Category Archives: Personal Life

General Updates

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Before I get into it, I just wanted to stop and say HELLO to whoever it was that made a syndicated feed of this website on LiveJournal. I kinda wish you’d told me, so we could better keep it updated (it hadn’t updated since the site restructure 3 months ago), but I futzed with some redirects and got it working again.

On to the real updates. My parents flew out last Wednesday to spend a week visiting us. It’s been good fun, and I’m glad to see them. They got to meet our puppy, and we’ve done some basic touristy stuff (Science Fiction Museum, went out to Port Townsend and Port Angeles, etc), and in general have had a pretty laid back week. It’s amusing, since they get up before Mickey does, and generally by the time I come downstairs, they are sitting in the green chairs Mickey found on Craigslist for free, reading. We’re meeting with Uri for dim sum this afternoon, which I’m sure he’ll appreciate, since he’s unfortunately shouldered most of the driving burden in coming down here to visit us rather than us drive up to visit him. (As a side note, Freya LOVES Uri. Initially we were unsure how she’d handle him, since he’s A: male, and B: 6’8″. We needn’t have worried, she thinks he’s the best thing since doggie treats.)
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New Year

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The puppy is on the floor behind me, lying under the light asleep. The first day of 2005 is winding down, and I’m alright with that. I just turned on “Float On” by Modest Mouse (off “Good News for People Who Love Bad News” if you care to know). I turned it up, and I don’t really give a shit if anyone thinks it’s too loud. For some reason, this is absolutely a song that must be played loud. It must. It absolutely is a part of the song, the decibels themselves are an instrument. Another case in point would be The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” off Quadrophenia.

What it comes down to is this: sometimes you’ve just got to turn it up until you feel it in your spine, and sing along at the top of your lungs, who gives a fuck who is looking, and fuck you if you laugh.
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Organization

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As most of you who know me are aware, I am not exactly the most organized person out there. My books, DVDs, CDs, computer files, et cetera, yes, they are fairly orderly, and I don’t have much trouble finding what I need. No, my central (but not sole) area of disorganization is in organizing my time. In school, my packets are pretty consistently at least a day late (sometimes much, MUCH more), and my personal projects never seem to get off the ground floor largely due to me not dedicating time to them after getting them started.

It’s not something I’m exactly proud of, but that makes it no less an issue. After several abortive attempts (heh), I’ve decided to try and schedule my time a bit more rigidly. Using iCal, I’ve made a daily schedule for myself, alloting time for the projects and tasks that I want and/or need to get done. It runs roughly from 8am to 8pm, and includes time for meals, puppy wrangling, showers, et cetera. (It both begins and ends with a puppy feeding, hence the 8 and 8.) Evenings are for spending time with Mickey, days are dedicated to getting my shit off the ground. When it’s time to switch to the next item in the schedule, my computer beeps at me, in the loudest, most noticeable alarm noise I have.
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Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas everyone :)

Sorry for disappearing for a while like that. I have been doing a few things with my time, and I do mean “few”. They have primarily involved doing schoolwork, and coming up with a content management solution I’m actually happy with for Critical Games. Mambo just wasn’t doing it for me… it felt kind of like a Ferrari that was missing a steering wheel… looked awesome, but was a pain to actually drive.

I did a lot more digging than was probably necessary, and finally found NucleusCMS, which is really flexible in what I put in and don’t put in… documentation isn’t the best, and the forums are slow in response time, but after dealing with some of the other systems out there I managed to figure a lot of it out on my own. I migrated it into production tonight. (Whee!)

Non-geekstuff in the extended entry, I swear:
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Seattle Brother

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Just for those keeping track: my brother just got into town after driving himself and his belongings across the country. He pulled an all-nighter for the last stretch, and is thus currently passed out on the Giant Purple Chair of Doom (Of Death! Of Sinus Infection!). It’s good to have Uri out here, and it should be fun getting to show him the area a bit.

Anyway, just wanted to post a quick update letting you all know he made it across safely.

Rainy in Seattle

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Well, since no one else is posting, I figure I may as well keep up the good fight. This is just a general update on what’s going on with me, so relax, no revelations or brain-hurt this time.

My mother-in-law is visiting this week, which is nice, and the puppy is growing like a sprout. She’s largely well behaved, and is too smart by half, as Mickey would say… good because she understands a lot, but bad because it means she’s constantly knows her boundaries and then PUSHES them. Silly pup. We’re hoping to put her in puppy training classes soon.
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Freya and Finding Time

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Silly me, when I posted my previous puppy post, I forgot to mention puppy details. Her name is Freya (we named her; her previous name was a generic “Babe”), and she’s 12-14 weeks old (we don’t know precisely… I’m erring on 14 weeks, Mickey is erring on 12 weeks). Looks like she has some husky, some yellow lab, and some german shepherd in her, making her a VERY smart little pup (which has already gotten her in trouble a few times, but nothing too serious). She’s currently napping on the couch next to me, hence why I have the time to write this post.

Y’see, this past week, my life has been largely consumed by the dog. We’re still acclimating her to the house, and she’s still learning the finer points of house training, so I’ve ended up spending most of my days either taking her for walks/potty breaks, or keeping her occupied inside. I’ve found that if I just sit down on the couch and work at my computer, she’ll play for a bit on her own and then curl up next to me and go to sleep. Of course, this took me a few days to figure out (my first dog and all, plus every dog is different on this sort of stuff). The drawback to this technique is that sometimes I don’t catch her making messes as quickly as I would have otherwise. Mostly she just stays within eyesight even when playing. Also, if I need to get up to get anything (even a drink of water), she wakes up and the process starts over again.
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Sites To Note

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In case you haven’t been paying attention to comments, my friend Chris has a new website: http://www.longhello.com. It’s got writing and music and fun stuff, so you should definitely go check it out, regularly. At the very least, update your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions, because his stuff is worth your time, damnit.

Another website I found recently that I think is worth checking out (thus far, anyway, I just found it today) is http://www.heavenbesideyou.com. I’ve been chatting with this guy on IRC for probably over a year now, and am just now getting clueful to the fact that he has a website (and some nifty music, but I’ll leave it to him to decide where and when he posts that stuff).

And yes, I am in fact writing this blog post because I’m avoiding work. Thanks for noticing.

Eternal Sunshine of the Waking Mind

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It’s currently around 12:30am, and I’m sitting on the couch at Uri’s place, staying up all night so I can catch my 6:30am flight in Manchester. We’re watching Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s commentary on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, an absolutely brilliant film that I am the proud recent owner of. It’s interesting just how quickly the movie became one of my favorites.

Uri and I were heading home from Eli’s tonight, and listening to a compilation I made while I was out here, which opens with Beck’s “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime”, a song from the movie soundtrack, which is this beautiful surreal song, and I remarked on how it fit the feeling of the moment, of driving along late at night, with the wind blowing the fallen leaves across the road. Uri commented that it was midnight music, and I found it that the moniker absolutely fit, not just about the song but about the movie as well: it’s a midnight movie. The feeling of the movie feels VERY much (to me) the same feeling of driving down an empty road very late at night (or very early in the morning, depending on your point of view).
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