Tag: life Page 6 of 15

Social weekends

On August 15, 2006

I’ve really been sort of absent from these pages lately, and in large part that’s because the last several weeks have revolved around kitanzi‘s work schedule, which has her at her office 12 hours a day five-six days a week, and as a result I’ve been trying to pick up most of the household chores. This plan has been hampered by the fact that I’ve been having more troubles with my back, finally coming to the point where I got myself referred to physical therapy in an effort to get it fixed.

For the last two weekends, kitanzi has actually gotten the weekend free, giving us time and energy to actually be social with folks. Last weekend, we headed up to Colbert, GA for ApheliCon 2, the second annual Aphelion Webzine barbecue, hosted by my old friend vila_resthal and his lovely new wife, Lyn. Attendance was light, as usual, but Lyn’s delightful daughter Michele was there, along with Bill Wolfe down from Tennessee, and mrjaimie and his wife over from Marietta. We had barbecue and chili, discussed writing and science and art and politics and music, and I played my guitar a bit, at the command of the hosts, who insisted. (I also played them a bit of cadhla‘s amazing live album, and got at least a couple of converts, I think.) We stayed until about 10pm, and decided to drive back home rather than get a hotel room in Athens, which was a prudent financial decision, if it means I didn’t really get down into Athens at all on this trip.

This weekend was full of people too. Saturday evening, we went to the monthly Gafia housefilk, hosted by Alice and though it was lightly attended, the company was great, with mrpsyklops, his wife and daughter, and also joyeuse13 and abovenyquist, and we had a good deal of conversation and played some good music and had a grand time.

Sunday, we met up again with joyeuse13, abovenyquist, and Alice at Oglethorpe University to see the Georgia Shakespeare Festival’s production of Metamorphoses, a play based on the works of Ovid. Rather uniquely staged around the centerpiece of a large pool of water, the players retold several important stories from the Greek/Roman myths, all of which centered on the theme of transformation and change. All of the stories were familiar to me, but the presentation was so original that I found myself spellbound for the entire 90 minute production. If you are in the Atlanta area, I highly recommend you try to catch the show before it closes on August 20.

(Digression: I used to see a great deal of live theatre, but I’ve fallen out of the habit in the last few years. The last time I saw a play was, if I’m not mistaken, when I went with tigerbright, browngirl, and magid to see Copenhagen in Boston four years ago. That’s much too long.)

In other news, I got kitanzi a copy of The Sims 2 as an anniversary present, and we’ve both become rather hopelessly addicted to the game. I remember I used to watch telynor play Sims 1 on her laptop (I even got her a couple of the expansion packs), but I never really ‘got it”. But now that I’m actually playing it myself, there’s something strangely compelling and zen like about directing these imaginary people through their lives. Kit likens it to playing dolls for grownups, and that’s certainly fitting. It certainly does eat up a lot of time.

And that’s the news from Lake Unionhill. May all of your days be full of joy.

Bloody Expensive Weekend

By autographedcat

On May 16, 2006

In Blog

This weekend was the weekend of unexpected expenses.

It began on Friday, while I was at work. My group has inherited the MIS functions of the local office at work, and towards the end of my day, I was underneath a desk setting up a new computer for one of the VPs. Being slightly unable to reach the spot I needed to plug in one of the cables, I rolled slightly onto my side, on top of the carry case of my phone. Unfortunately, the case has one of those ball-in-socket clasps, and it concentrated all of my weight onto a single point. I heard a muffled crack, and my heart sank. A quick check of the phone revealed that yes, the screen had cracked.

Now, my phone is more than just a phone. It’s also my PDA, and a remote Internet device, and it’s something that I really rely on for work. Being able to get on the net from anywhere, anytime I need to, being able to track my meetings and task lists, all in a handy single place. It’s my portable brain, and I feel somewhat adrift without it. Unfortunately, phones that can handle all these functions well tend to be relatively expensive. I had been previously using a Sidekick II, which served me well, but had a variety of annoying features.

I did a bit of research and determined that the best option for what I really wanted was finally available from T-Mobile. Long ago, I’d wanted a Treo 600, until I actually got my hands on one. I didn’t care for the way it felt in my hand, and though the keyboard was too small. The Sidekick had the substantial feel i wanted, but was hamstrung by a non-extendable OS and some very peculiar design choices that were frustrating. But finally, someone has made the all-in-one PDA Phone that I’ve always wanted, and it’s name is the T-Mobile MDA.

The MDA is a Windows Mobile device, which means that there are are a huge variety of 3rd party apps for it, and it has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for the maximum amount of networking capability. Some of the reviews criticized its phone performance, but I had an hour-long call with catalana last night and it seemed clear and strong to me, even with only 1-2 bars of signal. I’m still playing with it and figuring out its idiosyncrasies, but I think that I’ve found the perfect (for me) phone/pda/portable brain.

Saturday, another unexpected expense bit me. kitanzi and I were playing a bit of City of Villains, when suddenly my computer froze and the monitor switched off. When nothing I did seemed to be getting it back, I powered everything down, then back up. All I got was a white screen with pink pinstripes spaced about an inch and a half apart. Muttering profanities, I shut everything down, opened the case, and poked my finger about for a bit. (Note to my female readers: guys do this with computers, appliances, and automobiles whenever they break. It doesn’t accomplish anything, but we don’t want to admit yet that we have no earthly idea what’s wrong.)

After some checking of connections and the working-ness of fans, etc, I managed to coax it back to booting, but it was clearly an unhappy PC. I got a windows error that it blamed on the video driver, and some odd artifacts just after the boot-up was complete. Then it seemed to settle down. I checked e-mail, surfed a couple of web pages, then fired up CoV again. Within 10 minutes, the display with splotchy, then crashed the entire machine again.

At this point, I was reasonably certain that this was a video card failure. Its often hard to prove that, since you cant’ do a lot of troubleshooting on a PC you can’t see anything on the screen for, but it was the most likely of the three likely components to have failed (the other two being the motherboard or the power supply). So it was off to Best Buy to replace the vidcard and hope that I’d made a proper diagnosis. (Luckily, this isn’t House, or my first diagnosis would have nearly killed the computer and it’d have taken three more tries to find the real problem just before the last commercial break.)

Unfortunately, the replacement of the phone the day before meant that I really couldn’t afford the super gee-wiz-bang top of the line graphics card my gamer’s heart truly desired, because gosh they’re way too expensive still. I had been pondering upgrading said card sometime in the next few months when the price dropped down, but for now, I settled for a BFG GeForce 6200OC, which is still an upgrade on my old 5500FX, and means I don’t have a large powerful useless computer on my desktop, which would have made me very cross.

Unfortunately, these unexpected purchases put us back at least a month on our debt-reduction plans, and mean that it’s highly unlikely, barring a sudden windfall, that we’ll be making it to ConCertino. (It was highly unlikely we were going to make ConCertino anyway, but I was keeping out hope until the last minute, because, dammit, wanna….), and I’m not even really sanguine on ConCarolinas, which at least has the virtue of being local. We’ll see about that one. Meanwhile, back to the drawing board on the whole “paying off the debt” campaign. And the war was showing such promise!

I can see clearly now…

By autographedcat

On May 10, 2006

In Blog

I’ve known for quite some time that I really need to go and get an eye exam. For one thing, the last time I had one was eight years ago, and that’s far too long for someone who actually wears corrective lenses. For another thing, i was finding that I couldn’t read the small text on the TiVo screen from the couch, which is only 6-8 feet away. So when one of the nose pads fell off my glasses Friday morning, I took that as a sign from the universe to stop procrastinating, and made a call down to the LensCrafters at North Point Mall, since that’s where I get a discount through my insurance.

They said they could see me pretty much anytime, and I made an appointment for 6pm, so I could go down after work and not need to try and rush it all on my lunch hour. Showed up and filled out the paperwork, and then was shown back into a room for some baseline tests, including the dreaded puff-of-air-in-the-eye glaucoma test, which I’ve detested since I was a child.

The optometrist turned out to be a very pleasant woman who checked the prescription on my old lenses, and then went through the whole “Is this one better, or this one” routine to determine what the new prescription should be. Once that was complete, I went for another test with an amazing new piece of technology they’ve gotten in since the last time I was in, a machine which took photographs of the inside of the eye! It was really cool, even if it took a while to get good shots. (I wasn’t complaining — the tech running the test was super-cute. *grin*). The amazingly cool thing about this machine is a) it means they don’t have to dilate the pupils in order to see all the things in the back of the eye they want to see, and b) they can save the images to use as a baseline for comparison from year to year, making it much easier to notice deterioration or damage. I thought this was exceptionally nifty and well worth the extra $30 or so it added to the bill. Once the images were taken, I went back in with the optometrist who explained the images to me, and said that everything looks very healthy.

Once I had a new prescription in hand, I wandered next door to the LensCrafters to pick out some new frames. I dithered a while over these or those before finally settling on a pair that I like. (I notice that big chunky frames are back in fashion again, but somehow they’re just not my style at all). I was told they could actually have them ready for me in an hour to 90 minutes, so I called kitanzi to meet me for dinner, rather than have to go home and come back. We were somewhat bemused to discover, once she’d arrived, that nearly all of the non-Food Court restaurants have closed in North Point Mall. Mick’s is gone, Atlanta Bread Company is gone…it was sad. We ended up at the little Japanese grill in the food court, for lack of better options. We then wandered down the mall, stopping briefly in the Mac Store because I like lusting after the laptops and the ipods. We finally made our way back to LensCrafters, where my glasses were waiting for me.

Wow. I actually did a double-take when I put them on. I knew that my old lenses were no longer correct, but I hadn’t realized how badly and how much I was just compensating for. I walked all the way through the mall back to my car just marveling at how much better the world looks when its in focus. (Note to self: Once a year. Stop being so lazy and get these things done.)

Oh, I’ll forge ahead, there’s good things in life

By autographedcat

On March 16, 2006

In Blog

I’ve been pretty quiet lately, but its not that there hasn’t been a lot going on. Some of it hasn’t been good, but I’m not going to talk about that here. Drop me a line if you really want to know about it.

I’m choosing instead to focus on the good stuff. There’s actually a fair bit of it about. In fact, here’s a baker’s dozen really cool things that are going on in my life right now.

My creativity has actually been sparking lately. I’ve now finished more songwriting in 2006 than I did in all of 2005, including some stuff I’m rather proud of. Better yet, I’ve been playing more music than I have in months, which is a sure sign that I’m feeling better about the world. I’m adding new songs to my repertoire, which is helping me keep from being bored with what I’m doing musically, which in turn inspires me to write more. I actually got stuff I’d written recently onto online songbook.. I even went and made a second index page that separates the song by year, which will make it easier for people to find the new stuff, even if it does highlight just how little I’ve written in the last few years.
We had not one but two housefilks in February, and each featured wonderful faraway visitors. The first was the official GaFiA housefilk, and featured such luminary travellers as sdorn, sdelmonte, and batyatoon! The very next weekend, there was a gathering at joyeuse13 and abovenyquist‘s house, in honor of the visiting celticdragonfly! Yay faraway people I don’t see often enough.
In spite of all the cramping our budget has suffered since the middle of last year, as of this moment our bills are all paid up, and we’ve gotten rid of a number of small debts that were being carried on our books. This puts us in excellent shape, if we’re careful and prudent, to reach our goal of paying off *all* our debt by the middle of 2007!
kitanzi is almost done with her physical therapy following her shoulder surgery in December, and is feeling much better and stronger than she had in many many months. Crappy health is definitely one of the things I’m looking forward to putting behind us as we move further into 2006.
Speaking of feeling better, we both have been feeling much better rested in the last week, since we acquired kitanzi’s early birthday present: a mattress pad. The pad is made out of a three-inch thick slab of four pound memory foam, and the difference it has made in the comfort of our sleeping is astounding! Many of our aches and pains have been reduced since we started sleeping on it.
Thanks to klrmn (who I miss terribly since she moved to California, but that’s a different post), we now know where to go for all-you-can-eat made-to-order sushi. Yummmmmmm.
One of my best and oldest friends, Jeff, has finally joined LiveJournal. Jeff has been my writing partner, confidant, and brother-in-arms since we were both in Jr. High school, and I’d love to introduce you all to him. So go say hi to hejira2006,and add him to your friends lists, because honestly, if you are the sort of person who likes me, I think you’re going to like him too. (Just be nice to him — I don’t want him to be scared off. *grin*)
Another of my best and oldest friends, vila_resthal, will be getting married in August. Dan is the editor of Aphelion Webzine, a project he and I have worked together on since its inception ten years ago. (And if you’re inclined to like reading or writing original SF/F fiction, go check it out. It’s a groovy place. We take filk lyrics, too. *grin*) I’m so very happy to see him happy, and I really like his new lady love, and am looking forward to the wedding, which will be held at the same time as ApheliCon 2, the second annual Aphelion writers cookout party.
I now own a Macintosh computer! tarkrai acquired a 17“ G4 iMac, which he gave to me for my very own. He claims that it’s a bit quirky but isn’t sure why, but so far I haven’t actually had any trouble with it. And it’s pretty. And it’s cool. And it’s a Mac. Shiny! Thanks, Smac!
Just in general, I have the best friends in the whole wide world. Yes, I do.
We have tickets to see Great Big Sea in concert in Atlanta in April! I am *very* much looking forward to finally seeing them live, after all the amazing reports we’ve gotten from our friends about their shows.
I’m leaving on a plane tonight to spend the weekend visiting aiela, my girlfriend who lives near Canada. *grin* This will be my first ever trip to Michigan, and I’m hoping to sneak across the border for a day so I can *properly* say I’ve been to Canada, rather than having simply been trapped in a plane on a runway there for 3 hours. 🙂 And I get to meet her fiancé, davehogg, who has become a Friend In His Own Right, much to be delight. I don’t get too see aiela often enough, so I’m very much looking forward to the trip.
Last, but not least, I am still married to the most amazing, beautiful, intelligent, sexy, and all around wonderful person in the entire world. I am absolutely the luckiest person on Earth. And I never, ever forget it.

So, what’s really cool and good in YOUR life right now?

Closing the Book on 2005

By autographedcat

On January 11, 2006

In Blog

I’ve been debating how much I want to talk about 2005. In many ways, it was a painful year. There were highlights, of course. kitanzi and I spent half of February honeymooning in England, I got to visit New York City for the first time, and we celebrated our first wedding anniversary and fourth couples anniversary. I developed a much closer romantic relationship with aiela, which brought me joy, and cultivated an intimate and satisfying friendship with klrmn.

On he downside, I spent much of the second half of the year fighting off depression, much of it wrapped up in a specific single issue that ultimately was not resolved satisfactorily. In the process, I learned a lot of useful things about myself, and a lot of things I wish I hadn’t about someone else, leaving me ultimately more disappointed than I was with the outcome of the issue.

Between myself and kitanzi, we had a lot of medical issues, the most major of course being her shoulder surgery in November. I’m still working to get a handle on my blood pressure. We started and then faltered on a fitness plan, partly due to various infirmity, but mostly on my part due to my depression.

My task for 2006 is to take the good stuff above with me, while leaving the bad behind. I will make my 2006 be a year of light and love and joy and hope and promise, for myself and all of those I care about. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution?

Forward.

That was the week that was…

By autographedcat

On November 20, 2005

In Blog

So, I kept meaning to post something about this and that and the other thing, and never got around to it, but the week wasn’t entirely uneventful. Highlights:

Got to talk to maedbh7 for a good long while last Sunday, which was wonderful. Still a lot of unresolved stuff there, but it was a great conversation, and I really miss just hanging out on the phone with her and talking about whatever random stuff comes up.
Also last Sunday, we had thatcrazycajun and singing_phoenix over for dinner, where we ate yummy Thai Chicken and talked and watched a bit of the Muppet Show DVD.
Monday, the low point of the week, I dropped by the house to see if the mail had come during my lunch break, and when I got back into my car, it wouldn’t start. Luckily, kitanzi works just up the street, so I called her to come pick me up and deliver me back to work, after pushing the car into a nearby parking space and alerting the apartment office that I would be leaving it there a few days. Inconvenient, but at least it’s easy for us to carpool, since we have pretty compatible schedules and work across the street from one another.
Monday night, had a nice long phone chat with catalana, which left me in a considerably better mood.
Friday, we had our big Thanksgiving feast at work. I provided beverages (several Coke products, plus a gallon of sweet iced tea from Chick-fil-A). One of the neat things about our office potlucks is that, having folks from all over in our office, we get a wide variety of contributions to the table. There was fried chicken, and green beans, and some sort of little dim sum pot stickers, and fried rice, and stuffing with Jamaican spices, and deviled eggs and three different kinds of potato salad, and pasta salad, and a Jello mold with pears in it, and a wonderful pineapple punch that I got the recipe for and about nine different kinds of dessert, including a delicious thing that Tim’s wife makes that folks in my department know to grab a bit of during the first pass, because if you wait until you’re ready for dessert, you won’t get any. As you can see from my brief post on Friday, I ate waaaaay too much, and didn’t end up eating again until the next morning. But for all that I suffered Friday afternoon, it was worth it.
Saturday, we went over to joyeuse13 and abovenyquist‘s house to help stain the walls of the new deck. We sanded the sides of the wall while joyeuse13 went to acquire the right kind of stain, and then with four pairs of hands it went really fast, and is now a lovely warm shade of brown that really makes the whole area feeling welcoming. It’s going to be fantastic once they’re done with all the work.
After finishing the deck, we ordered pizza, and chatted a good while, the decided to head back up towards our place to change clothes and the four of us went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I really want to see it again, though I don’t know that I’ll manage again in the theatre, but it was a gorgeously produced movie that I found quite enjoyable from start to finish.
Before went over to joyeuse13 and abovenyquist‘s, I had called to have my poor car carted off to the garage. They called before we left their house to tell me it was all fixed, and apparently just needed a new battery. I was pleased and relieved, since I’d never had a battery go dead quite that suddenly without warning before, and was sure that it would turn out to be something far more expensive. We dropped by to pick it up en route to the house, and I now have my own transportation again.

Today has mostly been grocery shopping and City of Villains and catching up on CSI. All in all, not a bad week.

Ugggh.

By autographedcat

On November 18, 2005

In Blog

Today, my office had its annual Thanksgiving day potluck dinner. Everyone brought yummy food, and we all ate and drank and were merry.

I. Ate. TOO. Much. Fooooooooood.

Ugh. Want to go lie down now.

Conversation from a few minutes ago:

eloren: At least there was no turkey. Then we really wouldn’t be able to stay awake.
autographedcat: Yeah. Although, Tryptophan Coma would be a good name for a band….

Protected: Ugh

By autographedcat

On November 10, 2005

In Blog

All dressed up and…

By autographedcat

On October 31, 2005

In Blog

Today, I am at work all dressed up for Halloween. Lacking any actual foresight into this event, I simply put on my Renfaire outfit with pirate shirt and plumed hat. This is making me happy for many reasons, not the least of which that this outfit reminds me fondly of telynor, who traded me this shirt for a denim jacket, and of maedbh7, who enthusiastically shared with me her passion for Renfaires.

Last night, kitanzi and I went to joyeuse13 and abovenyquist‘s house for dinner. We had Thai Chicken and Rice and Broccoli with cheese sauce and it was all extremely yummy, and we sat and talked and had a very enjoyable time.

Earlier on Sunday, we went to the gym. This was the first time I’d made it there since the day before we flew to OVFF, and I was quite pleased to discover that I have continued to lose weight. I am now down nearly 20 pounds from where i started, without *really* trying. One of my goals starting here in November is to get up on that horse and really stay on it, and see if I can find the lower side of 300 again before too long.

Saturday was mostly quiet. tarkrai came over in the afternoon and I went out to keep him company on some shopping errands he had to do. It’s vaguely amusing to me that I probably see *less* of him now that he lives 3 miles from me than I did when he lived in Michigan, but we’re trying to change that. We came back from shopping (where I picked up two copies of the just released City of Villains) and had a marvelous dinner of ham steak and sweet potatoes.

All in all, it was a nice weekend. When’s the next one due? 🙂

The week behind, the week ahead.

By autographedcat

On September 26, 2005

In Blog

I’ve been a bit lax lately about updating this journal with “what’s going on with Rob” stuff of late. This is partly because of late, life hasn’t been all *that* interesting, and in part because other stresses keeping me from really wrapping my mind around writing here. But, since part of the point of this journal is to keep folks updated with what’s going on with me, I’m going to try and do a bit better.