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Thursday, June 14, 2001
Tuesday, June 12, 2001
Good, lord, it's been a while. Everything seems to be going more-or-less well. The hamsters are still happy and active, the relatives are all healthy and cheerful. Work sucks, but I have my resume ready to go, and am browsing around for job listings.
I need to update this thing a lot more frequently.
Thursday, March 08, 2001
Music!
I'm composing again!
This past week I finally bore down and installed Finale, which is a music composition program,
on my laptop. I am now quite happily in the middle of putting together a couple of annoyingly peppy tunes.
Now, Finale is a high-end program, which can hold the score for whole symphonies, so it's a bit overkill for the minmal pop-ish stuff I'm doing, but heck, it's better than the MIDI sequencer and "composing by ear" I was doing.
Thursday, March 01, 2001
Hello to all of you linking from the Zengatronic Rocket Society
I'll try to keep this updated any time I see our favorite protestor. He's gotten quite creative with those little sticky letters.
He's also spreading his impeachment targets around a bit again. Today was Harding. yesterday was Coolidge.
In other news, I talked to my sister out-law in Portland yesterday about Baby's First Earthquake. Sam was walking around with Phoebe (the baby in question) and didn't notice a thing. As my dad said, if I were walking around with Phoebe I wouldn't notice a thing either.
Tuesday, January 30, 2001
Mason Kramer says I don't have to wait on him any more before updating my blog.
The hamsters are getting fat. Pepper is especially spherical. Moonbeam (good lord, I haven't updated since moonbeam was named) is a little pudgier than she was, but still has the blast-furnace metabolism.
I've cut back on the number of sunflower seeds and other fatty thing in their fodder.
Tuesday, August 22, 2000
This week: the discovery of the wheel I've had the hamsters for a little over a month now. When I got them, I got a nice little cage that came with a wheel, a house-thing, and an upper level. Of those, the upper level is still in use, although moved even higher, the house-thing has been replaced by a new model, which I can put together without a bottom, so that they're able to fluff stuff in as they wish, and the wheel has now been replaced. They didn't like their original wheel. It looked nice, and attached on to the side of the cage, but they rarely ran in it, and almost never after the first day or so. I think this was because it was made for larger species of hamster, and the slats were too far apart for their little tootsies. This one is a solid-walled one. I'll have to clean it more often, but so far it seems to be working. Pepper was running on it for a good part of the night last night. Moonbeam doesn't appear to have figured it out yet, but she may just not be able to get on it due to her amazonian sister.
Tonight we'll see if they keep using it. Hopefully this will get them better exercise than the laps they've been running and keep them a little calmer. Thursday, August 17, 2000
I am de-parented for the time being. Mom went home yesterday morning, and it's back to being just me. Well, and the two hamsters. They are now officially Pepper and Moonbeam, and one of these days I'm gonna get pictures of them. Work is frighteningly dull, although I've got a little to do today.
I've somehow hurt my ankle also. I may bo mad. Friday, August 11, 2000
Took the hamsters to the vet today. They got a clean bill of health. The natural-colored one (whom I've pretty much decided to call "pepper") weighs 38 grams, compared to 28 grams for her sister. She is an amazon of the hamster world. She's also calmed down tremendously (one reason for taking her to the vet. she was starting to get downright lethargic). The albino (searching for the correct name) still has the constant-motion energy of youth. It's good to know they're healthy, and also to have a vet assure me that they're both female and therefore that Pepper isn't pregnant. Wednesday, August 02, 2000
I think my boss is about to quit. He didn't take a scheduled business trip and has gone on his second week-or-more vacation within a month. Plus, his department has just had some stuff taken away from it. Hopefully I'll be out before he is.
Tuesday, August 01, 2000
Today's tale of woe: U.S. Err It all began thursday night. I dropped the Wild Things off with Dennis and Laura who hamster-sat this weekend (they're the ones I originally got the hamsters from, and so are fully equipped for this addition to their hamstery), then went back up, finished packing, and set my alarm clock for 4:30 in the morning. I was hoping to get to sleep by 11, but naturally was still wide awake at 1:00 a.m. So far, things weren't so bad. I got to the airport in plenty of time, checked in, and got on my plane. I was mildly disappointed to get a window rather than an aisle seat, but that's no big deal. I just like to be able to look out and see where I am. All went well. I read a bit, ignored the in-flight movie, and had something resembling breakfast served to me. We were making good time, and were going to be arriving in Pittsburgh early. Then, after a quick change of planes, I was off to Buffalo. Over mid-Ohio, we went into a holding pattern. Delays at the Pittsburgh airport. Still no big deal, since outgoing flights would be delayed too, and I had over an hour to spare. After an hour of this, they announced that the entire Pittsburgh airport had been shut down due to severe weather. Ouch. And that we were going to land in Cleveland. Double ouch. So we landed in Cleveland. This, in itself, wasn't a problem. The problem was that all of the other U.S. Air flights into Pittsburgh were also being diverted to Cleveland, including international flights. We were third in line for a gate behind a couple of flights from London and Frankfurt, which had to go through the whole customs and whatnot process. To add to the problem, U.S. Air only has two gates in Cleveland that could handle aircraft the size we were on. So we sat on the tarmac. For three hours. Therefore: I was not only in Cleveland, but I was in Cleveland, on an airplane that was not moving trapped in a relatively small area with a whole lot of people, and not able to do any of those things that make being in Cleveland worthwhile. There are some, I've heard. Eventually we pulled up to the terminal. A few people (actually about half of 'em) got off the plane, and many of those got right back on, as it was wall-to-wall people, from the few reports I got. We were only at the gate for half an hour. Having some of the people off the plane greatly improved the mood of the rest. Then we taxied back out, and after perhaps fifteen minutes, got airborne again for about a half hour long flight to Pittsburgh. Thus, we arrived in Pittsburgh about 8:30, or, four and a half hours after my connecting flight was scheduled to leave. Okay. Not going to get to Buffalo that way. I quickly got in line at the U.S. Air service desk. There was one more flight to Buffalo that evening. She could get me 22nd on the standby list. If that didn't work, she gave me a hotel voucher and food voucher, and I could come back the next day and wait on standby again. Aiee. Not going to make it to the wedding at this rate. Desperately, I asked if there was anything going to Rochester. Now, Rochester's about an hour or so out of Buffalo. I didn't know precisely how far, since I'd never been to either. Still, it was worth a shot. She got me fifth on the standby list for Rochester. The Rochester flight was due to leave at 10:30, and the Buffalo flight at 11:50. I thanked her for doing what she could, and headed nervously to the gate for the Rochester flight. As it turned out, the Rochester was delayed itself. Drat. Every delay in that means the more people with reserved seats making their connections and the less likely that standbys would get on. Plus, if it was late, I wouldn't have time to try to make the Buffalo flight if the Rochester flight took off full without me. I was intermittently calling the house of my friend Evan's mother (Evan was the one whose wedding I was going to), giving her updates on where I was and whether I was going to be at any nearby airport any time soon. Finally, around 11:15 the Rochester flight pulled in and they began boarding. The next 20 minutes or so were real nail-biters, since by now there was no chance of the Buffalo flight, and I had people telling me that all the hotel rooms around were taken as of two hours before I got the hotel that I was booked in. As it turns out, not only did I get on the flight, but so did everybody else on standby, and there were empty seats. I guess people just gave up and got hotel rooms in Pittsburgh. So, safely ensconced on the plane, I called up my parents' hotel room where they had just gone to bed, and told them I'd be in Rochester in about an hour. This was at 11:50 It actually took a little longer than that. Then I waited a bit more for my parents to arrive. Finally, at 1:30 they picked me up, and we shuffled off to Buffalo, stopping briefly at McDonald's at a rest area on the New York State Thruway, and at the Buffalo airport to pick up my suitcase, which had apparently gotten on that last flight out of Pittsburgh. We finally got back to the hotel room at 4:00. By 8:00 the sun had come up to the point we could no longer sleep, so we got up. Second nearly sleepless night. That day went quite well. The parents and I went up to Niagara falls in the morning (quite impressive) and then in the afternoon was the wedding. This was great. I got back in touch with several people I had not seen in nearly 20 years. I had good food. It was a beautiful wedding, and I'm so glad I went, even if getting there was kind of nuts. At 10:00 the bride and groom finally made good their escape, and things quietly broke up. I was invited to go out for a drink with some old friends, but after two sleepless nights was about to fall asleep standing up. I probably would have gotten more sleep if I had gone with them, since about midnight, my mom started throwing up. Now, I'm not going to spend any great amount of time describing my mother's bodily functions, so I'll just leave it that she was in and out of the bathroom all night, and the place didn't smell all that great. My father didn't really want to spend the night in the same bed with someone in my mom's condition, and so went down to the hotel lobby to read and work on his mathematics. I managed to get some sleep that night. I'm not sure how much. I do know I was awake at shortly after 7:00 when the phone rang. My mom picked it up. Said hello, then after a few seconds said "a girl". This lifted a lot of the tiredness off of me, and off of mom, since it meant that my mom was now a grandmother, and that I had a new baby niece. I got on some pants and went downstairs to tell my dad, who was, as one would expect, delighted. A few hours later, we went to the post-wedding brunch at Evan's parents' house. Lots of good food, and just sitting around talking to interesting people. But alas, all good things must come to an end, and so at 4:30 or so, I toddled off to the Buffalo airport to catch my 6:00 flight to Charlotte. As it turns out, that flight was delayed to the point where I could not make my connection to San Francisco. After what seemed like 20 minutes of wrangling (although it can't have been much more than 5), the woman at the counter said she had me on a flight on a different airline out of Boston the next morning. I called my folks, and my dad came to pick me up at the airport again. This was the fifth time he had been to the Buffalo airport. Not one of these times had anybody he was with gotten on or off of a plane. I went back to the place where the brunch had been, and relaxed. Mom was feeling better by then, and we concluded that it was probably sympathetic illness with the impending arrival of the baby. We sat around for a while, nibbling on food. Then Robin (sister of the groom) came back, and I went off with her and some of her friends and relatives to have Buffalo Wings at the place that claims to have invented them. This was nice. I then went back to the hotel, and caught a few hours of sleep before another 4:30 wake-up call to get out to the airport. This time I managed to check my baggage, get on the plane, and actually get to where I was going. At Boston I had a slight disappointment, as I'd originally been rebooked on to the American flight from Boston to San Francisco in first class, but as there were open coach seats, and I wasn't actually paying for first class, they moved me back. Oh well. I got a seat, and there was even an empty seat beside me. Actually, the only flight where I didn't have the whole row to myself was the only one I was originally booked on. Air travel is strange. My luggage apparently did manage to travel first class, as it was the third bag on to the carousel. I caught the shuttle home. Had people come over last night so didn't get to bed until 11:00. Had I not had people over, I would have likely gone to bed around 8:00. Maybe sooner. At any rate, I called up my brother and found out the name of the baby (Phoebe), which he hadn't figured out when he'd called a mere ten minutes after the birth of the child. He says she looks like him. Oh well. He makes a better looking girl than I do.
All in all, it's been an exteremely memorable weekend. Thursday, July 27, 2000
I'm off to Buffalo for the weekend. My best friend from elementary school is getting married. It's been kind of a hectic week, preparing for this, and I get the joy of getting on a plane bloody early tomorrow.
Impeachment Guy has been named "Best Protestor" in the annual "Best of the Bay" issue of the Bay Guardian. Congrats to Frank. The print version has a nice picture of him with yet another type of something-tronic rocket society on his placard. Wednesday, July 19, 2000
Today is my birthday. I have a batch of presents at home waiting for me to open. I bought some more housing material for the hamsters last night.
Also, the "logical" is gone, and the it's back to being an "Ultratronic Rocket Society" Monday, July 17, 2000
This was a good weekend. Saturday, I went downtown for to do some activity that never happened. A friend of mine told me it was to occur at Union Square (which is downtown in San Francisco). I never found it, after wandering around Union Square for about half an hour. Activities there included a band which was attempting to play a) "In the Mood" without benefit of a horn section, and "Johnny B. Goode" without benefit of a quality lead guitarist. But things got better from there. I dropped by the NOC to say hi, and because the electronic leash of death beeped. On the way I saw the Impeachment Guy. It's now an Ultralogical Rocket Society. After hitting work, I walked outside and got on a cable car (they go right past the building where the NOC is) and took it up to Grace Cathedral, which is the local Episcopal cathedral, and is interesting in that it's a gothic cathedral built of reinforced concrete. They have this Labyrinth thing which I walked through (it's actually just on a carpet, but is still neat). I decided, at that point, to go wander by some shops (game, book) that I frequent. On my way, I cut down a street that I'd never been down before, discovered a bookstore I didn't know was there, and found in it a book I'd been looking for. I think that was the high point of the weekend. It's a great feeling when something like that happens. It would probably have taken quite a bit after that to ruin the weekend. Anyway, I wandered by a few more shops, then went home and had a short nap. The next event was the Unitarian Universalist Young Adult overnight. I came late, and I didn't stay overnight, but I think I got the best parts. There was sort of a coffeehouse thing, where we listened to people sing, and later a bunch of us sat around with a guitar (and without) and sang various songs. Two of my friends and I sang some three-part canons, which was really really fun--then folk songs and such accompanied by guitar. The songs which someone who could actually sing knew the tune to turned out better, but the whole things was really fun. Yesterday two activities. First, my friend Karen came over. She's buying a computer, and I was helping her because she knows next to nothing about computers. We went to lunch at a place called the Cajun Pacific restaurant, which is within sight of the latter and serves food a la the former. (actually, it's more New Orleans food than Cajun food, but most people can't tell the difference). Then, my friends Dennis and Laura took me out and bought me my birthday present from them: a hamster cage. This was accompanied by the gift of two of their burgeoning population of dwarf hamsters. When I left this morning, the girls were still trying to burrow through the bottom of their plastic cage, which wasn't working real well. They're very cute, and I think they're going to help relax me, but at first I'm a little nervous having critters dependent upon me.
Wednesday, July 05, 2000
And now: New Orleans! That's where I spent much of this four-day weekend. Curiously enough, there wasn't a bit of drunken debauchery involved. Instead, it was me visiting my grandparents and getting out of San Francisco for a few days. One of these days I'm going to have to go down to N.O. as a tourist, but not this time. It was certainly relaxing, and I got to swim in their pool (I hadn't been swimming for years). My grandfather took me to the National D-Day Museum and we found his brick. It was interesting, especially going through it with my grandfather and his cousin Jack Lengsfield, both of whom served in the war. I got to eat lots of good food, and brought some back with me. The airplane flights to and fro were okay, with edible food, although on the way back I sat next to a couple who spent over half of the four-hour flight sucking face. Get a room, kids.
Now I'm back at work. We'll see how long I can take it.  |