take it for granted! Please, please, I'll be good! :)

[ good mammalog ] 2002-07-02
A friend had her baby! Megan, Luba's daughter, had her baby Leila on June 27th (or thereabouts). I am told they are doing well now, but that it was rather rough.

Luba told me the labor went on for 28 hours, and the last 13 hours were *really* bad (oy!), that the baby was posterior (facing up instead of facing down), and had her arm up by her chin like Rodin's Thinker.

Goodness gracious me. :(

Leila had some problems - meconium and a collapsed lung, then fluid in a lung. But she's been doing better and started breastfeeding, which is going quite well. Luba said that the more mama's milk she gets, the better she seems to do. :)

I feel so badly for Megan that her labor was so difficult, and of course I am happy for her that her baby Leila is going to be okay. I'll continue to hang out on the fringes and offer whatever support seems appropriate.

Luba tells me that there's lots of family in town and she's surrounded by people and so on, so I haven't tried to visit or anything. I remember how hectic it was when I was in the hospital (and impossible to sleep!).

I haven't seen any pictures, but I'm betting that this little girl is just *gorgeous*. :)

I wish them all well...

[ good ] 2002-06-28
Rock on! I have a job! :) Like, officially and stuff.

I start on Monday, as a CNA on a rehab floor at the hospital. Coolness! I'm nervous, but excited to rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed.

Now I gotta get crackin' and make myself some suitable scrub pants to wear... I managed to grow out of my other ones that used to fit. Doh!

Time to queue up some good viewing on the TiVo to have going on in the background while I sew, and get started. I'm in a very good mood, and I think it's going to be a good weekend.

Wheee!

p.s. I saw the coolest playground I've ever seen in my life (maybe) while we were out doing errands. I'll take Elena there real soon one of these days - she'll *love* it. Yes, I will take pix.

[ good ] 2002-05-16
Newly inspired: Or re-invigorated, take your pick. I've had the domain birthsupport.com for awhile now, but I haven't really done all that much with it. I've felt bad about it, but the time just didn't seem right.

Now, I've decided that I want to start a business and really kick things off. I want to create a wealth of birth and breastfeeding (and etcetera) links and information at the site, to help new moms, other birth professionals, and generally get my name out there as a person with a clue.

I also want to offer web hosting for birth people and such at the site. But the big thing is I want to start doing postpartum doula work - helping new moms out by running errands, cleaning, bringing them meals, and so on (also doing baby videos, video editing, photography, etc). I've thought about this before, but I haven't felt the impetus to really go for it until now.

So I've got a lot of reading to do (I have two good books about starting a small business - one Texas-specific, one general), and TONS of planning and research and organizing and designing and writing of code.

It'll be awhile before I'm ready for prime time. But still, I feel like this is what I should be doing, and I feel it will be interesting, challenging, and hopefully successful. Even if it's not, I'll learn a lot, I suppose. It won't even cost me much money to get started - mostly just my time.

Yes, yes, I should have done this a year ago at least. But it just wasn't the right time. I had to heal from my mental difficulties and get more stable. Times feel right now. So wish me luck! More updates as things go on.

[ design good ] 2002-04-26
Materials science is *cool*: From metafilter, I came across this bit about a substance called aerogel. It's made by NASA, and is 99.8% air. The photos of it look freaky, as though they were photoshopped. The stuff looks truly ethereal.

Anyway, they're using it to catch comet particles. Way, way cool.

[ cognition good ] 2002-04-11
Oliver Sacks in Wired: I'm a big fan of Oliver Sacks, so I was happy to come across this article in Wired about him. It's kind of long, but pretty good. (via Follow Me Here)

[ good ] 2002-03-13
A brilliant idea:  Via Rebecca Blood's log, I came to this article about a BBC show called Back to the Floor, where CEOs spend a week at the bottom rung of their organizations to learn what's *really* going on, and (hopefully) make changes to fix the problems.

Almost without exception, CEOs learn a lesson in communication. "We find people at the heart of every organization who know exactly what's right and what's wrong with it," says Thirkell. "But between them and the bosses is a layer of people -- those whose careers depend on sanitizing that information. Bosses are always surprised at how much knowledge exists further down the ladder."

Exactly! Wow, how totally cool. I had actually been thinking about something like this myself, in more of a what-if fantasyland kind of way. That is, I was trying to imagine how to create an organization that didn't suck the way most (all?) corporations do.

What I thought of was some kind of system whereby *everyone*, especially those at the top, have to take turns doing the shit jobs. As in, literally cleaning toilets. (perhaps I was inspired by watching the movie Gandhi as a child - I seem to recall something about this in his ideas of how he ran his organization)

The point being that it's only fair. And it would hopefully keep people from getting too darn uppity. Well, in my fantasies it works that way. :) Who knows if I'll ever have a chance to put it into practice. You know, when I'm a gozillionaire and media mogul and so on.

Anyway... this show sounds amazingly cool. Apparently it will show on American PBS stations starting this spring. I went to the website for the show and found to my glee that they have transcripts online of all the previous shows (like this one). Coolness! I'll have to go and dig in at some point...

[ good ] 2002-03-07
The tub! The tub!  The hot tub, that is. It works! It was a long saga, which I won't go into the details of, but suffice it to say that the pump had to be replaced, the tub scrubbed and disinfected, and then we had to fix a mysterious leak between the fittings.

But now it's full of water, and we have the heater running. We're going to check on it in a little while. This is sooooo cool!

I can hardly wait to lay down in there in the lounge-shaped area, looking at the stars with my binoculars. Sweet!

Elena is just going to *love* this, too. (And yes, of course I wouldn't dream of letting her out of my sight (and immediate grasp) around the thing, to be sure).

[ body books food good mammalog ] 2002-03-01
The McDonald's habitrail workout:  is my new exercise plan. Well, part of it, anyway. :) We went and picked up Elena today, then went in search of a McDonald's with an indoor playground to go have lunch at, since the weather is all misty and gray.

We found one, where we hadn't been before. It was quite fabulous! The playground was smallish but well-laid-out, and made by Little Tikes (one of my favorite companies, as it so happens...). They also had a kiosk with Nintendo Game Cube games on four sides, at child-height. I tried to play the Pikmin game, but couldn't figure out how to make the little dude jump. (Later I saw a little girl guiding the dude up a ramp, so I suppose jumping wasn't required at that point after all).

I went up into the tube system twice with Elena, and it wore me out both times. Heck, I should go there with her some other time and just go through as many times as I can for half an hour or an hour, to get in shape.

When we arrived there, we were the only people in the playground room, but we were soon beset on all sides by crowds of homeschooling kids who had met there. It quickly became a zoo full of shrieking, running children. Egads!

Afterwards, we went by the bookstore where I got Fast Food Nation, something I've been meaning to read. I know that it has something in it about McDonald's playgrounds, and I had been wanting to read it ever since I heard the author talk about the book on NPR last year.

The lady at Barnes & Noble told me that the author had been down at Book People (the big independent bookstore downtown) just last week, and apparently it was really great. Crap! Just missed it. Ah, well.

Anyway, I want to read the book for more than just the stuff about playgrounds, of course. But I'm thinking of getting serious about my research for The Ultimate Playground Project... I may have to pay a trip to the local library sometime soon.

I also got a Barbie book for Elena that she picked out herself. It features a pink plastic carrying handle, and a matching pink plastic latch to keep the book closed. It's actually pretty cool - it features Barbie in various career situations: doctor, teacher, astronaut, artist, business executive, clothing designer, fire fighter, ballerina, veterinarian. The best part is making up my own words to go with the pictures :) "See Elena, there's Barbie at her desk reading a note from one of her underlings asking her for a raise. 'Fat chance!', says Barbie."

I read it to her once at the store, once in the car, and when she hassled me repeatedly to read it to her again in the car, I said no. She whined and whined about the fact that she couldn't read it herself and I told her I'd teach her to read. So we'll see if she's really interested.

I downloaded some cool fonts the other day, including some with dashed lines to serve as examples for practicing writing. I'll run off a few sheets of her name, the alphabet, and so on to see if it grabs her interest. If so, nifty, if not, no big deal, I'll wait and try again sometime later. She'll catch on at some point, when the spirit strikes her.

[ good music ] 2002-02-25
Coolest. Metafilter. Thread. Ever.  It's all about the recently announced royalties to be paid per song (0.14 cents for *each* listener) for web streaming music.

Shall I go on about how the metafilterian IPLawyer posts her glimmering elucidations several times? Nah. The coolest part is that at the current end-point, she asks a fellow poster (who had mentioned that the college radio station they volunteered at would have to go through a whole lot of work to figure out all the royalties) to contact her since they're looking for people to testify about how ludicrous the record-keeeping requirements would be.

Dude, this is how the web is *supposed* to work!

Rock on...

[ good ] 2002-02-09
Junior's back!  We lost track of one of our kitties for about a day. I was worried that some harm had come to him or something, but it turned out he had snuck into David's travel trailer when he was checking something out in there.

David went down and looked around, and sure enough, Junior was there. I'm *so* glad to have him back - I was so worried he was hurt or something...

[ consume good ] 2002-02-09
Have chair, will travel:  Ahhh! My sweetheart, David, has gotten me a Valentine's Day present a little bit early: a computer chair!

Okay, so it's not an Aeron or anything, but it's *quite* nice, and I'm very pleased with it. We just finished putting it together.

It's got armrests and a high back, and it can tilt back and roll. Utter coolness! I'm very happy with this wonderful gift. :)

[ good humor people ] 2002-02-07
Jim Loy's pages are cool! I first linked to Jim Loy in July of 2000, which now seems like ages ago. Anyway, I wrote this entry about his rather funny bit about four-way stops.

Due to some recent revamping here (each log entry now has an integer as a unique ID instead of a timestamp - thanks to my codemonkey, Daniel!), I happened across that entry and realized that the old link was broken, so I found Mr. Loy's new site and updated the link.

Now I'm exploring at his site some more, enjoying the new stuff he's written since I last visited. Here are a couple of some of the particularly spiffy things I'm enjoying right now:

• Ptolemy's Epicycles (with spiffy animations!)
• Life - a nice introduction to the game thereof (also with spiffy animations!)

There's lots of great stuff there - dig in!

[ good ] 2002-01-24
Pixar rocks:  I recently found out that Pixar has shorts available online to view, including my favorite, Knick Knack (should that be hyphenated?). Go watch it, it's cute! :)

I first saw it in an animation compilation movie thing (Tournee of Animation) lo these many years ago.

[ good ] 2002-01-24
Daniel will be flogged!  Why, you ask? Because I can't add new categories to my weblog, and it's driving me bonkers!

Okay, not bonkers. But I'm still going to flog him. Personally. Tomorrow. Until he fixes it (it's one of those things where he says "Hey, it works for me". Argh!).

Daniel writes... Hey, it works for you too, now. :)

[ good ] 2002-01-24
An essay about time:  I found this really neat piece about the lack of time we all have these days at Rebecca's Pocket. Utterly spiffy.

I highlight a different paragraph than the ones Rebecca quoted:

What matters in such a society is the symbolic power of goods and services; they are less than ever simply vehicles of utility: they serve an expressive function. What counts is what goods say, not what they do. In modern societies goods are means of communication. They constitute a system of "signs" through which a purchaser makes statements about him- or herself. While in the old days goods informed about social status, today they signal allegiance to a particular lifestyle.

Which starts off a whole nother tangent - are our buying habits really a form of expression? To what extent?

I think I agree with this, a little bit. But what does it say when I see a marketplace saturated with stuff that sucks, and I reluctantly buy something anyway because I need it, not because I really want it?

Hmm...

[ good ] 2002-01-10
Everything is different now.  I wake up beside a man who loves me and isn't afraid to tell me. Repeatedly, every day.

I stand at the kitchen counter in the mornings, enjoying the sunlight that pours in. I watch the dogs cavorting in the front yard, howling at the passing sirens.

We met eleven days ago. We're still on our first date, I suppose, and it doesn't look as though it will ever end. It just felt so natural, to immediately mesh our lives together.

I had pretty much given up on love. Or at least on falling in love. I was at the point where I was wondering just how much I would have to settle. I had been debating in my mind just which areas were the least onerous to compromise on. Little did I know a man awaited me who would be far beyond my expectations.

David is, to put it mildly, wonderful. He treats me kindly, chivalrously even. He's always concerned about how I'm feeling, willing to give me a hug, a kiss, a shoulder to lean on.

And in return, he tells me that I am the woman of his dreams, and that I make him just as happy as he makes me. We take good care of each other, I think.

So lately I feel as though I have stepped into another world. It's a profoundly odd sensation, to have what I wanted land so neatly in my lap so suddenly.

David and I live out in the country a bit, with 7.5 acres and a slew of animals. Four dogs and four cats are domesticated. Two more cats are semi-feral, with at least six feral ones floating around as well. Three possums, a raccoon, two roadrunners, and a bunny round out the usual visitors.

I hope to get some goats and chickens at some point, but that will require a fair amount of preparation first.

The land slopes gently down a hill, varying from quite rocky to extremely rocky in places. Near the back of the property runs a small clear stream. There's a nice picnic area under some tallish (for this area) trees, a dog agility field, and a round above-ground swimming pool. In one corner of the agility field is where I plan to start a small garden this year.

We have satellite tv, and satellite internet access. David has hacked his Tivo so it holds a huge amount of data, and I'm discovering the joys of asynchronous tv-watching. He's also got his house wired up so that all the lights can be turned on and off with master controllers, and we can watch the same tv shows in different rooms.

We haven't yet moved my computer up to his place, though (we have to make room for it first). The same goes for most of my other stuff. We'll have time to get it all done, though - I'm not worried.

I'm extremely happy ). I feel very loved and cared for, and my loneliness has been cured. Of course life will get tougher when David starts back to work - we won't get to spend just about every moment together as we do now, but we'll manage all right.

So we're in the car now, heading home. We go left at the Chevron, onto Nameless Road. After the landlocked boat that will never see the sea, we turn right onto Round Mountain Road, then through the gate onto the dirt driveway.

The dogs bark to hearken our return, and we enter the barn (which is bigger than the house). A quick pet for the barn cat, Silver (my current favorite), and we cross the bridge from the barn to the house...

This is my life now. Quiet contentment. All sorts of projects to be done - maintenance, cleanup, building for the future. Time to write, time to do puzzles (with which I'm a bit obsessed lately - I think I need to cut back a bit).

So look for me just off Nameless Road, maybe sitting at the picnic table on a warm day, listening to the stream as I type on my new little eMate...

Just know that I am happy now, and I have finally found my home.

[ good ] 2001-12-30
Happy, happy, joy, joy:  Things are going really spiffily. More details later. :)

[ good ] 2001-11-19
Off I go...  Time for me to head out the door for my road trip... I'm not sure how much I'll be updating while I'm gone, but I'll be sure to pop in a little bit here and there.

I hear the road a-callin' my name, and my happy little Honda is rarin' to go! I hope to make Amarillo by this evening, and then spend tomorrow covering the rest of the journey to Denver (well, Parker).

The last time I made a trip along similar lines (starting from San Antonio, that time), my car broke down in the middle of the night, and I was terrified (but made it through okay). This time I've got AAA and my trusty handy-dandy cell phone, so I feel much better about the whole endeavor. :)

I hope I get to see some snow...

[ good ] 2001-11-15
The box o doom tells me:  regarding the meteor I saw the other night:

That's not a meteor! That's a Martian invasion craft!

Ahh, well I certainly hope so - they're due to come by and take me for a ride. Maybe they're waiting for the planet-wide dust storms to settle down first.

And on the same topic, Daniel sent me a link to a CNN story about the Leonid meteor shower coming up this weekend. I hope the weather clears - we've been deluged with rain today.

[ good ] 2001-11-06
My kind of warfare:  The BBC have been broadcasting a brilliant radio show into Afghanistan for years, fighting a memetic war against threats to health and other woes, such as a lack of entertainment. Read the excellent article here.

This is too cool!

[ good ] 2001-11-05
I just want to say...  That Walgreen's *rocks*!!!

I just verified the PIN they sent me via snailmail, and now I have access to my whole prescription history via the web. I can order refills, set up auto-refills, all kinds of spiffy stuff.

This is *very* cool. This is what the web is supposed to be about, thankyouverymuch. And as far as I can see, they've got the whole security/privacy thing worked out. (I hope! Dammit!)

Oh, cool! I'm going through the process of ordering a refill (just to see how they have it laid out - I am not ready to actually *get* the refill yet), and I'm very impressed. It automagically selects the Walgreen's location that I got it from last time, and gives me the opportunity to choose another location or to have it shipped to me. It's all neatly laid out and clear and clean design. Very sharp!

I give 'em an A+. I'm quite impressed. :)

[ good weblogs ] 2001-08-28
I came upon this excellent weblog:  via Hack the Planet the other day, and I was just... sucked in. Sometimes that happens. First of all, there are just tons of gems of wisdom and insight embedded within, plus the thing is formatted in such an odd way that really works well. Paragraphs are all five lines long, and every line ends with the end of a sentence. Sounds bizarre, but it took me awhile to even notice, it seems so natural. Entries are sometimes webloggish (and/or journalish), and sometimes fiction written about a fascinating collection of characters the author has dreamed up.

There are too many great things to quote, so I'll just spew forth some of the ones that stood out to me at the moment:

Say I think of three gimmicks A, B, and C. Now what?
By themselves they seem too random to be meaningful.
Alone none of them make a story, even in a sequence.

But, then you let them find some organic interrelation.
With the right fit, they suddenly highlight each other.
Three flat ideas can turn into a gnarly web in 3D space.

...

Basically, originality is almost completely a total crock.
Even the patterns in content reorganization are the same.
Novelty is about the subtle things in idea rearrangements.

...

Anything semantically complex must work with old ideas.
I mean, jeez, there is nothing new under the sun, right?
Personally, what I like most is surprise with consistency.
Following rules and finding strange places is very fun.

Go, and find your own treasures there. (Or not, if it doesn't suit you. Whatever.)

[ good the net ] 2001-08-28
Webcam catches burglar!  Daniel had the most extraordinary thing happen to him the other day. He was in North Carolina working, and he connected to his machine back home in New Jersey to get a file. He noticed that the mouse was moving on the screen even though he wasn't moving the mouse on his end.

Suspicious, he brought up a window with his webcam, and he saw some guy he'd never seen before. Sitting at Daniel's computer, messing around.

So, Daniel called the cops, and they went over to investigate. Sure enough, they found the guy still in the room with the computer. Daniel saw at least one image of the surprised burglar and the cops (though in the adrenaline rush, he forgot to *save* any pix. Tsk tsk.) The miscreant was arrested and carted off.

Pretty amazing, eh? Good thing he noticed in time, or the guy might have waltzed away with his whole computer...

[ good ] 2001-08-28
Go ogle:  That is, go and ogle at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. It's neato! I got a guided tour a few weeks ago, given by my sister's husband Kulpreet, who works there as a lawyer. Well, okay, it was mostly a chance for he and my sister to show off their daughter Isabella to his coworkers, and I got to tag along. :)

First stop, the lobby: I spied something upwards of fourteen lava lamps, plus a bunch of those big exercise balls (including the kind that look like a peanut, with two balls smushed together). There was also a big grand piano disklavier (sp?), which can record and play back piano performances. Plus of course they had the display of some of the currently running searches projected on the wall, which was hypnotic to watch. (note: as a rough guess, 25% or so were Japanese or some similar Asian-looking alphabet).

Next we saw the snack room. Drool, drool! At least twelve different kinds of breakfast cereal, not one but two breadmakers, coffee of all kinds in little single-serving brew cartridges, healthy earthy-crunchy snacks, traditional chips & munchies, etc. If I worked there, I'd gain twenty pounds in the first month, easily.

They had a pool table, and a ping-pong table in a conference room. More exercise balls were scattered here and there among the cubes and offices, including a huuuuuge red one that was, I swear, at least a meter and a half across. Holy cow, I didn't know they made them that big! It took up the whole cube it occupied.

We looked at Kulpreet's office, which was nice (pretty standard), then we headed for a long wall featuring two huge swaths of white butcher paper covered with graphs done in crayon. These graphs depicted the number of results pages furnished on a daily basis since the company began, with various milestones annotated (one million, twenty million, etc). It was amazing to take it all in. The graph was saw-toothed due to the fact that on weekends there were fewer searches done than during the week. It showed huge jumps here and there, for instance when Google started powering Yahoo's searches.

We then wandered downstairs to the cafeteria. Just outside, a bulletin board paid tribute to employees' children and pets, featuring all sorts of cute pix.

The cafeteria wasn't all that big, but it was very cool. Big long tables made it easy for people from different departments to mingle and such. I went through the line and served myself some excellent manicotti (the vegetarian dish for the day), potato salad, regular salad with balsamic vinaigrette, rolls with butter, tomato soup with rice, and some cranberry-related Snapple beverage. Alas, they were out of Ben & Jerry's ice cream bars that day.

Kulpreet told me that they always have a vegetarian and non-vegetarian entree, and all the ingredients they buy are organic. I didn't meet the head chef, but the one cook I chatted with was incredibly friendly and nice, and the music they played in the room lent a fun, relaxing atmosphere. It was, like the rest of the place, extremely cool. Kulpreet said that they also have a dinner service, and that many of the employees take advantage of it. What a great way to get people to work late - feed them! (and really great food, too). If you think about it, it makes tons of sense to offer such great food. It's a great selling point when recruiting people, and it saves folks a huge amount of time when compared with going out and getting lunch elsewhere. It doesn't take much to add up significantly over time.

All in all, it looked like a great place to work. I'm jealous of people who get to work there, actually. Alas.

I don't know how typical it was of other dotcoms (having never seen one myself), but I thought it was neat to see one that's not only still alive, but has a solid future based on an existing mastery of their market.

[ beauty good ] 2001-08-20
Hip hip hooray! It finally bloomed!  That is, my little plumeria tree finally infloresced, after several months' long wait. I was worried that it would bloom while I was in California visiting my sister, and that I'd miss it, but I was truly fortunate instead.

When I got back from my trip, it had two blossoms all ready to unfurl. They took a couple of days to carefully open. It was a bit like Christmas since I had no idea what color they'd be. It turns out they're white with yellow on the front, and the petals have a pale pink stripe along the back edge.

So, behold the first two blossoms in their glory.

Even before they opened fully, I could smell their scent - a delicious lemony-peachy fragrance that makes roses seem ordinary.

About five more are ready to open soon, and I'll take more pictures as they unfold.

I'm just so, so happy that this is happening. Plumerias are my absolute favorite when it comes to flowers, and I've wanted to have one ever since I left Hawaii (in 1995). :)

[ good humor ] 2001-06-26
Amazingly cool:  How to dance by a guy named Ze Frank. Hilarious, and the rest of his site has all kinds of cool Flash animations and whimsical stuff - too much to describe all here. I like the kaleidoscopes.

It's fun to see really mind-blowingly creative people. This guy's going to go far, methinks. Well, he already has, one could argue, by showing millions how to dance. :)

[ good ] 2001-06-18
I went to church:  for the first time in a long time, yesterday. There's a small Unitarian Universalist church in the neighborhood, so I was able to ride my bike down there. It was nice, the people were nice, etc. I had been meaning to go last week, but I stayed in bed too long.

I'm looking forward to going again - it looks interesting, I think. Their website is pretty good, too - they even have some of the minister's sermons, including this one about a UU eucharist that I thought was rather fascinating.

If you don't know what the UU church (as a whole) is about, then, uh, this won't mean anything to you. Sorry.

[ good weblogs ] 2001-06-07
I've been catching up:  on one of my favorite weblogs, Follow Me Here, and I've found lots of good stuff (as usual), some of which I shall note here:

• Sherry Stringfield is coming back to the show "ER" - she was my favorite character, I've been hoping for this for a long time, actually. Yea!
• A tactile book for blind/visually impaired people to learn about astronomy - I'd like to see (& touch) this myself, sounds very cool
• Birds incorporate cell phone ring tunes into their songs - freaky and neat at the same time, I suppose
• Swedish scientiest comes up with a way to recycle corpses into organic fertilizer - this sounds quite straight and to the point, and more "green" than other methods. It would be nice to have another option...

[ good mammalog mental ] 2001-06-04
Lo, and there was much visiting:  While my mom was in town, I was invited to to spend lots of time at Spencer's with Elena, which was very spiffy. I even managed to succeed at getting her to take a nap (twice) and go to bed (twice). I won't go into detail about the negotiations required for this (or their length)... Elena is very skilled at drawing these things out ("I want juice", "I want daddy", etc.)

I had a great time with my mom, as well. It's always nice to get to spend time with her :). Somehow, when you're feeling blue, it helps to have one's mom around. I took her to the airport at oh-dark-thirty this morning for her flight back to Denver.

Today, I went to the group therapy session thingie and met all of the other nice people there, and yakked about myself a bit (but hopefully not too much). I'm learning What It Means To Be Bipolar. Yeeha. Let's just say I think I'd rather be normal, but oh well. The meds give me some semblance of that state, though.

Anyway, I go back again on Wednesday, by which time I should have taken some material steps towards getting a job. I hope. Time to read some webloggage and maybe even add more entries here that *aren't* about my mental state.

[ good ] 2001-05-17
I'm going on a trip:  for ten days, to Seattle, to visit Mars. I've been greatly looking forward to this, waiting in eager anticipation ever since I bought the tickets.

So entries here may well be rather sparse, but I'll try to at least make a small one here or there...

I've never been to the Northwest at all, so it'll be quite an adventure for me :).

[ good ] 2001-05-16
My car has served me well:  and the rest of my family, as well. My mother bought it new in 1989, and after she was done with it, it went to my brother, and then eventually it came to me.

It's a green Honda Accord LXi with four doors and a moon roof (oooo ahhh). It's been through a few dents here and there, and many long road trips. It took my on my month-long, 6,000-mile journey that landed me here in Austin, where I got my life back.

See, four years ago, I thought I was just stopping through. I thought I'd say hi to Chris, and also catch David Foster Wallace on his book tour. I did both, and ended up staying when Chris offered me a place to stay on an extended basis.

He probably saved my life - I was depressed and utterly desperate. I had the idea that I was going to go back to Denver and thence to Hawaii - truly a foolish plan, since I didn't have much money or any real plans when I got there.

I'm digressing like crazy. The point is this:

Yesterday my car rolled over 200,000 miles. And I got a pic of it:

Okay, so the pic is *right after* it happened - the ones I took during had an obscured view of the leading "2" (because the speedometer needle was in the way - I was on the highway!).

I've been looking forward to the big flip-over for awhile, and now it's finally here. And I'm left to wonder, how much more does this car have in it? I hope it'll be good for awhile longer. I'm trying to take care of it, get regular oil changes, that kind of thing, so we'll have to see.

I want to go on a big road trip this June and July, so we'll see how well it holds up. At least I have a cell phone and AAA in case something goes awry, though.

[ good ] 2001-05-16
My friend Deborah has a really cool site:  and for some reason I never actually went and saw it until today. I really like the design - it's quite beautiful indeed. Go check it out: got lucky dot net. She's got a journal there, too.

[ family good ] 2001-05-06
I'm an Auntie (again)!  My sister Kathy just had her baby yesterday, a wee bonnie lass named Isabella. I haven't seen pictures of her yet, but in about half an hour there will be a webcast-thingie that they're doing from the hospital, so I imagine that I'll see her then.

Everyone is doing well, but of course they're exhausted. My sister made it through her labor without pain meds, even though she had pitocin! Wow! I'm so glad everything went well for her.

Sometime in July, I'm planning to head up to visit her (in California) so that I can help her out for about a week. It will be a lot of fun, I think.

[ beauty books good ] 2001-05-04
Hey, how come I don't have a category for music?  Geez, that's quite an oversight... Anyway, last night I had the first guitar lesson of my life, and it was *extremely* cool. I got there late (bs traffic), but all was cool once I arrived. I was even feeling a bit bad by the time I arrived, my most-of-the-day good mood having finally dissipated, but once we got started and started talking, I felt much better. :)

My teacher is Scott (aka VanDweller), a brilliant fellow with whom I've been exchanging email for many months now. He lives on his own land near (in?) Wimberley, in a big blue van. Scott also makes guitars, and works in the music shop, among other things.

He's (quite) a bit further down the Path than I am, and gracious enough to assist me along in my journey. He's been a great source of wisdom for me, and now I get to learn music from him, too!

I got a copy of his book when I saw him, and one of his cd's too (which I'm listening to now, and it's *great*!). We talked for a long time after the lesson (well okay, before/during/after), and then went out to a big truck stop on I-35 to have really huge delicious omelettes. It was a wonderful evening, and I got home exhausted and fell right into bed.

I've got a lot of cool new stuff to learn before my next lesson. It's nice to know that I have something so enjoyable to do now, an additional coping strategy when I'm feeling frazzled or down or panicky...

[ good mental ] 2001-05-03
I had a very nice appointment:  with the psychiatric nurse. She was great! So, officially now, I am bipolar. Eek.

She gave me a sheet to read about it, and recommended a book written by a bipolar doctor. So I'm feeling quite good at the moment, gently above the middle line (whereas I was below it earlier).

I am happy that she was willing to decrease my medication dosage by half. I'm that much closer to being rid of it altogether...

Right now I'm confident of my ability to deal with the down, panicky moods. I know it'll feel differently when I'm in the next one, though. This whole cycling thing is really lame, I hope it dampens down soon and settles into a nice, stable pattern.

It was a little freaky waiting for my appointment, though - there was a young girl, maybe 13 years old, absolutely distraught because apparently her parents were trying to commit her. She was yelling at her mother on the phone, saying she wasn't going to go, and that nobody understood her. It was very sad to listen to. :(. She eventually ran off, she got so upset. I wonder what happened to her? I hope she's okay. Damn, that's young to be hating your life that much (she had apparently said she wanted to kill herself at one point). When I realize the horrible things other people have to go through, it helps me to realize just how fortunate I am.

Now, if I can just keep this confident, strong feeling I've got going. The thing is, even when I'm feeling bad, I'm able to get out of bed, get things done, and somehow cope... I just hope it gets easier.

I was realizing something earlier: I *am* working. I'm working on my recovery, which is a pretty huge task. I guess if you haven't been through a wringer similar to this one, it can be hard to understand just how difficult it is to put your mind back together after it's been blown apart.

So I gave myself credit for doing something very difficult, under difficult and stressful circumstances. I'm really doing a fabulous job, and I'm very proud of myself. :) Of course, I've got a lot of good help, which makes it somehow bearable.

What it amounts to is remaking myself. I was sort of in the process of doing that anyway, but then I totally flipped my lid, which ... added all kinds of new difficulties, but also gave me some new tools, and interesting strengths. I'm not the same person I was two months ago, and yet, I am. I've broken through a lot of barriers, and faced all kinds of challenges I never would have imagined that I could deal with. And I've done it all under really unstable circumstances... Wow.

So this means (I hope) that once things settle out, I'll *really* be in a good position. What a lovely prospect! And of course, I get to keep the new strength I have found, the new perspectives and wisdom, the friendships that have deepened through this struggle, and a basic trust in myself that I can handle things.

I have struggled for so long for these things, and now they're within my grasp... I need to remember this when I'm down. I will.

[ good ] 2001-05-02
Myst 3: Exile comes out May 7th  And it looks hella cool! :) I know what I'll be doing that day...

Their site looks pretty cool, too, although I don't want to find out too much about it before I get it. I like the anticipation of uncovering everything about it once I have it in my hot little hands.

[ good humor ] 2001-04-30
I haven't always treated my roommate with the greatest respect...  but then again, this picture was taken nearly ten years ago, and things were... different, then:

Okay, yes, I *am* trying to throw him (well, shove him) out the window in this picture. But as you can see, he's *grinning* and having a good time. And no, the onlookers did not try to stop me.

It was all in good fun of course, and he did not actually fall out the window. Really.

But the point is that right now I appreciate Chris a lot more than I did back then. After all, he's given me a place to live when I needed it, twice now. The first time was four years ago, when I was depressed, had no prospects, and landed in Austin.

And this time... circumstances are much more complicated, that's for sure. And I managed to acquire a hell of a lot of *stuff* in the meantime. But I digress...

The point is, I'm very lucky to have him as a friend. He listens with caring when I whine and moan and cry, and he gives very good hugs. I am not sure what I'd do without him.

I hope someday I can repay the kindness he has shown me. And if he never needs anything from me, then I hope to pass it on down the line...

[ good ] 2001-04-30
Not many events can boast a disclaimer like this...  To wit:

This is, of course, from my Burning Man ticket. You gotta love the direct message there. The message above is written in type as large as that used for "Burning Man 2001" at the top of the ticket, too.

Anyway, I finally received the tickets I bought for Mars and myself - I was starting to worry that they had been lost in the mail.

It's going to be a blast, I'm sure... I've been meaning to attend for several years now, but only this year do I finally have the free time & inclination to go.

I'm not sure what I'll do there, though - I may consider joining a theme camp, or mostly just absorb the experience my first time out. I do know that I want to bring the adult-sized Sit N Spin that I'm planning to build, however... I'm hoping it turns out to be a big hit! :)

[ good ] 2001-04-26
Fun today:  Went to The Ceramic Mug with Daniel, and we each picked out a piece of pottery and painted it with glaze, because uh... that's what people do there. That's the whole point of going there, in other words. Here we are happily (and very quietly) painting away:

Also, I got to see Elena for a bit, and take three little movies of her doing her dance thing at Central Market. Oh, and she wanted to play with my digicam in the book store, so she snapped this one of me (in addition to several shots of my knees, which were less interesting):

[ good ] 2001-04-22
Multiwindow surfing is really the only way to go:  for me, anyway. I can't stand being limited to just one window. I get sick, however, of having to right-click and do "open in new window", and then maximize the new window (because it never, ever starts out large enough).

So I was pleased when I was wandering over at bookmarklets.com and found that they have a really neat piece about multiwindow surfing.

I hadn't realized that you could just drag links around between windows, and the four-window setup that's suggested looks to be really spiffy. I think I'll start using this, and I predict it will greatly decrease my frustration...

It's alwas delicious to find tidbits of information like this, that shave off a slice of annoyance from your life.

[ food good ] 2001-04-22
I met David Chess & Ian Whalley!  Finally, I shall tell this tale... Last Monday, April 16th, Daniel and I drove up to New York (from New Jersey) to see the esteemed David Chess and Ian Whalley for lunch. After getting stuck in traffic and making about a dozen wrong turns, we finally managed to find our way to the building where they work for IBM Research. Then we had the obligatory introductions, and headed out to Khan's Mongolian for some really excellent food.

The way it works at Khan's is that you pick out your raw (or in the case of the meat, frozen) food, put it in your bowl, add some sauce, and hand it through a big slot in a window to the fellow who actually cooks it for you. He spreads it all out on this huge flat piece of iron (I think it's iron), swirling it around and cooking it to perfection. Then he puts it back into a bowl and returns it to you. I thought the whole operation was pretty neat.

The food was wonderful, and the conversation was lively and rapid. It was fun and exquisitely intellectually stimulating to be among several extremely brilliant people at the same time. :) So, here is photographic proof for you (merge these pix together in your mind):

Click on the thumbnails for a larger version.

That's Mr. Whalley on the left, and Mr. Chess on the right. Oh, yeah, and me in the middle! We're standing in front of the pillar which used to be yellow.

After this, we went inside to use the restrooms, and on our way out, the receptionist lady had a serious problem with the fact that Daniel was wearing a camera around his neck. We weren't sure we would actually make it out of there, but finally she relented, assuming we didn't actually steal any Deep Secrets with the camera... IBM has some pretty strict policies with those things. Sigh.

[ good mental ] 2001-04-20
Feeling better...  going out and doing laundry with my roommate Chris was good for me. I think I just needed to get out of the house, have a little human contact, and not focus so much on the stew I was in.

I only got the frame of the jigsaw puzzle done, but that's okay. :) Now it's time to go into town and work out before I go pick up Daniel from the airport.

I knew I'd feel better in the morning, too. I've just gotta see if I can make this feeling last all day...

[ good ] 2001-04-19
I've got a passport!  This may not seem like a big deal to some people, but it's important to me... I've never had one before, but I've wanted to get one for years. See, I knew I'd never make any plans to travel to interesting places until I got a passport.

Several weeks ago, I finally broke down and just decided to get the pictures taken (at Walgreen's) and fill out the forms and *do* it already.

It arrived today, in all its fresh-new-official glory. The holograms across the first page are quite intricate - they're getting better at making them difficult to copy. Of course, passports that have a design from nearly ten years ago are still valid - I imagine that counterfeiters have an easier time emulating those.

The holograms are done in such a way that different ones are visible at different angles. I've never seen a document that used this technology. And of course my photo is digitized and printed on there, not the actual photograph.

So, now comes the question: where will I go first? Hmmmm.... I don't know! The point is that I *can* go now. I'm so excited. :)

[ good ] 2001-04-17
Back from my trip:  which was... good & bad. Somewhat disappointing that I did not in fact get to see neato pictures of my brain (from an MRI machine), but very good getting to have lunch with David Chess & Ian Whalley. Ahh well, I guess one can't have it all, can one?

At any rate, I'll write more about it tomorrow. I also figured out what I'm going to call this log when I move it on over to my own domain. It's about time I hosted the dang thing myself. I'm pondering an eventual stylistic redesign... for now, I like the little stone sun I carved, and the scanned background. It looks sort of like parchment or something. I still have the stone, and it's sitting on top of my computer right now, with a little plastic goat perched in the center of the sun.

I feel a lot more... grounded today. I guess it just took me awhile to fully snap out of things. This is a good thing, mostly. I'm acutely embarrassed for many of the things I've said recently, realizing now that my brain's closure function was spiraling wildly out of control. I'm grateful for the insights I've gained, and horrifically ashamed at how I must have appeared to my friends. :/ I guess I'll get over it somehow.

When I got home, I took a niiiice looooong bath, and got all clean & fresh & shaved, then tidied up my room and unpacked. I've still got a lot of the tidiness factor I've been exhibiting lately, which is a very good thing.

Tomorrow, if I'm *really* organized, I may actually make it to Goodwill with a box full of stuff I no longer need/use/want. Plus I have packages to send, people to call, etc. All the usual accrual of to-dos that one must deal with when returning from out of town...

For now, I will go to bed early, because my eyes are so tired they sting. Tomorrow, I think I'll feel better.

[ body canoe consume good ] 2001-04-08
I went to Houston today:  or rather, yesterday, since it's now 1:40am. It was a loooong day, but a good one. I left just before 7, and got back a bit before seven. In between were 5-6 hours of driving, an hour and a half or so of good hard paddling with some new friends (but not too hard), shopping for a plumeria tree (got a nice one), and braving the crowds at Ikea to secure some bookshelves for myself. I made it back, safe and sound and tired, and took a nap.

I had many adventures, and if I tell them all this weblog will turn into more of a diary thing than a weblog thing, which I guess it is anyway since I don't really surf the net these days. I don't even read my favorite weblogs - I've just got too much going on. I'm sure I'll get back into the groove again later, but for now I'm trying to whip this old body into shape, and spend my computer time working on thirdhand. Not to mention that I've got my life to organize, and I've gotta get going with some kind of income here before I blast through *all* of my savings. Hmm, I give myself until I get back from Seattle at the end of May, then I've gotta get the $$ coming in. Until then I get to play and get in shape and organize and code code code. I haven't been doing much if any coding lately, but it's funny because while I've been doing other things, I have thought about the project and realized that certain things are much simpler than I had previously imagined.

I'm also making tons of progress on this figuring-out-the-universe lifelong thing that I've been working on, oh, since I was born, in one form or another. I'm starting to understand that all is number, and the nature of the void that began everything. The world I live in now is a beautiful and magical one. I relish the thought of being able to watch it unfold all the days of my life, with my new perspective. I still have so much to learn, but now I also have something to teach, so I will definitely be doing lots of writing on the topic, and probably self-publishing a book at some point. Or maybe I'll publish it commercially and get all rich & famous and stuff. :) I don't have to decide right now.

I put together my bookshelves tonight, and now I've got 33 inches times fifteen shelves equals 495 inches worth of shelf space. Woo hoo! Tomorrow I'll do lots of organizing, and probably some coding too. I've gone too long without making a serious dent in the stuff I want to get implemented. I've got to make sure that I really stick to it, because this project is important to me, if only for the fact that I want a place to store all my info where it won't get bemangled.

I've got two new cd's that I really love, one is Bob Schneider's Lonelyland, and the other is Eliza Gilkyson's Hard Times In Babylon. I listened to both of them twice today. It will be nice listening more and learning all the words and letting it sink in more.

Dang, I'm tired. I suppose I should head back to bed.

Oh, that annoying obnoxious Anonymous Judger person wrote back, with typical ... obnoxiousness. I decided I want them to go away, so I'm not going to reward their snottiness by publishing it or reacting to it directly. So, doofus, take the freakin' hint already, okay? Go bug somebody else, or go figure out why you're giving me such a hard time. I'm moving on with my life in a good happy positive direction - why are you trying to drag me down? Yeesh. Go do something productive like pick at your toenails or something. Please. Me, I've got a bazillion fun things to do, I think I'll let worrying about you drop right the hell off my list.

Okay, it's definitely time to head back to sleep - it's hard to keep my eyes open now. I will just state for the record that I understand the story The Dot And The Line now, and I see it played out everywhere. One of my many jobs is to help people see it. Trust me, it's... exquisite. I see the pattern in the chaos now. It's a loose, fun, dancy pattern, but if you look right, you can see it whenever you want to. Actually... whenever you believe. It's magic like that. Really. :)

[ good ] 2001-04-05
I made a new friend today:  at the Bull Creek park, where I was going to go hiking. He and his three small doggies were crossing the creek, and I helped a couple who were being whisked gently away by the current. Then we sat down and chatted while the dogs dried off. Later we went out for coffee and talked some more.

It's always a good day when you make a new friend. Even if you do make a new enemy the same day (via the box o doom, below).

I also washed my car today. The exterior, anyway. I put on my swimsuit and went out and gave it a good scrubbing, with my hands, as is appropriate to a vehicle that has served as well as my Honda has. I gave it two soapings and a hand-toweling-off at the end. Then I cleaned the interior windshield and front windows. I'll do the vacuuming tomorrow, maybe.

Even though it's old, my car always looks good when it's been washed. I think it's about time to put it out to pasture, though - it's coming on 200,000 miles, and I think it's going to die before too much longer. I'm thinking of buying a vw bus to replace it, and then letting the Honda retire at my mom's house in Colorado, serving for as long as it can as the extra vehicle when friends or relatives visit.

I took my bike in to be serviced today - it's gotten all cruddy living in the garage for a few years. But I'm sure it'll be working as good as new once it gets re-lubed and readjusted. I may go with Chris to the veloway and ride while he rollerblades one o these days (I'm too chicken to rollerblade on anything with even a slight hill).

I got a little sun today, it was nice. It's been so gray here lately. I feel a little lonely right now, but I know I'll feel better later. I need a shower, and maybe a nap, and then I can get up feeling all fresh and do some coding. Or crocheting. Or sewing. Oh yeah, and some eating! I've got ground turkey to use up, plus some other fresh food that I have to make sure not to neglect...

[ good ] 2001-04-04
B is for bus:  I think I'll get myself a school bus one o these days and convert it into a motorhome for myself. So here are some links on the topic, which I will read at length later on:

• VanDweller has a neato book I think I need to read. He also lives near Austin and makes guitars.
• School bus conversions dot com
• Rolling Homes Caravan 2001 is in Missouri - perhaps I should go, and check out my land on the way (I haven't visited it yet).
• The Snidal Family Bus Page looks like it has a lot of good advice from people who've converted buses more than once.

[ body food good mental ] 2001-03-22
Oddly enough, I'm losing weight:  even though weight GAIN is one of the known side effects of my antipsychotic medication (Zyprexa). As a side note, just the surreality of being able to say "my antipsychotic medication" just about sends me into giggles every time I ponder it. Reminds me of when I got drunk for the first time. I was laughing uncontrollably at the very thought that *I*, Beth, could somehow be drunk, as I just kept proclaiming "I'm drunk!" over and over again.

So where was I? Ah yes, this medication, Zyprexa, supposedly causes weight gain, but I seem to be in a steady slow comfortable decline (which I need, what with all these extra pounds and so on). How is this possible, you ask?

I am on what I call the Perfect Appetite Diet, also known as the Half Diet. This is something that automagically happened as part of all the wild strange things I did to my brain by pouring odd chemicals into it, exhausting it for three days, then pouring in more odd chemicals (and having my little "escapade", as I shall refer to it in the future).

So now, when I sit down to eat, I eat half of what's on my plate, and I am *totally* satisfied. I get that "this is enough, please" feeling from my stomach, and I *listen* to it, and stop eating. I eat a wide variety of foods - I even ate FISH last week at the hospital. Willingly.

This is unheard of for me - I never eat fish unless it's tuna and it's cooked (no sushi). I recite my little rule against fish at every opportunity - just ask my friends who've heard it all before a thousand times. But yet I was faced with a menu from which to choose my meal, and I chose FISH of all things as opposed to the non-fish choice. And get this: I ate it, and it was pretty good. Which is funny because one of the other patients told me that it sucked compared to outside-the-hospital fish.

Anyway, I even succeeded in doing this Half thing last night, with Kentucky Fried Chicken. That's right: a big old breast of extra-crispy sat in front of me, accompanied by coleslaw and mashed potatoes and gravy, and I ate half. Only half.

I can hardly believe it, it works so incredibly well. Wow. But it's nice, I'm melting off fat, and I can tell the difference in the mirror. Even freakier is that when I got on the scale this morning, I was 170. My jaw dropped. I've been stuck at 185 for... a long, long time. That's where I was before I got pregnant with Elena (and ballooned up to 242). That's where I settled after I lost all the weight from the pregnancy. Before this whole escapade, I was at around 182.5, or so. Now I'm at 170. I am utterly agog.

It's quite nice, though, I must say. I can see this really neat lanky body starting to peek out. I still have a ways to go, and I'll know by the way my body looks when I've finally gotten rid of the extra fat that I don't need. Granted, I may be a bit dehydrated at the moment, so I'll have to make sure to drink a lot of water here in the Land of Dryness (Colorado).

So try it... the Half Diet works really well for me! It might not work for other people, though, I'm afraid, without major lid-flipping. Wouldn't hurt to give it a go, though.

I'm so excited, because for lunch, I get to have the other half of my calzone that I got at Mannie and Bo's pizzeria in Golden yesterday, when I was out and about and taking pictures of and paying respect to places of great meaning to me out here (yes, a web page about the whole deal is to follow). Mmmmm, canadian bacon and pepperoni, dipped in marinara sauce.... mmmmMMMmmmm. See, if I'd eaten it all yesterday, I wouldn't get to enjoy it today. This is the really cool part of the Half Diet.

Okay, this is way way long, but I'm probably excused due to the inability to add anything for a week or so. Bear with me, relative normalcy will return when I'm back in Austin, on Sunday night. Then I'll break the normal pattern again when I start hosting my log at thirdhand.org, and make it many orders of magnitude more powerful.

Okay, fingers tired, stopping now. :) (yes, I feel better than I did last night!)

[ cognition good ] 2001-03-08
The placebo effect:  Was identified a lot more recently in history than I had supposed, according to this interesting article at the National Institutes of Health.

I guess that explains why the deepest implications of it haven't seeped further than they have. This has a lot to do with my ongoing work, actually, about belief and cognition and why people think the way they do, and so on. I'll elaborate more later... just filing in the "ruminations" bin for now.

[ good humor ] 2001-03-08
Ben Brown in consumer hell:  This is only funny because it didn't happen to me, of course.

I hand the man behind the register my check card. So convenient. I admire my slim, cashless wallet. He swipes the card. I eat a fry. He swipes the card again. I take a sip of my drink. He swipes the card again, and shakes his head.

"We've been having trouble all day with this damned machine."

I have only one card, a visa check card. I'd like to get another backup card that's actually a credit card, but first I have to fix my damn credit report. Argh! I keep putting that off... grumble grumble self.

[ good my site ] 2001-03-07
Category coolness!  Daniel has updated my weblog categories page so you can see how many entries are in each category! Or rather, I think the whole thing is now dynamically generated and this ability to the number of entries in each category is part of the overall new spiffiness.

Of course, now that the numbers are available, I have to notice which one has the most entries - I feared it was "rants", but I was very happy to realize it was in fact "good". Here's a rundown of the top few (as of the moment before I composed this one):

• good - 74
• rants - 62
• beauty - 57
• humor - 48

Interesting. I'm not sure what it all means, but I'm glad that rants is not on top, somehow. The next few, in order, are: "consume", "my site", and "design". I have no idea what that means, either.

Ah, well. Keep in mind one entry can appear in many categories, too. And there's certainly nothing to prevent me from making entries in seemingly orthogonal categories - I could easily write a rant about something good, for instance.

Once I get this puppy moved over to thirdhand, sometime in the next few (-ish) months, I will have an even more powerful category system. Fear ye, fear ye: my output shall mightily increase once I finally have a good place for all my data!

[ good my site ] 2001-03-06
Exciting morning:  Yes, that's right, I've been modifying shell variables so that using vi and more (well, less) and elm is less aggravating for me. I'm sure you're thrilled.

So I had to page through many man pages, figure out how to do a custom prompt for less, and so on. Here are the results of my labors:

# make pager sane, dammit!
setenv LESS "-e -P %f  %pb\% (page %db of %D)"

# fix reply-to addy
setenv REPLYTO beth@bethroberts.com

# make happy vi sessions
setenv EXINIT 'set wm=5 tabstop=2 shiftwidth=2 autoindent'

# more or less the same thing
alias more 'less'

You realize all this futzing about is because I can't do any substantive work on my project while I'm sitting here in the office. Because then they could say that they owned it. So really, I have done all the work on it at home. Honestly.

I don't think twiddling shell variables counts as substantive work on the project... I hope IBM's lawyers agree.

Which reminds me of the employment agreement I signed when I came here, which purported to attempt to claim that anything I did during any hour of any day while I worked for Lotus would be their property. Heh. I don't think so...

And come to think of it, I now remember the little clause I added on a separate page before I signed it, saying that the existing and ongoing work on my project was not subject to this agreement.

And the scope of the project that I mentioned there is much larger than the thirdhand project, actually. Thirdhand is just a stepping stone to what that project is all about - it's just the informational architecture that will eventually be used for some rather interesting purposes. Well, if I ever get it working, mind you. I certainly may fail.

The project I've been aiming at for years is nothing other than the Holy Grail of Computing: ai. This is the part where you're supposed to laugh and snort your beverage through your nose, then shake your head and say "She's nuts". It's okay, I think so too. :)

But on some days.... some days, I have an inkling I just might be on to something. I guess we'll see. Give me ten years, I might have a fraction of something worthwhile by then, okay?

[ design good ] 2001-03-05
Riding a trebuchet!  Wow, this sounds like a total blast! I'll add it to my list of Cool Stuff For Beth's Ultimate Playground.

Oh, you didn't realize I'm designing an Ultimate Playground? Well, it's one of those things that's been in the back of my mind for quite awhile...

About a month ago, during a three-hour-long meeting at work that I had to dial into, I came up with FIVE (5) pages of designs for cool bits of the Ultimate Playground.

Uh, when I've got thirdhand capable of holding info like this, I'll put it all there... and ye shall learn the wonders of Wood Tag, and why and how it must be resurrected. :)

[ good my site ] 2001-03-03
Morning coding update:  I'll just keep adding to this as the morning goes on, rather than make zillions of entries. It looks like I've got a couple/few hours to work with this morning, so I got up, grabbed a Pepsi, and here I go. Israel Kamakawiwo'ole is serenading me right now, and it's putting me in the right mood. :)

• First goal: make generalized tool to add new data types to the database, since I'm going to be doing this a lot
• Second goal: abandon first goal (this entry is about three hours after the first bullet point). The first goal just isn't necessary, I realized, since I'm getting so much better at my sql commands, so it's just easier to massage the database manually.
• I made my very own weblog! That is, I built the code myself, and it works! I'm so incredibly thrilled!

  Okay, so it's rudimentary, so what? I can add new entries (and nobody else can), I've got permalinks, I can edit the text at the top online.... yee freakin ha!

• There is still so much to be done, of course, but I've made so much progress in one day, that I can see that I really honestly will be able to do this! I feel so creatively powerful. And uh... exhausted. :) I need a big-ass nap, I tell ya.

More updates as they occur. Next up: streamlining, cleaning up, chopping up re-usable bits of code so they can be... re-used. Then: adding more features to the weblog specifically and the whole db in general, including the Magnificent Power of Relative-focus Linking, and spit-to-html capability, which will help ease some of the strain on the db for pages that do not need to be quite as dynamic (such as those burned to cd, where there is no web server at all, such as for a photo archive!).

Looking back up at my bullet list, I consider that it is good that I am the kind of person who is able to quickly abandon lines of action that do not seem to be fruitful. In the end, this makes me more efficient. All due to the programmer's virtue of Laziness (plus a dose of Impatience). I think I'm ready to start moving towards the third virtue, Hubris. It's been awhile since I learned of the three Sacred Virtues, back when I bought my holy Camel Book...

Okay, rambling, sorry, need sleep, must remove butt from chair...

[ good my site ] 2001-03-03
Ahhh, success!  Wow, I got a lot more done, even. Now I've got authentication really working with a form (instead of the bs browser password window thing that I hate), and I can change my password! Utter coolness.

And I password-protected all my little scripts that can actually affect the database (adding and editing tidbits, and adding users), so rogues don't go in there and mess with it. :)

Okay, it's entirely too late (or rather, too early in the morning, and I haven't slept), but I'm actually rather hopeful that I will soon have my weblog hosted with code that I've written myself. There will be much rejoicing!

What's odd is that even though I'm soooo tired, I can tell I've been getting more efficient as the night has gone on... Heh, cool. And it occurs to me that I'm really going to need to learn more vi commands. I don't really know all that many - enough to get by, but not to work truly efficiently. I'll have to change that, since I'll be doing lots more coding in the future.

G'night already. My left hand is starting to cramp up!

[ good ] 2001-03-03
Sweeeeeeeeet!  I totally rule. Okay, not really, but I have succeeded in allowing myself to log in! With a name and password stored in my database!

And of course, since I'm a Good Girl who knows a thing or two about security, my password isn't stored in my db in plaintext, nosirree! It's an md5 hash. Spiffaroonie. I've never done anything like this before. Kewl!

Okay, what next? I think I need to make a master item entry and editing facility. That is, a form where I can control any darn thing about an item, change any field that it's got defined, that kind of thing. I'll surely need this for debugging. Much easier than using SQL statements to try to kludgingly clean up the db. Like using chopsticks in my left hand, I tell ya. I'm just not well versed in it yet.

[ good ] 2001-03-02
Alia jacta est:  I just sent my "I'm resigning" email. I actually wrote the thing yesterday, but couldn't think of a good subject line. I finally settled on "Thinking about my future" as suggested by my trusty cow orker friend Jeanmarie. I was trying with difficulty to come up with something that was not too direct, yet not too opaque, either.

The message was short, sweet, and to the point. I did not say "I'm sorry", because I'm not, and there's really no reason to be. I wrote that it makes sense for me to leave because I am completely lacking motivation and satisfaction in my job, and I should make way for someone else who will have both of those things. It's a fine job, it's just not right for me anymore.

The last bit concluded with a statement that I was glad to have the opportunity to work as part of my team, and that I have the utmost respect for everyone on the team.

And in case you don't know Latin, the three words at the beginning of this entry mean "The die has been cast", and were originally uttered by... someone famous, but I can't remember their name. I think it involved taking an army across the Rubicon river in Italy, and the fact that once that decision was made, it was not... retractable.

I felt a bit nervous sending the message, realizing that it was a final act of a sort. But then I just clicked "Send" and there it went. It's odd because my boss is out on parenting leave, so I'm not sure when he'll get back. I cc:d the two people covering for him while he's out, though. Weird timing, but I really couldn't wait any longer.

Oh yeah, I'm wearing my "Capitalism Sucks" t-shirt today in honor of the occasion. :) I only wear it once in awhile, because it's old and beginning to fall apart. It's one of my favorites of all time. As you can see in the picture, it says "Capitalism Sucks" in Russian, and then written in English in smaller type below it. I bought it in 1989 in Boulder (of course), way back when we were still having the Cold War. I thought it was funny then, and I still think it's funny now, but for different reasons.

And I just so happen to have scanned it because I am planning someday to do a little "my favorite t-shirts" project much like Girlhacker's, but I haven't gotten around to it (of course). But starting two weeks from today, I'll have enough free time to put it together!

[ good ] 2001-02-26
This newseum place sounds neato:  A news museum, called the Newseum, was written up in NowThis, and it sounds like a spiffy place, so I'm putting it on my informal list of Places I'd Like To Visit Someday.

[ good ] 2001-02-19
Whoa, cool!  Sometimes, I just fall down a rabbit hole of delight... Like today, when I folled the link on Mike of Larkfarm's weblog for the instructions on how to make a fire plow, I wandered up in the site to find a wealth of info on primitive living techniques and stuff.

This has been a budding interest of mine for awhile. Some of the books and so forth look quite excellent, I'll have to order some.

But of course, I'll never eat a bug. :) Unless I'm so starving and dazed and in pain that I have no choice, but I will take great pains to avoid ever getting that way.

Several of the spiffy pages I'm going through:

• Hilltop Outdoor Primitive School
• Barbed Wire Baskets
• Contemporary Living Skills
• (DEAD LINK) Wildflowers & Weeds
• Building a House on Limited Means
• Slipform Stone Masonry
• A Winter Camping Tale

You get the idea - there's so much there, I can't list it all! Wow, this is truly a treasure trove, I'm glad I stumbled onto it...

[ consume good ] 2001-02-17
I got a new monitor today:  and there was much rejoicing! Yay!!! I decided to apply my store credit towards a name brand monitor this time, instead of just getting a trade for the cheap, cheesy monitor.

I've got a ViewSonic now, let's hope it doesn't decide to die on me.

[ food good ] 2001-02-16
Dining in the dark:  A restaurant lets patrons experience what it's like to be blind. Cool! And the servers are blind, so they do just fine in the darkness. Very, very spiffy!

[ design good ] 2001-02-16
Mars has some good things to say:  about design, so go read them. Just a coupla paragraphs, it won't hurt. I promise.

And someday, when he's a Guru even more lauded than Great Leader Nielsen, I'll be able to say that I knew him before he was famous... :)

[ good ] 2001-02-14
This is a good article:  I'll just quote a little here, but I suggest that you go read it:

But we - society - and all our leaders, governments, priests and experts of all kinds, have lost control of our own abilities. We can do anything, but we have a very poor sense of what's really worth doing, or how to ensure that we get what is really needed, and avoid what is not. Science and high technology are caught up in economic and moral feedback loops that often seem to ensure they will operate antisocially, for the benefit of only a minority and at the cost of most of us. For the most part, we stand back and watch this happen. We accept the assurances of experts and governments that all is being done for the best, and that nothing can or should be done to change the way things are. Those who do protest are held to be crudely Luddite.

[ good ] 2001-02-14
Yesterday, bowling went well:  I got a 139, then a 151. This is pretty darn good for me - my average up until now is about 112. This was the second week that I got to use bbbb (the Black Beauty Bowling Ball), and I'm getting used to her quite well, I must say. I still mess up and try to look up to aim the ball instead of just relaxing and *feeling* it.

We were partnered with these two very nice older ladies, both of whom were named Jo. They also were about the same height, wore similar clothes, and had similar hairstyles (short and completely white). They did, however, bowl quite differently.

Anyway, they were quite a hoot - one of the Jo's, at hearing me say "Dangit!" when I threw a gutterball, explained to me that I must say "Dammit!" instead, because although it is more profane, sometimes we mortals need to express our outrage that way. That really made me chuckle.

And the other Jo was a total whiz with the bowling computers. Normally it displays about four frames at once, but she had theirs set to show all ten at a time. Spencer wanted ours to do the same, so she showed him. In a quick flurry of button pressing, it was accomplished.

And she knew how to do every screen - like when Spencer was a little late getting to the bowling alley and we had to start without him, she knew how to skip him in the rotation, then bring him back in once he arrived (after just a couple of frames). I was pleasantly surprised to see someone so much older than me so at ease with technology, especially a piece of technology that I barely knew anything about. It was truly refreshing!

And on top of that, at the end, she knew how to get to some secret recap screen that I had never seen before - it showed all the calculations. Quite amazing.

Even though I just met them, I really admire the two Jo's. I hope I can be somewhat like them when I'm older - out enjoying myself with fun stuff, and not afraid to learn new things.

[ good weblogs ] 2001-02-13
I edited my preferences at metafilter:  And now they have a big box where you can write a bit about your name and what it means to you, and yadda yadda yadda.

So I started writing, and it turned into a bit of an essay, but I really like it. So go check it out, if you like.

And if you have any comments on it, please share them in the box o doom there on the left. Thanks.

[ good ] 2001-02-12
Examples can sometimes have more meaning:  I came across this piece at oreilly.com by Steven Feuerstein, about why he used certain politically-oriented examples in a software book he wrote. I thought it was quite interesting...

I believe that just about every technical book comes with a body of politics, an ideology that governs and usually restricts its example set. We don't notice the political slant because it reflects the dominant viewpoint in our society and is thus invisible.

He goes on in more detail, about how the typical database examples tend to feature people as numbered entities organized according to their business identity. Hmmm... I like his perspective, actually noticing this and what it means, instead of taking it for granted.

I admire his originality, too. Pretty cool.

His personal site looks pretty interesting, as well. He's got a bunch of stuff about his stance on Israel, including pictures of himself holding a protest sign that says "I am Jewish and I want Israel to stop killing Palestinians". Wow, that takes guts; I admire that.

[ design good the net ] 2001-02-12
Google bought deja.com!  Wow! I actually had hoped for this to happen back in October (when I heard the Usenet archive was up for sale), but I'm thrilled and stunned that it actually has!

Google has a press release about it, of course, and now deja.com points to groups.google.com.

I think some Very Cool Things are going to result, yes indeed.

Kulpreet told me that something big was coming on Monday, and that they had signed a deal on Friday. (When I called for Kathy this weekend, and she was out, we chatted a bit).

Gee, maybe I could get Google to hire me to do informational architecture for the Usenet archive. :)

[ books good ] 2001-02-12
This is incredibly cool:  Ancient illegible texts may be readable with new technology. Wow. I can't wait! I wonder if any of the newly revealed stuff will turn assumptions about some of the Classical authors on their head.

As many as 850 Greek and Latin philosophical and literary works were excavated from a 2,000-year-old Roman villa in the ancient city of Herculaneum near Naples by Italian antiquarians in the 18th century. Among the works, which academics hope to read using the new equipment, are the lost works of Aristotle (his 30 dialogues, referred to by other authors, but lost in antiquity), scientific works by Archimedes, mathematical treatises by Euclid, philosophical work by Epicurus, masterpieces by the Greek poets Simonides and Alcaeus, erotic poems by Philodemus, lesbian erotic poetry by Sappho, the lost sections of Virgil's Juvenilia, comedies by Terence, tragedies by Seneca and works by the Roman poets Ennius, Accius, Catullus, Gallus, Macer and Varus.

The researchers are from Brigham Young University. Of course, I wonder if the newly-readable works will be oddly supportive of the claims of the Mormon church, heh heh. I am just kidding, of course. :)

[ good ] 2001-02-07
Experts are the problem:  Or at least a big part of it, according to David Sackett, in this British Medical Journal article. I am utterly blown away - he puts into words something I've been thinking for awhile.

And what's more, he's shown he believes in what he says - he's twice stepped down from his own status as an expert in a given field, once he realized the damage to Science that it caused.

Wow. Just read the article, please.

It then dawned on me that experts like me commit two sins that retard the advance of science and harm the young. Firstly, adding our prestige to our opinions gives the latter far greater persuasive power than they deserve on scientific grounds alone. Whether through deference, fear, or respect, others tend not to challenge them, and progress towards the truth is impaired in the presence of an expert.

...

Surely a lot more people could retire from their fields and turn their intelligence, imagination, and methodological acumen to new problem areas where, having shed most of their prestige and with no prior personal pronouncements to defend, they could enjoy the liberty to argue new evidence and ideas on the latter's merits.

What he's done is so incredibly cool. It reminds me of Joseph Campbell talking about thinking of your life in terms of your consciousness, and your body is just the vehicle of that consciousness (and his analogy - do you identify yourself as the light bulb, rather than the light that shines from it?).

So Sackett has identified himself with his spirit of scientific inquiry and exploration, and not with his ego, position, and status as an expert. What an utterly brilliant fellow.

And, of course, he keeps himself from getting bored! Quite elegant...

And I realize there's no way that people would agree with his proposal of forcing experts to retire instead of just encouraging them to do it voluntarily, but it's certainly interesting to ponder what kind of a world we would have if this were the norm.

[ good ] 2001-02-06
Black Beauty is a great bowling ball:  Well, at least I think so. Granted, she's a bit on the heavy side for me, but I think I'll get used to her.

The first ball I bowled today was the first time this ball has been used since 1978. I got a strike. :) Unfortunately, it was a practice round. Doh!

I bowled a 117 and a 135, or thereabouts. Pretty good considering my average is 108. I still have to get used to this ball, but it's nice to know I'll only have to get used to it *once*. Here's what I looked like:

Click the little one for a bigger image. It's a pity you can't see more of my silly bowling shoes. I'll have to see how the little movies I took came out - I can't download them from the camera at work, I'll have to do it at home.

[ body canoe good ] 2001-02-05
My back is killing me:  and it feels *great*! Yesterday I went canoeing, and I really pushed myself quite hard. I went downstream casually for about 45 minutes, stopping at the I-35 bridge. I took this picture there: (click for a bigger version, as for the other canoeing pix below)

The green pointy bit is the front of my boat, otherwise known as the manu. I also took this pic, showing some of the skyscrapers and cranes visible from down there - the big building in the middle is the Hyatt hotel, and the little white pointy thing is the front of my ama (known to non-Hawaiians as the outrigger):

After I rested, I decided to head back upstream and go all the way to the Mopac bridge. (I-35 and Mopac are the two main North-South traffic arteries in Austin). I knew it would be tough, but oh boy, it was truly grueling.

I'm proud of myself for sticking with it, though. I really needed to push myself that way. I worked hard on the form of my stroke, using my back as much as possible and twisting with my torso as I extended each shoulder forward. The wind was brutal, and I was exhausted quickly, but I just kept going. I just told myself I would go slow if I had to, but I wouldn't stop until Mopac.

My back started hurting a bit, my nose was running, and my arms were getting weak, especially the shoulder muscles that lift my arms and the paddle on each stroke. There's nothing like wind and exhaustion to make you really hone your stroking form - any extraneous movement is punished brutally. I looked down a lot, and focused on leaning down, essentially falling forward as I plunged my paddle into the water again and again.

There were some really good stretches there when I had it perfect, it seemed - the paddle sloshed gently into the water, and I pulled powerfully and quickly up to it. But then the wind would come, and it was splash city! Ah, well, I can tell I'm getting better. I do have to work on making sure I'm not steering funny when I keep my head down. I'm sure I lost a lot of momentum zigzagging back and forth to correct my course.

It was fun passing all the recreational canoers and kayakers, that's for sure. Even with two people paddling in a boat, they couldn't compete. Ha! It helped keep me going, that's for sure, even though it was sometimes tough to steer around them. The people in rental canoes from Zilker park tend to loll around and go in circles, and I have trouble figuring out which side to pass them on, but I suppose I need the practice learning to do this anyway.

I was happy to be able to push myself to go as fast as possible at the end. I was soooo tired, but I made it, and it felt *SO* good to stop! I remember how good it felt to take a plunge in the water at Waimea when I'd paddle with the club in Hawaii. Too bad the water in Austin is too cold, too dirty, and too shallow to do that.

After the bridge, I rested a little and realized it took me 46 minutes to make the journey. I'll have to see how quickly I can do it as time goes on. I found to my surprise that even a short break gave me a ton of energy - it was so incredibly easy to paddle back to the dock (just a short way). I took a picture on the way, of all the slow people I passed, and you can see the dock a little bit in this shot, too:

The dock is just to the right of the big tree a little to the left of center. Notice how you can't even see any of the skyscrapers in this shot! It was a long way (I'm not sure how long - I've got to go measure).

Back at the dock, I was so tired I managed to accidentally let go of my boat, and it started drifting away. I felt so idiotic... luckily, a very nice lady in a kayak gave it a bump to send it back to me. Phew! I was worried I'd have to go swimming after it. Anyway, I took it apart and a nice guy from the rowing club helped me put it away. I also left a nice stepladder down there that I can I use to get it down from its rack (which is about 7 feet high at least).

So today, my back hurts, but I know it means the muscles are going to grow like crazy. I remember how strong my back was when I was in the best paddling form I achieved in Hawaii. I relish how I will have that again, soon...

I can't wait to go out again! First I have to let my body make some callouses on my hands, though - my right middle finger is quite ouchy.

[ good weblogs ] 2001-01-31
EOD is back:  That is, the weblog An Entirely Other Day. It was gone for awhile due to family emergency stuff, and I lamented its disappearance.

This is the first entry from its return, explaining a bit about the hiatus. I'd quote some, but it's all good and all hangs together, so go read it. All I can say is, preach on, Brother Greg.

[ good humor ] 2001-01-31
This guy is clever:  I blogged a humorous write-up of a crappy experiment by this guy last week, and I also found something else funny at his site - a hilarious description of a botched attempt to change a network card under Windows.

I haven't done this exact task, but I have experienced similar raging frustration in the face of completely incompetent computers...

[ good humor ] 2001-01-29
My favorite is:  bumper sticker number one. It says, "Equal protection my ass". Guess I'd better get my SASE together and send it in.

This is very cool for this guy to be giving these away for free...

[ good mammalog ] 2001-01-29
I'm very happy to report:  that Elena is doing fine now. She stopped throwing up after 2pm on Saturday. Yay! She was still in that super-clingy-and-whiny sick mode for awhile, though.

[ consume design good ] 2001-01-26
I got an electronics kit yesterday:  From Radio Shack, of course. I was out shopping while they did my safety inspection, and I got a little Y-audio cable (highway robbery at $5) so that I could use my headphones at work without having to unplug my speakers. Then I wandered around looking for the electronics kits...

My brother had one when we were little, which was fun but a little cheesy. "50 in 1 Electronic Project Thingie" or something like that.

So I look and I found this puppy. It's state of the art. It kicks serious butt! I can't wait to start playing with it. It's even got a *breadboard*. Really.

See, I started out in college at the Colorado School of Mines majoring in Electrical Engineering. But I fizzled out quickly as soon as I took an actual Electrical Engineering class and realized that I hated it.

So I transferred to CU-Boulder and majored in computer science. As a requirement I had to take a class where we did various complicated electronics lab stuff, involving HP computers and little chips on a breadboard. You can probably tell how much I learned. I think I got a D in that class. Undeserved - I should have failed it.

Over the years I have been meaning to learn about electronics, so I can build a simple little blinkenbox for Elena - something with LEDs and buttons she can press to make them light up. She *loves* that kind of thing.

Looking at the books for this kit, it's just *amazing*. It's got all the usual stuff, but it's incredibly detailed. There are two big books - one for basic circuits, and one for the digital logic projects (using ICs and all that fancy stuff). Wow. This is going to be *lots* of fun. And it shouldn't take me too long to be able to figure out how to make a blinkenbox. I might have to get a soldering gun at some point.

The only soldering I've ever done was while messing around with my then-boyfriend Keith's soldering gun at the School of Mines. I pretty much focused on soldering pennies together. It took awhile, but it was fun. Apparently.

And I also enjoyed the many trips we'd make to various little obscure electronics stores where he'd shop for parts for one or another of his assignments. I loved the little anodized aluminum heat sinks - they looked like little bugs or something, and were quite beautiful. And I loved the funky lights and switches and so on, some with obscure Cyrillic lettering on them (Russian surplus?), or nifty lights embedded in them, and that kind of thing. These are the type of thing I'll be looking for to make Elena's blinkenbox.

Keith was (and is) a Real Electrical Engineer - he works for Texas Instruments (at least he did when last we spoke, a couple years ago). He's always been clever with design and electronics, among other magnificent talents, such as welding.

Which brings me to one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Keith grew up in Holly, Colorado (where they used to make sugar from beets under the Holly Sugar brand), and his dad was/is a farmer. He learned how to weld at an early age. When he got a pickup truck, he bought it without a bumper. Because, you see, he and his dad were going to *make* their own bumper, and make it they did...

This bumper looked like a normal bumper, except it wasn't - it was hollow and featured an air valve with a pressure dial on it. They made it airtight and capable of holding air at high pressure for long periods of time. So Keith was always able to refill his tires wherever he went (or assist another person to refill theirs, because he's that kind of person - he'd help anybody).

I just thought this was cooler than sliced bread. I still do. Absolutely brilliant. And it thwarted a prank at the School of Mines...

I'm not sure what started it, but apparently Keith and his roomie Wayne and maybe a few other people had pissed off a friend of theirs named Nelson. Nelson took revenge by letting the air out of all four of Keith's tires. This was silly, since it took Keith about five minutes to fill them back up. :)

This reminds me, I should call Keith again. I hope he still lives in Dallas. When I last spoke to him, he was happily married to Helen (a woman who lived on the same floor in my dorm at Mines), and had a one-year old daughter named Elizabeth. What a lovely name! :) And of course, since then I've had a daughter named Elena, which is a form of the name Helen. Interesting (and no, not done on purpose). So I really must ring him up and visit sometime. He's such a great guy, I hope everything is going well with him & his family these days...

[ design good my site ] 2001-01-24
Posted an update:  To thirdhand, since the poor thing is in limbo right now. I am itching to get the thing finished - there's so much content I want to add to my site(s), but it would be largely pointless to do it before I have the thirdhand infrastructure to hold it.

And it really will be cool. Really. I think this could be something big and powerful and innovative enough that I might be able to make some kind of living off of licensing it someday. Maybe.

I could be wrong, though. And if I'm wrong, then I'll still have the coolest informational structure on the web. :)

[ good ] 2001-01-24
Ahh, a refreshing view of copyrights:  From Larkfarm (again - I'm wandering a lot there today and finding lots of good stuff, including this beautiful picture). Of Words and Copyrights, by Mike Gunderloy:

That's still the way I feel. If you want to link to this web page, that's cool. If you want to copy the words from it and claim you wrote them yourself, well, that's less cool, but I don't really care. There are a lot more words where these came from. If people are coming back to this web site, I presume it's at least in part that they want to read the new words that I come up with.

And I'm sure he'll keep the good stuff coming! Gee, it's nice to be able to quote someone and know that they won't come and sue me for it. :)

[ body good weblogs ] 2001-01-23
I'm such a slowpoke:  I contributed this story to the Lesion Legion section of almostcool.org in December, and I forgot to mention it here. Doh!

Anyway, it's about this nasty dog-bite scar I got about five years ago. Go read it if you wish, I think it's pretty good. Some of the other stories were pretty interesting as well.

Almostcool.org is run by Aaron, the same brilliant fellow who does the excellent Come To My Senses weblog that I like so much. He's got a bunch of other interesting stuff there, too - check it out!

[ good ] 2001-01-19
There is a certain strange joy:  that I get when someone sends me an email message with a return receipt request in it, and I press my little "Kill RR" button that I created in my mail file, removing the ReturnReceipt field to ensure that they have no idea if or when I read their message.

Subversive? Yes. Rude? Not really. I think it's more rude of them to spy on me with a return receipt than it is for me to delete it. I mean, after all, once the message is in my mail file, it's mine to mess with as I please, provided I don't do anything truly nefarious with it.

I just love that little frisson of glee as I click the button. Ha ha! You can't track me! Nice try, but no cigar.

Notes sucks in lots of ways, but at least it's easy to make a button to kill return receipts. (And a column to show you which messages have them, before you open them). Occasionally I do actually let the return receipt be sent, but not often. Oh no, not at all!

Anyway, I mention this because I just did it. Someone sent me a message stating that they didn't think I should have put the new phone number list for our site (which takes effect Monday) in our information repository database. I did this, by the way, at the specific and special request of my boss. So the message was a bit obnoxious (though the writer was reasonably polite), and the return receipt was doubly obnoxious. So I just circumvented it.

Ah, I feel heady with power! I am geek, and I have control of my mail file! Would-be return-receipters beware! I'll read your little message whenever I feel like it, and sometimes I'll back-burner responding to you just because you sent me a return receipt. Muahahahhaha!

I feel just a teeny, tiny bit evil. But not really. :) More like spunky, perhaps.

[ good my site rants ] 2001-01-18
Aha! I fixed the caching problem:  I asked y'all to help me, but ya didn't, so I had to actually look for my own lazy-ass self. A search at Google for "webcam refresh problem" yielded this handy site which tells me that I needed a meta tag of the "Expires" variety in order to get around IE's idiotic caching even in the face of a Pragma no-cache. Jerks!

What's humorous is Microsoft's recommendation to get around the bug in IE 4.x where it ignores the Pragma no-cache tag - they suggest you add an extra "head" section to your html, below the body and before the closing html tag. I am not making this up.

And for IE 5, they decided not to bother even attempting to support it at all, so you *must* use the meta-expires tag to force it not to cache. Idiots!!!!! Why can't I set this in my user preferences? I *thought* I did, when I told it to check every time I visit the page for any changes. Argh.

[ good my site ] 2001-01-15
New Hardware!!!!  After three long years, I finally got a new computer at work. It's very fast, very powerful, and I like it very, very much. The monitor isn't here yet, but it should arrive tomorrow.

Now that I have a machine with a USB port, I can run my webcam here at work. So now you can watch me sit on my butt all day in front of my computer. I know, you're enthralled at the prospect - who wouldn't be? :)

Also, I'm having Daniel update the list o blogs at the left, and add a feedback box o doom. Not sure when he'll get to it, but look for the changes soon (plus a new quote - that one up there is oh-so-stale, sorry).

And, I've uploaded the cute pic of Elena in the laundry basket. Enjoy!

[ beauty body good manifesto my site ] 2001-01-09
Things are coming together:  It's really quite amazing and lovely. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it all, so I'll just start rattling stuff off...

I have been giving lots of personal importance to this new millenium starting, and at first I thought that I'd consider the winter solstice the beginning of the new year for me. You see, I've always kind of had this idea of using my own calendar, something that made more sense to me. I've never actually done it, mind you, but I think I will now.

So anyway, the solstice came and went and it didn't feel all that special to me. Ditto with the first of the year. The eclipse on Xmas eve and the asteroid nearly hitting earth could be said to mean something, if one wants to consider things in a certain way (perhaps signs that the era of Xtianism is waning?).

So I then thought more recently, after getting a nifty moon calendar of 2001 when I was in Denver, that perhaps I should take as my Day 1, Month 1, Year 1 of the New Era the day of the first full moon past the Solstice. Which is today.

And so these things have happened, in the past day, and I choose to take them as signs (and I don't expect anyone else to, mind you):

• My mother called last night to tell me that The Notebook has been found. I haven't written here about this special Notebook yet, I kept putting it off. Anyway, it's a black notebook that I left on the Ski Train that was lost - we checked the Lost & Found, badgered the Ski Train people, and it never turned up. I cried when I realized there was no hope - real tears of stupidity, regret, and loss. You see, in the Notebook were several valuable things: 1) all my papers to prove that I've paid around $2500 in debts that still show up on my credit report, including originals of bank statements, check carbons, a settlement letter, a copy of my divorce decree, and my social security card, 2) the memory book from my 10-year high school reunion, containing all the addresses & contact info for anyone I might want to get in touch with, and 3) all my notes for my information system for thirdhand.org. I hadn't worked on a thing since I lost the Notebook - I knew I'd have to re-do it all from memory, which was quite possible, but I didn't have the time to work on it anyway, and I was just kind of stewing in denial for a while. But so, miraculously, the Notebook has returned. I hope that all of its contents are intact - there is nothing of value in it to anyone but me. It's funny that while in Colorado, I dreamed I would get it back, but I dismissed the dream with pessimism, stating that the only dreams I have that ever come true involve the activities of my uterus. (Don't ask me why, but it works. If I get a dream about uh, uterine activity (such as that which tends to happen on a roughly monthly basis or that preceding the birth of a child), then it happens in the next day or two). So, the return of the Notebook is Sign #1.
• When I looked at myself in the mirror this morning, quickly brushing my teeth because I was late for the Big Meeting, I saw myself as really beautiful. This is rare, that when I catch a glimpse, it all looks pretty good - I usually focus on something that doesn't look right: something sagging here, a blemish there, some lumpiness over there, wishing it were different somehow. But not this morning. I looked and saw, simply, beauty. And it made me feel quite nice, and thankful for my body. Pretty amazing considering I still need to lose around 20 pounds to get to my ideal, but anyway. So, we have positive Sign #2.
• The other day, I had some interesting musings about physics and gravity and probability and whatnot, you know, the Big Questions about how the universe works and why it is the way it is, and so on. Last night, before drifting off to sleep, I regaled Spencer with some of my realizations, and in the process came to some astounding new ones. I think I've finally Figured It Out. Well, from my own point of view, anyway. A bunch of the bigger pieces of the puzzle, at least. And so, this morning, at the Big Meeting that I was late for, as I pretended to take notes during the presentation of boring corporate slides, I clarified my realizations even more, with a mere one page of notes. I think it's really stunning, even if it's just a re-explanation of what Real Physicists already know, just stated in terms that I (and I presume at least a couple other people on the planet) can now understand, with this new perspective I came up with. So, we've got Sign #3.
• And during this Big Meeting, the head of our whole division here at work went on about how the latest group of consultants had reported to the managers all the stuff that we've known for a long time about what's wrong and what needs to be changed. Blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda. Oh, and he equivocated skilfully when pegged about whether there would be layoffs in Support (we had a corporate restructuring warning from on high the other day). He said something like "I don't know where *all of them* are going to be happening, so I can't say". A true politician - I wanted to get up and say, "We don't care where *all of them* are going to be - we just want to know whether ANY of them will be occuring in Support?". But of course I didn't. I just sat there drawing little symbols during the Q and A. At the end, he spoke of some ship-based analogy, asking us to ask ourselves whether we're committed to being in the boat or not. I guess it was supposed to be inspiring us or something, but all I could think is that I want to find the dinghy and paddle the hell away. Preferable if the dinghy is my outrigger canoe and I can just go off and surf the waves. Anyway... as he was speaking, I felt that truly I don't belong at this company anymore. I kind of almost resolved to quit, a decision I've been postponing for awhile. I can't really afford to, of course, but we'll see what happens - I may not have a choice if I get laid off. That's okay, too. I don't really mind. I'd actually look forward to it. I am so sick of this job, to be honest. It's a good job, but it's just not for me anymore. So I guess that's Sign #4.
• And then as I was writing symbols on my notepad, I finally figured out what to use my symbology for. I had developed some nifty symbols several years ago, trying several times to come up with a way to use it to represent a syllibary, a way to write phonetic speech in a simplified way or something, maybe for a language I would make up. I shelved it for a long time, because it just got so tangled any time I tried to take it very far. Anyway, today I figured out what to do with it - I made about 29 symbols that will be very useful for my personal little moon calendar. I really like them, this is going to be neato. So that's Sign #5.
• And tonight, we are going to sit down with our friend Luba and discuss the possibility of opening a cafe-type thing in Austin. Luba has found a nice retail space for rent not far from us, in a very choice location. Conceivably, we could all get together on a new business. Spencer worked with her before on her food business, in which she made all kinds of yummy, fresh vegetarian food and delivered it to some area grocery stores which then sold it. She got sick of doing it all herself (which is how it eventually got to be), and she stopped doing it when she went to Beirut earlier this year. So she is considering doing a little cafe with take-out food in refrigerated cases, the same hummus and pasta salads she made before. People could grab it and go - the place isn't big enough for more than just a couple token tables, so she doesn't envision an atmosphere with people spending lots of time there while they eat. I am very excited about the idea - her daughter Clavdia is an artist, and she could surely sell lots of her artwork if it were displayed on the walls there. Heck, I'd like to do artwork too, with cut paper stuff once I get a laser cutter. So perhaps this is a new direction for us all to go in? We'll have to see... But it's an exciting possibility at the very least. Sign #6.

Okay, these things may not sound like a lot to someone else, but to me it's very meaningful. I'm very eager to see where this all leads... and yes, you'll hear more about my theories of physics. To give a quick hint of what I'm getting at - I think I figured out what gravity is (and no, it doesn't involve "gravitons" or any particles other than the matter involved), what black holes are, and why quantum uncertainty is only resolved when an observer steps in. It all fits together very neatly to me. And the implications are amazing - it ties in to so very many things. I do believe I'm going to have to write a book on all of this (including gobs of what's in the Pinata Manifesto (but not the parts I'm embarassed to have written at this point! Heh!)). It connects to the way we think, how events unfold and why, event horizons big and small, belief, magic, and coincidences. Dang, I may have to start a new religion or something (don't worry, I recognize the risk that I'd probably be the only member to ever join, and that doesn't bother me). Or at least a new philosophy. Should be fun!

Who knows, maybe I'll look back on this day years from now and think to myself, "Ah, I was so deluded back then!". But that's okay. When things are going positively, you've just gotta ride that wave, take it where it goes.

But first, you've gotta paddle like mad to catch it! I've got a *lot* of work to do...

[ beauty books good movies ] 2001-01-08
Hayao Miyazaki is amazing!  He's the guy who has done My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, and a bunch of other things, including Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

I am very impressed with his work, and I can't wait to see more of it. I'm going to buy the Nausicaa graphic novels, and since Princess Mononoke came out on DVD but isn't out on VHS, it's the perfect excuse for me to break down and buy a DVD player! :)

I'm just reading all sorts of stuff about him, including interviews with him. Here's a small taste:

• An interview fragment:

  Even human beings' inability to coexist with nature is part of nature. When humans say when it suits them that they can't coexist, or that that's a bad thing, all that is part of nature too, right? But if you consider whether or not civilization is doing well, as long as nature doesn't become a constraint, I would have to say it's diseased.

• Why he uses so many female heroines
• A bunch more interviews & articles

I love this exquisite feeling - knowing that I have a bunch of really wonderful things to see and read, and that the author clearly has a worldview similar to mine (at least in certain ways). I'm giddy with anticipation!

[ beauty good ] 2001-01-08
Moro Totoro:  Wow, they *do* have toys, I'll have to see what I can get! I'm reading the FAQ at the Totoro site I mentioned below, and it's amazing. I didn't realize that it was originally released as a double feature with Grave of the Fireflies (another excellent animated movie, though heartbreakingly sad (it's about wartime Japan, including the a-bomb and its horrific aftermath)). I also didn't realize that the mother in the story had TB, and that it was sort of autobiographical, in that the writer/director's mother had TB when he was a child.

And it's now been definitively decided that I absolutely *MUST* go to Burning Man this year, even if only for an afternoon. You see, there's going to be a full-sized cat bus (from My Neighbor Totoro)!!! I gotta go, I gotta show Elena. She'll be so thrilled! I'll figure out some way to compromise with Spencer. We can just stop by for an afternoon, long enough to see the cat bus, not long enough to get too uncomfortable...

[ good ] 2000-12-24
Bonanza!!!  The other day, Luba took me to go get some videos at Vulcan Video, and we decided to stop by Tower down near campus as well.

I found some good stuff - the original Indigo Girls cd, which I had yet to fill out my collection with (hey, I had listened to the cassette so much for so many years that it was burned into my memory with essentially perfect fidelity, so I didn't really need to have it, plus I was a little sick of it and needed a break, which is now done with).

I also went nuts at the cassette sale bin, with tapes going for $3.99 or 3 for ten bucks. I got:

• Devo - greatest hits
• Genesis - invisible touch
• Shawn Colvin - steady on
• Yes - classic yes (contains the "I've seen all good people a.Your Move b.All Good People" song(s) that I've been crazy about for years for some reason)
• John (+/- Cougar) (+/- Mellencamp) - scarecrow

Yes, that's right, for the cost of a typical cd these days, I got FIVE, count 'em FIVE good tapes for my car (which lacks a cd player (and also airbags, if you care)). Cool! Bonus! Better than cd's too since I don't have to waste the time transferring them to tapes. These are all the kinds of things I'd listen to only occasionally, as well.

I have gotten a little sick of some of my mix tapes, even ones I made like ten years ago. Goodness me, did I just say that? TEN YEARS?!??!!? Oh boy, I'm getting old... What a frightening prospect.

More on Scarecrow, by John (+/- Cougar) (+/- Mellencamp): this is the album that has Small Town, one of my favorite songs by him. I like the foreward to this album on the liner notes:

The highway between John's house and the studio where these songs were recorded cuts through a stretch of Indiana where the land is fertile and full of growth. It is from this land and its people that these songs are born, and though it is not necessary to know this to enjoy and appreciate them, it does lend a certain understanding for those care to think about such things.
G.M.G. 1985

Count me among those who care to think about such things. That is so neat, I really like it. I have no idea who G.M.G. is - I don't see any names in the credits that seem to match those initials. Hmm.

There's something interesting, too, about the lyrics written in here. After the title of each song, before the lyrics themselves, is printed the date *and time* that each song was recorded. I've never, ever seen that. How very... odd. Compulsive, maybe? (or just meticulous, depending on your point of view) Good fodder for Incredibly Difficult Trivia, I suppose.

So here's a freebie: if anyone ever asks you when the song Small Town was recorded, tell 'em this:

RECORDED WED., APR 17, 1985 @ 12:00 NOON

More on John himself: his name-changing over the years has been rather interesting. I remember when it was just John Cougar, back when Hurts So Good came out, way back when. I remember that my sister (4.5 yrs older than me) bought the 45 of that song, and that it was on the radio all the time. I remember as well that it was considered a bit lewd. Being just a little kid, I didn't understand why. It took me, shall we say, quite a few years before I understood what S & M was, and that this song might have been referring to it. Oh, my. No wonder they thought it was lewd. As a kid, I had just thought that it didn't make much sense, that he was being figurative somehow in a way I didn't comprehend. Which was, on the whole, quite true.

On this Scarecrow album, the spine lists him as John Cougar Mellencamp, so I suppose we can call this the "transitional phase" of his naming, in 1985. But when I look at the fine print, I see that it's all copyrighted by John Mellencamp (no Cougar). So... makes me wonder. By then, had he decided he really wanted to go back to his original name, but conceded that he needed to keep the Cougar on the spine so that his fans wouldn't be thrown a curve? Hmm. Interesting.

Oh, I see that in the lyrics, each song is credited to John Mellencamp as well. The fan club address is given for the John Mellencamp Fan Club. And he signs the dedication quote as JM. Oh, let me share the dedication quote, now that I've decided to go on at length about this. It's:

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

And then it goes on to say that it's dedicated to a Speck Mellencamp who was born in 1903 and died in 1983. Perhaps his dad? I dunno. Not sure when he was born himself.

So in those early days of motherhood, when I was up every night nursing Elena in the glider rocker (hadn't mastered nursing while lying down yet), those lonely dark hours when nothing is on tv except VH-1, there was a core of songs I'd see repeatedly, just about every single night. One of these was John Mellencamp's I'm Not Running Anymore, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

Which reminds me, I want to list all those songs at some point and talk about them. They are burned into my memory as only things in early motherhood can be. I will always vividly remember those quiet lonely hours in the dark, swaying in the chair while I sleepily fed my newborn baby girl.

[ good my site ] 2000-12-22
Three cheers!!!  The missing entries are back! Thanks to Daniel for grabbing them back from the abyss. I will have to do something nice for him, after I destroy him in our ongoing debate about whether grammar is innate (it's not, but he foolishly thinks it is - brainwashing from the linguistics and cognitive science courses that he's taking).

Don't worry, I'll make him see the light, eventually, even if I have to invent a different verb tense to use with Elena when it's raining, or when we're outside, or something (which Daniel claims is impossible ("unlearnable") according to the theories of generative grammar).

[ beauty food good ] 2000-12-22
Okay, Sudden Mood Improvement:  I just came across the Local Harvest site, and it KICKS ASS. Basically it's a guide to organic and locally-grown food across the country. Cool!

I am definitely going to check out the Pure Luck farm in Dripping Springs (not too far from here). They've got dairy goats and make goat cheese that I have heard is superb (but I haven't yet tried it).

I also want to start going to the Westlake Farmer's Market here in town (all the vendors have to grow or make what they sell - no resellers allowed! How cool!).

Oooo, I'm so excited to have this great source of information. There's even a CSA farm in Austin - wow! I worked on a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Massachusetts a few years ago, they rock.

Check this thing out - find some delicious local food wherever you are. Support your local growers instead of always buying from the mega-corporate-conglomerates. Unless you *want* to be like a mere cog in a machine, because you *enjoy* that kind of thing...

[ good ] 2000-12-21
Depression is like...  This (DEAD LINK) description of depression from torrez.org is perfect. Depressingly perfect. Read it.

If you aren't quite sure what he's getting at, then count yourself lucky; it probably means you've never felt the way he describes. Trust me, you don't want to. It sucks. Been there, done that, can't hardly believe that I managed to escape it somehow.

[ good ] 2000-12-19
Heard on the radio today:  This letter by Civil War fighter Sullivan Ballou. How incredibly sad.

This was in part of Ken Burns' Civil War miniseries, which I haven't yet seen.

[ good quotes ] 2000-12-14
Okay, just *too* too weird:  I hadn't read the full bit of transcripts of interviews & online chats with Russell Crowe, but as I went on, I saw this at the end of the online chat:

Russell Crowe: I'd also like to say hi to anyone who's online from Austin, Texas, the music capital of the known world.

Color me giggly as a schoolgirl! :) Too bad I'm so late in my joining of the Russell-Crowe-worshipping cult, or I might have actually been online during the chat. Sigh. Swoon.

[ beauty good quotes ] 2000-12-14
The more I read about Russell Crowe:  The more I like him. Okay, it's not just that he's incredibly good looking (imho), but he seems to be a really cool guy. F'rinstance, when asked the often-heard-these-days question of "boxers or briefs?", he replied:

None of your f**king business!

That's just plain kick-ass. Very few public figures have the balls to just draw a line and say that, when asked unreasonable personal questions.

He exhibits, as it were, the antithesis of what you usually see on Jerry Springer.

Though he does reportedly live in a trailer on the farm he set up for his parents in Australia (according to this article, anyway). Heh! (Hey, it's probably an *extremely nice* trailer).

Heck, I wanna live in a trailer too! Yes, I decided this before I knew Russell did, so *shut up* already, I know what you're thinking. I might end up going for a nice used bus though, since from what I've been reading, way too many RVs and trailers are total crap.

[ design good quotes rants ] 2000-12-14
Mars rants eloquently:  in this comment at metafilter. In part:

<<The more control designers have over the look of their application, the better!>>

NO NO NO! My computer exists for ME TO DO THINGS WITH, not as a canvas for designers to express their overweight egos on. If I want my windows to look different, I'll install a different GUI theme/window manager/skin/whatever, and thank you very much for respecting my decision. It's my computer, not yours, and the fact that I accidentally misstepped onto your misbegotten website does not give you permission to fuck my screen up any more than the fact that you gleaned my email address off some newsgroup gives you permission to mail me MAKE_MONEY_FAST advertisements.

And further on in another comment, he adds:

Even in the optimal case that your custom window widgets can do all of those things in as convenient a manner as the native GUI widgets did, you still experience a net loss, because the user has to learn your system. They can't apply their existing knowledge of How Windows Work to your window; they have to spend time learning your design, decoding your icons, shifting their expectations about where to click. Maybe it's a small amount of time, but you, the designer, still lose - unless you think your design is more important than the user's convenience, in which case you need to have your designer's license taken away.

Preach on, Brother Mars!

[ good quotes ] 2000-12-14
Wandering around at imdb:  I find that Carrie-Ann Moss of the Matrix is a Leo (like me, cool, not that astrology means anything, but anyway), and she uttered this spiffy quote:

After The Matrix, I cannot wear sunglasses. As soon as I put them on, people recognise me.

Heh! And chaotically enough, she was also in a short-lived tv series in 1993 called Matrix. Go figure.

Speaking of the Matrix, I see that Matrix 2 and Matrix3 are already in imdb's database (don't ask me why one has a space and the other doesn't, though). Cool! I just hope they don't suck. I have very high expectations...

I went to imdb today to look for the guy who played Apoc in the Matrix, known as Julian Arahanga. I thought I recognized him from the excellent and devastatingly sad New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors. I was right! And I also happened to notice that the same character name he had in that movie (Nig Heke) is listed under another movie, from 1999, called What Becomes of the Broken Hearted. Hey, it looks like a sequel! Hmmm... I'll have to check it out, even though it has a lower rating than the original and was written by someone different.

As a side note, I have to say that the girl who played Grace in Once Were Warriors, Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell, has a gorgeous first name. The whole thing is pronounced like a fluid stream that turns around a rock. The rock is the 'g', which is soft. Anyway, I learned how her name was pronounced when I saw a version of Once Were Warriors on cable that included the director's commentary and some footage about the making of the movie. It doesn't look like she's acted in anything else yet, but dang, she was *very, very good*. I hope she does more acting, I'd definitely see anything she'd appear in. Maybe she's in school or something for now.

It's always nice to find some spiffy gems when you're out wandering the web.

[ good quotes rants ] 2000-12-13
Good SCOTUS quotes:  That is, the Supreme Court of the United States. I just read all 65 pages of yesterday's decision (well okay, I skipped and scanned a little). Here are my favorite bits.

Justice Breyer, dissenting:

The Court was wrong to take this case. It was wrong to grant a stay. It should now vacate that stay and permit the Florida Supreme Court to decide whether the recount should resume.

Justice Ginsburg, dissenting:

I might join the Chief Justice were it my commission to interpret Florida law. But disagreement with the Florida court's interpretation of its own State's law does not warrant the conclusion that the justices of the court have legislated.

...

In sum, the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.

I dissent

I noted well the absence of the word "respectfully" from Justice Ginsburg's "I dissent" statement. All the other dissenters included "respectfully". I get the feeling she's highly peeved, as am I. You go, girl!

Anyway, it'll be a mess, who cares, Dubya's moving out of Austin! At least if he has to be President, it's going to be really lame for him. He's the Fraudulent Monkey Puppet President. This will be a loooong four years, but it'll end eventually, and his little smirking butt will be outtathere...

[ food good ] 2000-12-11
Spencer came back:  from the wilds of Boston, and my life is much, much easier now that I don't have to do every single bit of baby stuff all by myself. Geez, being a single parent must be incredibly tough. I have newfound respect for anyone who manages to handle a baby or young child completely alone (while working outside the home, anyway).

So he cooked last night, while I watched an unusually good X-files, and treated us to an amazing implementation of Four-Cheese Pasta. Absolutely scrumptious, I couldn't stop eating it! Thrillingly, I got to have some for lunch today. Yummmmmmmmy.

Note to self: make recipe section on website.

[ food good ] 2000-12-08
What a treat:  I just had a yummy bowl of Cap'n Crunch cereal, courtesy of the great Jeff, who is today's breakfast bringer among our little back-corner group at work. What a cool idea!

The only thing that would have made it better would be if it were Crunch Berries instead.

Anyway, it brings back childhood memories, of when my brother and I would make ourselves multiple bowls of the stuff after we got home from school.

Geez, I never fully realized how tough it must have been for our mom to keep us all fed. We were monsters back then, raiding the cabinets, guzzling the milk.

Guess I'm in for a dose of the same once Elena's old enough to be preparing her own meals. Perish the thought!

[ consume good ] 2000-12-07
I got my Pets.com sock puppets!!!  And they are oh so cool. You really should be jealous.

I actually only took one out of the box, so that the other two can remain Mint In Box for future generations to be bilked for large sums of money. Either that, or to serve as particularly precious gifts for people who mean a whole heck of a lot to me and who feel the same way about the Pets.com sock puppet as I do. That is, in the future sometime, perhaps. Only if someone does something really incredibly nice for me, like save my life, maybe.

I brought it to work, so that its clever witticisms might brighten the day of my cow orkers, which it has served quite admirably to do.

I like to squeeze its little mouth now and then and hear it talk to me, it makes me smile.

• "Hang on, Dino! We're coming HOOooooOOOooome!"
• "I'm here to play with the tabby cat."
• "I like your shorts! You're a good lookin' fella."
• "Oh wow, you've got a stuffed thing. I love stuffed things!"
• "Look. I'm a professional Happy Puppet Thing."

I just thought of a great question for an incredibly difficult trivia contest or scavenger hunt: What time is it on the Pets.com sock puppet's watch? And what day?

No, I'm not going to tell you the answer. Buy your own sock puppet, there are a ton of them on eBay! (at least for now). Be as cool as me! BUY BUY BUY BUY!!!

[ good mammalog ] 2000-12-05
Sad but good:  This story of a 33-year old woman who recently died of metastatic breast cancer is very moving. She was a photographer for the newspaper, and chronicled her battle with cancer. This is the last piece.

Not sure what to say, just very sad. I'm glad for her that she had a good death, the way that she wanted, surrounded by those she loved, not in pain.

33. What a pity. Geez, that's too damn young. :(

[ beauty books good ] 2000-12-04
Finally read Jimmy Corrigan:  Yesterday, I read the first third of Jimmy Corrigan during the day, and finished it after Elena went to sleep. I was up until two.

It's one of the best books I've ever read in my life.

And I'm damn picky, so that's saying something. It was so incredibly moving, and subtle, and complex, and interwoven, and exquisite, and I could go on and on and on. Please, read it!

And buy it from a local comic book shop, not a chain store, and DEFINITELY not from Amazon, okay? If comics are going to survive as an art form, people need to support their local outlets. If there are comics out there that are anywhere near even 10% as good as this book, I'm totally hooked.

I mean, I've liked comics for a while, I just don't have that many of them, and I don't know how to find the best stuff (I'm very very picky). And some of it is clearly brilliant, like Art Spiegelman's Maus, and now Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan. Damn, what a beautiful book, both to look at (the cover & everything) and to read. Wow.

I am so profoundly affected by this book, I can't even begin to describe it. Words can't do it justice. (because it's comics, you see - it's more than words, more than pictures. Read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics for more details on the history, how & why & wonder of comics as an art form unlike any other.)

I already loaned it out to Fred, a cool coworker of mine. I can't wait until he's done, because I want to re-read it. I'm sure that I missed a lot the first time through...

[ good ] 2000-12-01
I like this:  comment from Mars on metafilter, about riches and why progressive taxing makes sense. I'd quote some, but it's all good, so read the whole thing.

[ good ] 2000-12-01
Duh.  What was I thinking? eBay. Of course!

[ family food good ] 2000-11-23
The day of the sacred yummy bird is here:  and I am happily full. Elena is asleep, we've got some good movies to watch, I made some pretty good (though not great) gravy, my family and friends are all safe and warm and taken care of (as far as I know), and I am extremely thankful for that. Each day is a gift.

That's about it. Harvest feasting is a fun holiday, indeed!

[ good ] 2000-11-21
Here comes Noggin!  While paying my cable bill today, I noticed some new channels listed on a little flyer they put in the envelope. Most of them are unremarkable, but one of them is a gem: Noggin.

This network is on my mom's satellite service, so I know a bit of what they offer - the highlight, to me, is that they show old episodes of The Electric Company, which I loved when I was a kid.

So I can't wait til it starts (Dec 28th), I'm going to be taping as many episodes as I can for Elena, and just for my own nostalgia. :)

[ good ] 2000-11-21
Ahhh, I have finally found my tribe: 

The Escapees

I can't wait to join!

[ good ] 2000-11-21
Heard on NPR this morning:  A story about Dan Hurley, the 60-second novelist. Wow, this guy is *good*. Pretty interesting stuff, I'll have to read more of the site later.

[ good school ] 2000-11-03
Games for kids (and others):  This appears to be an excellent reference for all kinds of games for kids. It's got the rules for everything from marbles to duck duck goose. Cool!

[ good ] 2000-11-03
The lights are out  here at work. I like it. So far, no one has turned them back on. I hope it stays that way.

The glow of my lava lamp is quite gentle and lovely. It feels more cozy in here. It's nice.

I have no idea why the lights went off. It seems to only affect our area. That's fine with me. Hmm, maybe I'll take a nap under my desk...

UPDATE: They've just been turned back on. Crap, it's back to Ugly Fluorescent Hell again. Sigh.

[ family good humor ] 2000-11-01
Trick or Treat, smell my feet, gimme something good to eat! Well, it was a fun Halloween overall. Elena didn't want to wear her costume at the Halloween fair at her school, and the fair itself was a couple of orders of magnitude more chaotic than I thought it would be.

But she had fun, playing on the big kids playground by herself, and then later running through a tent full of balloons. She was extremely peeved when I grabbed her out of there so we could go home, but she got over it.

We went trick or treating to the neighbors next door, who are extremely nice wonderful people, and they in turn brought over their great-granddaughter. Elena wasn't real thrilled about the whole prospect at first, but once she realized candy was involved, she caught on really quick.

At work, there were quite a few festivities, with lots of people dressing up, many in really creative and excellent costumes. I wish I had one myself - I figure I might as well make one next year, since I can then use it every year if I like it enough. I mean, since I'm not really growing any more, it's worth it to invest the time & energy to make a really good costume. But I am not sure what that costume should be...

The guy next to me at work dressed up as the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons:

Hahaha, just kidding, he looks like Comic Book Guy every day of the year! It's really uncanny, the resemblance. He even has one o those trendy Razor scooters that he brings to work. I predict that the Simpsons writers will soon add one of these to the animated Comic Book Guy.

In my search for this image, I found (DEAD LINK) many people who have Comic Book Guy pages, even a whole category of them. My goodness, that's devotion.

[ good ] 2000-10-27
Congrats to our friends!  Mike & Gabriela had their son Michael yesterday morning, and all are doing well. We visited them for a little while at the hospital and brought them some McDonald's. He's a cute little thing who slept through our whole visit. Can't blame him, it was a big day for the little guy! Elena was well-behaved during the visit, and we took some nice Polaroids of the happy new family.

At work this morning, Paul, who works with Spencer, told me he bowled a perfect 300 game last night! Wow! I'm really impressed. I remember him saying he'd gotten close a few times before, but now he's finally done it! Well, his first one anyway. Good for him.

Maybe this is a good excuse to take him out to lunch... I'd love to go to Chili's and have one of those Awesome Blossoms. MMMMM, I love those things, but they're so indulgent I can only have one every few months or so... hmm, let me go twist Spencer's arm.

[ good ] 2000-10-27
I voted today:  For Nader, among others. Texas has this handy deal called "early voting", which is wonderful. When I voted in Colorado during the last two major elections (for Bill Clinton and the Reverend Bud Green, respectively), I had to wait FOREVER in an obscenely long line with everyone else on election day, so this was an incredibly pleasant change. Last night I carefully perused* the Voters Guide put out by the Austin League of Women Voters and made my choices. I picked lots of Greens, a few Libertarians, and Democrats when it was just Dem vs. Rep and I had no idea of the relative merits and opinions of the candidates.

I voted at the local supermarket, after picking up my prescription and before getting donuts & fruit for my breakfast group at work. Very pleasant elderly folks handled the whole thing, and the nice fellow manning the ballot box gave me a cute little "I voted" sticker and shook my hand when I was done. It was really nice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a cynic's cynic, especially when it comes to politics, but it felt pretty darn good to vote. There's something sacred in it. Something worthy of respect, in the process itself (well, the Platonic ideal of the process, anyway).

And I like the whole act of manually filling out the ballot and placing it in the box; it's much more satisfying and concrete than the electronic voting booths in Colorado (in which I had to type in my write-in vote for Rev. Bud Green).

* many people think "peruse" means to scan or glance over something. It doesn't. It means to read intently and carefully. I was wrong on this one for years, and I still hear people misuse the word frequently. Look it up if you don't believe me.

[ food good ] 2000-10-19
Desmond Morris on food:  Essentially, eat heartily, enjoy it, and don't worry about it! Ahh, I like this attitude.

Eating the widest possible variety of foodstuffs was what gave us our special advantage over our animal rivals. And this is about the only rule that one need apply when sitting down to a meal. The bigger the variety of foodstuffs we eat, the better off we will be. End of story. Our alimentary system can easily dispose of excess, unwanted matter, and a varied diet will give it the chance to pick out what it needs and discard the rest.

[ good ] 2000-10-13
This makes sense to me:  I like this piece about suicide, particularly this part:

Instead of asking how our loved one could have done this to us, we should wonder at how much pain he had to be in to have overcome those natural obstacles to ending life. We should wonder at how that person withstood that pain and misery so well that we didn't know it even existed. Or if we did, we should wonder that it wasn't more obvious.

[ good ] 2000-10-11
A spiffy Twilight Zone site:  (DEAD LINK) It's got episode summaries and all kinds of neat things, including info about the new series episodes (under the Afterlife/The Color Series section). I liked reading through the list and finding ones I had totally forgotten about.

It's a little odd to read the air dates, and wonder what I was doing on those days... I mean... it's odd to pin down specific dates in my past like that, and be able to say "that's the night I watched the Shadow Man episode, I remember that". Because normally, my past is kind of one big mishmash, and I can remember things clearly, but not the order they came in (for most things, it doesn't really matter).

[ good ] 2000-10-10
A new tv show I like:  Well, it's new to me. It's called Monkey Business, on the Animal Planet channel. It's about these people who run a monkey park who rescue all sorts of chimps & orangutans & such. I watched it the other day, and really loved it.

One poor little chimp Poquito, was given as a pet by some famous Spanish guy to his girlfriend, and had been living in a shack for seven years. They picked him up, and took him to the park (in Great Britain somewhere), and he quickly made friends with a gentle friendly older male chimp named Michael (as I recall).

How cool is that? "Must see tv" my ass! I can't wait to see the next episode of this show, where Poquito and Michael move into their new building! Wow!

Also, there's a little baby chimp named Amy who's been abused, and hugs a lump of straw inside as the other young chimps go outside to play. They showed a preview of the next show, in which Amy gets a new friend and playmate! I've gotta see that!

Man, I love watching stuff on tv that makes me feel like I'm in a civilized society. The people who run this monkey park are so cool. The main couple who owns the whole thing seem to be American by their (lack of) accents. It was so cute seeing this one British fellow taking care of the new infant orangutan in his apartment. How utterly sweet.

Sometimes, tv is good. Very good. I love seeing stuff like this!

[ good the net ] 2000-09-11
Lawyers vs. Geeks: Lawyers win.  I didn't realize that Greg Knauss of an Entirely Other Day wrote for Suck. I really like this piece he wrote about how the lawyers rule the world, and the geeks are not picking up on this fact.

...the Internet's collective response to one well-nigh apocalyptic decision after another has unfortunately been the same as the Internet's collective response to just about everything: posts, lots and lots of posts. Discussions and cries of hypocrisy and malformed analogies have consumed megabyte upon megabyte of masturbatory rage and self-indulgent self-righteousness.

Which, of course, accomplishes exactly nothing.

[ good ] 2000-09-08
How to truly get people to vote:  Give them free lottery tickets, or rather the ticket stub you get for voting would be a lottery ticket. I like this idea a lot. (via Camworld).

[ consume good ] 2000-09-06
A different kind of cruise...  can be had on a cargo ship. They say it's relaxing, and you can go for weeks and weeks at a time. Sounds really fascinating. I think it would be fun. Of course I couldn't really afford it myself, but it's a nice idea.

[ consume good ] 2000-09-06
More info on freighter cruises:  These folks specialize in them, and there are also epinions about them. Spiffy.

[ good ] 2000-09-06
I want to do this trip!  This is amazing, the stories of trips on the Blue Star Freighter to Australia & New Zealand. They have fly/sail packages, so you can fly to Australia and/or New Zealand, then take the boat back to the U.S. (or the other way around). I grabbed Spencer when he visited my cube and told him about it, he sounded interested. That would be wonderful. I'd love to have a trip like that, long enough (30-40 days) to really relax and get into the whole groove of being on the ship.

[ design good ] 2000-08-31
I am sooo jealous of this:  The meditation area of an incredible custom-done bus. Wow. There are a bunch more at Mr. Sharkey's. I'll say it again: wow. This is the lifestyle I was truly meant to lead.

[ good ] 2000-08-17
A Pleasant Shock:  At work today I'm talking with JM next to me, and out of the corner of my eye, I notice... a volleyball net outside. My jaw gapes open, and I go to the window for a closer look. Sure enough, on the grass is a greener rectangle of grass, with a nice little volleyball net, and two picnic tables nearby.

Wow.

This is unheard of here (at IBM, where the trees grow in straight rows, and a cow orker friend of mine was chastised by a security guard for merely walking across the grass once).

Someone told me there's a basketball court being built nearby, too, and that these changes are supposedly the result of the Tivoli people moving to our campus. Great! I don't care why they did it, I'm just giddy with delight that they did it!

I'm going to bring my volleyball tomorrow and get Spencer to come outside with me and play a bit. I can't wait :).

[ beauty design good ] 2000-08-14
Oooh, pretty!  A wooden mirror. It's composed of little wooden blocks that are computer controlled to tilt at various angles and reflect the light. Wow, beautiful and amazing.

[ beauty design good ] 2000-08-11
Fabric Fetish:  I bought... a LOT of fabric when I was in Denver. I couldn't help it! Denver Fabrics has a new Annex which has womdigeous loads of cheap fabric, like $2/pound or $2/yard. So I grabbed tons of linen-like stuff, and various rayon-oid things too. I can't wait to make some nice clothes for Elena and me.

Speaking of which, it was triply temping since not only did they have kinds of fabric I can't find here, but it was ultra-cheap, and the Annex was set up such that Elena could freely run around while I shopped without causing damage or being damaged, so I was able to browse for quite a while and thoroughly explore almost everything they had. Also, she played in the fabric bins for a while, which was really cute. Anyway, there was no way all the stuff I bought would fit in my luggage, so I packed it in a box for my mother to send to me. So I have to wait for it, but it's not too terribly rough. I really miss sewing! I already have huge amounts of fabric, but it's been a long time since I bought any, and I kind of went nuts. Oh well.

[ beauty family good ] 2000-07-21
Sweet moments to remember:  This morning, Elena was sleeping while I was getting ready. She made some noise like she was waking up, so I came in. She wasn't really ready to get up, and I held her a little and she fell asleep across my chest, with her head on my left shoulder. I just layed down and stayed with her, and enjoyed it. I patted her little back, and held her close. I beheld and admired her little moon face, and kissed her. I decided it didn't matter if I got to work later than usual, nothing else mattered but this tender time with her. So we did that for about half an hour. I'm so glad I did that... when I'm an old woman, I'll still be glad. She's growing up so quickly - it seems strange to think of her as a baby anymore, she seems like such a little girl.