Category Archives: Personal Life

Rain Down On Me

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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).
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Fireworks!

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Today was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, which we spent lazing about the house, followed by dinner with the folks, then the local fireworks display. The fireworks were excellent this year, down at Kilowatt Field at the border between Vermont and New Hampshire (for those that are unaware, Vermont IS part of the United States, and not in fact a mythical land that they mention “travelling off to” in tv sitcoms).

I hadn’t been to the local fireworks display since they moved to their current location (previously it had been at the high school football field). I did make it to fireworks last year, but that was down in Boston (you would think they would be more extravagant, but no… the local ones are just as good).

There was a certain humor to the event, since we were perched precariously on the side of a rather steep hill looking over the river. I slid off the blanket several times over the course of the night, because I simply could NOT keep anchored.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring a camera, so no pictures this time. (My D60 is still in for repairs… I should have it back by the end of next week, hopefully in time for my trip to Seattle.)

I really just wanted to give a quick post about the day… hopefully sometime in the next few days, I’ll do a more substantial piece, as there is a lot going on in my head right now.

This Day, Today

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Today is Wednesday. (Well, looking at the time, if I don’t finish this soon YESTERDAY was Wednesday.)

Generally, every Wednesday, my brother drives down from Burlington, and comes to lunch with my parents, Mickey, and myself, and often Eli and Megan. Chris and Gloria are planning to join us in this regular occurence, but things haven’t worked out in that endeavor as yet. Well, it might have happened today, but I don’t know.

Because I wasn’t there. Mickey and I had a hair appointment that afternoon in yonder Manchester, NH. We drove down, and had our respective heads of hair dyed. Mickey refreshed the red color she’d had done for the wedding. I had never dyed my hair before, so I chose to go for a bit more flamboyant a dye job, and decided to turn my hair blue.

The whole process took about three hours, and I ended up having to get a second treatment done, as it turns out my hair doesn’t take dye too well. Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the result. While it isn’t quite as saturated a blue as I might like, I am satisfied with my initial experience of hair dying, and now understand more about my hair for next time. (And yes, there WILL be a next time… probably this October if not sooner.)

Our friend Julie also came up from Boston, and had her hair done at the same time as us, so after we were all done, we got in touch with another friend of ours (Florence), and went to Florence’s place for dinner. (Quite scrumptious.)

As Mickey and I headed back north, we listened to some of my old compilations… as we were listening to a King Crimson song called “I Talk to the Wind” on one of these compilation CDs, I had a particularly strong vision pop up, generated by the mood and lyrics of the song. It involves the straight man and the late man, and hopefully I’ll put it to paper (whether digital or physical paper is a separate matter) soon.

Hmm, what else… both my brother and my friend Eli have begun posting regularly, so do please swing on by and check out their sites.

Also, the folks over at Life of Riley have pointed out a potentially nifty online community called Gaia Online. If you are interested, tell them I sent you.

General Update

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I’m currently down in DC with Mickey, helping her pack up her apartment for the move up to Vermont for the summer. (The move to Seattle comes later.)

It has proven to be an interesting time, with lots of final(???) visits with various groups of her friends, and stressing about the packing process and getting everything done before we head north on the 17th. I really wish I could say I’ve been a big help, but I can’t do so honestly. As much as I want to, other things have unfortunately been eating my days:
1) School. Wrapping up the last vestiges of my previous semester and prepping for the upcoming months of writing (doing a pretty in depth look at the development and administration of online communities). All of which have deadlines occuring while I’m down here.
2) Illness: on the flight down I managed to pick up a nasty little cold that knocked me on my ass for a day or two… which Mickey managed to catch and is STILL not entirely over. Yeah, this is normal, and unfortunate: I catch colds relatively easily, but once caught I get over them much more quickly than most people.
3) Dentistry. A tooth started giving me trouble, so Mickey made an appointment with her dentist down here for me. I got my teeth cleaned and an appointment to get my FOUR cavities filled (it has literally been years since I had dental work done). My appointment was today, and was only half completed before I got sent across town to a DIFFERENT dentist to get a root canal (one of the cavities proved deeper than hoped). I’ve spent about $1400 so far, and expect at least another $300 before I’m done. (Yes, I WOULD appreciate donations, as I have no dental insurance… the paypal button should be on the side of the front page.)

Just overall a very frustrating period. But we’ll get through it.

The wedding is two weeks from yesterday (May 26). Nervous as hell and excited as well: so much to do! And such a big step! But still, overall I’m really looking forward to it.

My friend Eli has made a media database system and has it up on his website and is looking for feedback if anyone has some spare time.

Umm, think that’s it (for now). More later.

General Update

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I’m currently at my school residency (I attend Vermont College, which is part of Union Institute and University), which I’ll hopefully find time to write about in the not too distant future, as it is definitely worth of comment. I just wanted to post a quick update as to what’s going on and all.

Some interesting links:
Stealing Andy: this is an interesting band out of Rochester, NY, that has an interesting sound to it. Eric Cox, the lead singer/guitarist is a classmate of mine. He happened to bring some demo cds with him to residency, and I’m pleased with what I hear.
Vermont College: Nice school, with a focus on LEARNING, not grades. Non-traditional, but that’s a good thing. (Again, I’ll write more on it later.)
MindFlight: I’ve had this site listed in my links for ages… it is the fledgling brainchild of a friend of mine. If you have some writing that you’d like to get online, head over there. I’m finally writing a blurb about it because he finally has something on the main page.

Okay, enough for now, more later! (And if you visit, post a comment!)

UberCon!

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The convention is wrapping up today, and has been a relatively successful event. We didn’t have quite the numbers we’d like, but everyone who went has said that they had a good time. This bodes well for doing another one. I’ll elaborate further below.
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Back from Hawaii

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I’m back from Hawaii now. Actually we got back last week, but I’ve spent the past week catching up with stuff that happened while I was gone. Sorry for the late update. Hawaii was a blast, sunny and around 80 every day, with a light sea breeze. In the beginning of the trip, Mickey and I wandered around with Eli and Megan, heading up to Hapuna Beach, and over to Green Sands Beach, both of which were a really fun time (Hapuna is this great beach, relatively popular, and remarkably pretty… Green Sands is down at south point, and requires a 2 mile hike to get to… but is well worth it if you like bodysurfing).
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Off to Hawaii!

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I’m off to Hawaii for 10 days, kind of a honeymoon before the actual wedding (hey, it’s when we have time!) It should be a great deal of fun, though I’m kind of nervous about making all the connections tomorrow (starting at 5:45am and we get there 16ish hours later… fun).

Not really much else to say here. I hope you all (or rather, whoever actually reads this site… ie, no one) have a wonderful New Years, and hopefully I’ll post pictures and such of the trip when I get back!

Pre-Trip Ramblings

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It is the week before Mickey and I fly to Hawaii. I’m really looking forward to it, both because I get to see her and because, well, it’s HAWAII! Love that place. Kicks my ass. Should be interesting to go there during the winter instead of June like I did last time (it will be Mickey’s first trip to Hawaii, I hope she digs it).
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