Thought Showers

For lack of a better way to open, the title means very little beyond a reference to weather reports that say “Chance of Snow Showers”. It was going to be “Thoughts Scattered Like Papers on a Windy Day,” recalling a remembered moment from my recent trip to Chicago, but it was too long. Feel free to think of the title as that, though.

School has been going well. I managed to get my first packet in on time, and it’s looking like I’ll be able to pull that off with my second packet as well (don’t want to jinx it, though). I’ve been drawing at a fairly regular pace, though I really should try to step it up a bit. I see progress, which is good, but I still can tell that I’ve got a long way to go before I’d consider any of them “good”.

While we were in Chicago, Mickey, Mickey’s mom, our friend Ian, and myself went to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which is a regular tradition for Mickey and Ian, and the second time I’ve seen it (the first was in November, 2002). I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time (possibly more), and found some of the new plays quite engaging (the content of TMLMTBGB is constantly changing… as they say, “If you’ve seen the show once, you’ve seen the show once.”). We went and had coffee and chatted about various things (including UberCon), and in general had a good time.

The rest of the week was mostly spent dealing with wedding preparations or visiting with Mickey’s parents and our niece and nephew. Of course, shortly after we got there, Mickey’s brother closed on a house in New Orleans, so Mickey’s dad flew down to start house hunting himself (they’re following the grandkids), with her mom flying down a few days later once a few potential locations had been found, so the “visiting the In-Laws” part of the trip was somewhat of a wash. That’s fine, though: sometimes it’s just the way things work out, and I’m glad that they managed to find a house down there so quickly. Best of luck in the move!

The wedding prep was alright. Being just a random husband, I was significantly less stressed than the bride or the bridesmaids (including my wife, who was Maid of Honor), and tried to make myself useful where I could by helping tie ribbons on boxes of chocolates and watching/hanging out with the bride’s 6-7 year old son Edward, while they sorted out seating arrangements and such. He’s a pretty cool kid, and I hope he continues to pursue what he finds interesting.

The wedding was excellent, and I got some fun pictures of the whole event, which I’ve burned to CD and am mailing to the happy couple either today or tomorrow (looking at the time, probably tomorrow). Mickey and I danced a little, and made goofy faces for the videographer, and then made our way back to the hotel. Good times, and happy wishes, Emma and Pete. :)

Got home late on Monday, and then Tuesday morning went in for a job interview with Omni Group, to work as a Support Ninja for OmniWeb. I think the interview went reasonably well, and I really hope I get the job. If I don’t… well, we’re moving back to DC, probably as soon as Pelsor’s contract with Adobe finishes at the end of the summer.

Which brings me to Tuesday afternoon when both my old high school chum Randy showed up, and then (a little later) Pelsor showed up. They’ve both been staying here ever since, though they’re both only really around in the evenings, because they’re both working (I pointed Randy to Craigslist… he had a job as a roofer and an inexpensive new-to-him laptop inside of a few hours… next step is housing, which he can also find on Craigslist).

That kind of brings us up to the present. It’s beautiful and sunny and warm outside, which means the upstairs in the apartment is a bit of an oven. Mickey stayed home today because her stomach was bothering her, but she’s feeling well enough at this point that she’s still planning to go to a painting gig tonight… not for pay because they ran out of budget, but she agreed to do it anyway because they’re pulling in painters from all over town, so it’s a GREAT chance to network, hand out cards and resumes and stuff. I hope it goes really really well, and they all love her and decide to give her regular work painting. I’m crossing my fingers and I’d appreciate it if you would too.

I had plans to sit down and either draw, write, or study my Objective C book some more, but the heat up here really just sucked all my motivation out of me… so instead I wrote this entry. Not that I really think many people are going to bother reading it… I mean, they’re not even posting themselves. I had such high hopes for having new tidbits to read when I got back from Chicago, too…