Monthly Archives: July 2003

Chapter 2 is Up

Posted on by

Some general updates real quick before I go eat:

I just finished the draft of chapter 2. I’d appreciate feedback (please leave your comments on this entry), to see if my reasoning is sound. Grammar and continuity issues are already covered by my fantabulous wife.

The movers are arriving tomorrow. Yes, we are happy about this. Yes, we also wish things had actually gone according to schedule. Yes, I know we could have had it a LOT worse.

I’ll be at Squam for the coming week (the 2nd through the 9th of August). If you know me and want to come, email me. If you don’t know my email, you obviously don’t know me well enough to come. Sorry.

Neil Gaiman is doing a new Sandman mini-series. It comes out in September, and I’m eagerly anticipating it.

Both Eli and Uri have been slackers about posting of late. Be sure to go give them shit in their comments section, maybe it’ll goad them into posting. It’ll also show them that I actually have readers other than them. Well, that and also their sites are worth reading, because they are good people and write about life in (sometimes) interesting ways.

That’s all. Hopefully I’ll try to post again tomorrow night (though it may be the last time for a few weeks… sorry! Such is the way of moving :( ).

UPDATE: 9:45pm, 7/31/2003:
Yeah, about an hour after I wrote and posted this blog, my brother posted a new entry. Go check it out.

Eli’s still too busy planning his upcoming roadtrip to post though.

Weird Air

Posted on by

Things have been really weird lately. I don’t know if it’s the cycle of the moon (new moon was a day or two ago), or what, but things have been just not working right for the past few days.

A few things to ponder: the moving company we are working with was on the ball and professional for the entire time we were working with them… until this week. We were supposed to be moved out either today or tomorrow… and now it’s looking like it won’t be until the 1st. They failed to call us, and we ended up having to call several times in order to finally get any word at all (and it still isn’t confirmed at all).

I tried selling one of our computers over eBay. We got one (1) bid. I sent the invoice within half an hour of when the auction closed. I made it quite clear that this needed to be dealt with as soon as possible, as we were under the gun because we needed to move. We got no response for two days… I emailed again, explained that we only had a day left, he responds… the next day. I send him another email, he doesn’t respond, I finally email him and tell him that I’m out of time and have to rescind the offer. Frustrating!

We were in Everything But Anchovie’s (EBA’s) tonight, and had the slowest service we’ve ever had. The food did not come for fully an hour, which we then scarfed down and ate in 5 minutes. This is pretty damn unacceptable, and not what normally happens there.

It just feels weird right now, like we’ve been told to hurry up and wait, in unacceptable ways. There are other things that are causing this feeling, but I won’t get into that.
Continue reading →

70th Posting

Posted on by

According to the blogging software, this is my 70th entry in the main blog. It won’t be a large posting, but still some things to note:

First off, Happy Birthday Sabrina! Enjoy the very first anniversary of your birth. I know you’re too young to read (we’ll have you blogging in no time!), but I hope you have a great day anyway.

In other news, the movers arrive in two days. I’m nervous, uneasy, and not very productive at the moment. That said, I really am hard at work on this essay, and will hopefully have more to post by the end of tonight. (FYI: these are draft copies… I haven’t checked them for grammar yet. I know there are a few mix ups.)

I’m sitting in Hanover, sipping iced chai, trying to relax and write, and finally it seems to be working. The past few days have been kind of stressing instead of relaxing… it was Parent’s Weekend, and Hanover was SWARMING with loud, obnoxious yuppies, making it very hard to concentrate on much of anything. One day later, and the place is quiet and back to normal, not TOO much worse for wear. (“But ‘Bil, why not write at home, in the comfort of the giant purple chair or something?” Because my apartment is full of boxes right now, and I can’t seem to concentrate there.)

Ah well, the weather is nice. Feels more like a late August day than a late July day, but whatever. That’s FINE by me.

Change Things

Posted on by

I just read Eli’s most recent post, and for someone who generally prefers short posts, he’s got a lot to say. I know I should be working on my essay, but I’m feeling the need to respond.

In his posting, he comments that he feels like he’s no longer in control of his life, that his life has turned itself on its ear through no action of his own. This hit me like a sack of potatos (not quite as heavy or hard as bricks, but heaven forfend if any of the potatos are rotten). I know the feeling, and am nervous as hell about all the changes that are happening. I’m moving across the country to a city where I don’t ACTUALLY know anybody (merely through association), with neither Mickey nor I having even one job lined up, into an area that’s been economically depressed since the tech boom went bust. (This has had a negative effect on the theater scene as well. Who did you THINK helped fund all those theaters?) I’ve been drifting apart from a lot of my friends, through no desire to do so of my own. It’s just the way it’s been.
Continue reading →

Seattle, Explained

Posted on by

We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately from people who are wondering “Why Seattle?” Which is also sometimes followed up by “Why not <some other place>?”

Well, a few reasons, really. The big one is that both Mickey and I like the Seattle area. Then comes the issue of work: Mickey is a scenic artist, and as such needs a city that actually has regular professional theatrical work. I’m a student at a school that is off campus for all but two weeks out of the year, so I can live anywhere. I’m also looking for an internship with a game company (or possibly even a real job, though I’m not thinking my qualifications are there yet), and there is certainly a large quantity of that in the Seattle area.

Then there is the geography issue: Mickey grew up just outside of Chicago, and has done the city thing for her whole life (with the exception of these past two months in Vermont). She wants the accessibility and activities that cities provide. I, on the other hand, want nothing to do with most cities. I find them stressful, rushed, and irritating to a point that FAR outweighs the activities that reside therein. That said, the relaxed mood of Seattle and relatively happy coexistence with nature that exists there leaves me with a happy medium.

So to sum up, it’s a matter of work, combined with shared personal preference. Seattle really is the ultimate compromise location by the criteria I listed.

I hope this answers any questions any of you might have.

Sorry for the sporadic posting lately, as you can understand, things have been pretty busy.

I’m posting because I CAN

Posted on by

Some days, you don’t really want to talk, or write, or communicate in any way. This would be one of those days. I’m a little bitter about how my involvement in certain things turned out, and feel a little daunted about the next year or two, wondering how and where I fit into things anymore.

Mickey is currently picking apart my essay to date, her editorial nature getting the better of her. It’s helpful, and I do appreciate it, I’m just not up for getting my picks nitted right now.

I listed a computer on eBay today, first time I’ve ever listed something. I hope it sells, as we could use the money.

We did much running around today, and frankly I’m bushed. Time to hit the sack.. hopefully tomorrow I’ll finish chapter two of the essay.

Rain Down On Me

Posted on by

I really ought to just merge “musings” and “general” since they do tend to overlap so much. Before I get to rambling about the rain and such, a few things.

Shortly after finishing my first chapter last night, I spent many hours futzing with my website. It all started out fairly simple: change my archive lists into pulldowns. That way I don’t have to worry about space as much, and I can open up methods of navigation more. I’ve implemented this on the gallery and my written section.

Never one to leave things well enough alone, it occured to me that by using the pulldown technique, I could finally add navigation to my image gallery. Not to be satisfied with just a quick pulldown of “Home”, “Return to Gallery”, and possibly a “next image” and “previous image”, I opted to list all images in a given category in the category section, and all images in a given month in the individual section. After posting on the MT Forum for help, I finally got it working.

Of course now, I’m beginning to think that I should rethink the whole damn thing. Keep the pulldowns, yes, but change what is in them… again. Meh, maybe after I finish this next chapter (it’s a doozy).
Continue reading →

If You’ve Been Waiting…

Posted on by

If you’ve been waiting for me to post more images in my gallery, sorry for the delay. I have a very large writing project I’m in the middle of, and simply don’t have the time right now to post more. Hopefully I’ll post another smattering before I pack everything up and move across the country.

In the meantime, a fellow forumer has a gallery up at his website that is well worth the time to go visit.

Okay, back to the essay! (Yes, it WILL be in the written section of the website once I’m done.)

On Seattle

Posted on by

Okay, everyone else has finally left, so I’m going to write a quick entry before heading home myself.

I’m back in the Upper Valley after being in Seattle for a week. Seattle was great, full of interesting things, and the weather couldn’t have been better (this all ties into the “visitor curse:” When visiting Seattle, the weather is idyllic and beautiful. When you actually move there, it becomes cold and rainy all the time). As I’ve commented already, we were out apartment hunting, and have managed to find a pretty decent place out in Bellevue, right near access to both I-405 and 520, giving us two of the major arteries for the city. We are still in the screening process for the apartment, but we’re sure that it’ll be fine: despite my being a full time student and Mickey being a freelancer, we do have a pretty rock solid application. The real question will be whether we qualify for the two bedroom or the three bedroom (we’re hoping for the three, so we can have separate offices instead of sharing one).

I was pretty happy to be going home, but I don’t really feel “home” yet. I think it is partially because my mind is already starting to make the connection that we’re moving elsewhere, but it is still pretty strange. I mean, Vermont has ALWAYS been home. To a certain extent it always will be. It just feels a bit more foreign at the moment, while at the same time very familiar.
Continue reading →

Bento Box

Posted on by

First, an expansion of my response to Eli on his blog: my trips to Hanover most evenings really IS an institution to me. I’ve been doing it since the fall of my Junior year in High School, with brief interludes of not cropping up as I travelled or moved. Even when I was living in Burlington, I would come down relatively often to hang out. There is something I crave that is (at least somewhat) satisfied by the experience, and I’m not sure what it is. I could say social interaction, but I do enjoy myself even when alone (though not as much). I think it might be better defined by the term “social experience”. Social interaction absorbed through osmosis by merely being out in the middle of things.

Why social experience, instead of social observation? Social observation is too abstracted a term, too much like removing yourself from the environment and viewing from the outside, which is not the case. You DO have an effect on the environment, on who sits where, who talks to whom, the mood and types of interaction occuring. Passive participation, which is different than observation. Whether you like it or not, no man is an island, and pretending you are is foolish.

I’m just rambling, though. Ultimately, I enjoy hanging out in Hanover, I enjoy hanging out with my friends in Hanover, I find that it is important to me. Thinking about all this has left me with a realization: Seattle feels like one long Hanover hangout session. We’ve wandered all over the region (more on that below), and the feeling remains the same: the same feeling I gain from hanging out in Hanover.
Continue reading →