Uncle
February 28th, 2006
So by all reports I’m an uncle today. My brother and sister in law had a daughter, Anna Sophie.
Archive
Archive for February, 2006
Sleep
February 25th, 2006
So Thursday I didn’t get to sleep until about 4am. Got home around 2am and was considering some character creation issues (Yes I’m a geek.) So anyway I was dirt tired on Friday. When I got home I skipped running and just went to sleep and around 8pm. Woke up briefly at midnight before sleeping until around 9am.
That’s what you call a solid sleep.
Cave In
February 25th, 2006
It’s been a while since I posted anything but I really couldn’t think of anything that would be interesting to anyone but me, and I’m not sure if I would find it interesting. So I got back from my run and was largely thinking the same thing when it occurred to me that a quarter of my basement ceiling collapsed on Tuesday. That might be interesting to someone. That fact that it took me four days to realize that it was a postable event might color the idea that nothing noteworthy really happened.
So I took off Tuesday in accordance with my belief of ‘why have a three day weekend when you can have a four day weekend with a cost of just a single day off’.
First I went out and bought a yoyo. I was looking for your run of the mill duncan yoyo. They don’t seem to come that way anymore. They are all of the butterfly configuration and are adjustable to make them easier or harder to do tricks. I managed to find one a toys’r'us that wasn’t too disagreeable and it seems to work as advertised, though I still have no idea about this whole adjustment thing.
Anyway after doing that I went out to the home theater store and picked up a draper manual 106″ screen to replace the sheet that has been in my basement. I wanted to do it before the next party which will be toward the end of March. Since I wasn’t sure if it had to be ordered or you could just pick one up, not that I thought it could fit in my Prius, I figured I should get started on this project. As it turns out the store had one in stock and if some it sticks out the passenger window they do fit in the Prius.
So my basement has a drop ceiling and I was investigating how to mount the screen when there was a series of ‘poing’ like noises as 3 of the wires connecting the T-bars to the floor above came disconnected. I’m not sure how these things are supposed to be done but in my ceiling the wires are connected to (big, manly but essentially) staples connected to the plywood of the floor above. Three of the stables popped. Still calm I found a 2×4 and elevated it to the right height to support the now sagging T-bar and called my dad.
The upshot is everything is still okay, I just need to hammer the staples back in place and everything will be okay. I started working on getting one of the staples back in place. It was fairly impossible to reach between to joists as it was. Anyway in attempting to repair the damage the 2×4 fell down and about a quarter of my ceiling came down.
At this point I kind of freaked and called my dad again and he came over. Took down maybe 10-12 tiles and made a trip to home depot and bought screws with eyes instead of heads and replaced the staples with those, much easier to work with between the joists. Then wired up the T-bars and put in the crossbars. As an ‘Oh-God’ moment it wasn’t that hard to repair with two people. Maybe a couple or three hours.
After getting that fixed up we mounted the screen to the joists using S-hooks and turnbuckles connected to another BIG screw with an eye instead of head.
So after one kind of freaky night I destroyed and repaired by basement ceiling and managed to mount my screen so I don’t have to worry about bungee cords going everywhere keeping tension on the sheet.
Mostly Full Moon
February 15th, 2006
The Moon was/is pretty full tonight, but I don’t seem to have turned into a werewolf, so that’s all good.
Valentine’s Day
February 14th, 2006
Let’s assume that I made a sufficiently bitter and angry Valentine’s Day post. It would probably involve phrases like Black Tuesday and talk about the assumptions of society that people are always matched and happy. It would probably include a side note about the assumption that this happens by spending ridiculous amounts of money on bright shiny objects.
Of course it would just be there to cover up or reveal that I’m tired of being alone. It’s just because I hurt.
I’m glad I got that out of the way, so I don’t actually have to write such a thing.
Running in the Snow and other stuff
February 14th, 2006
I figure to counterpoint my frequent ramblings on running and rain i should say something about running and the snow given that I ran while snow was falling on Saturday and ran with snow was on the ground today. Running while snowing didn’t seem all that different than just plain running except that is was colder and I spent more time looking at my feet. Overall decent enough.
Running with snow on the ground I could do without. I managed not to slip on ice or break anything, but I kept second guessing where to put my feet. Unsure about whether sections of pavement were just wet or ice. Luckily the sidewalks on my path were shoveled rather well. I think they are maintained by the homeowners association, which is nice. I just hope this snow goes away quickly. I don’t actually expect it will, but I can hope.
Found out today that I’ve been building the wrong program at work and now I get to toss out a week or so of work and start from scratch. Oh, well, better now than a month from now.
I broke out Neverwinter Nights and have been playing that. I think I need to get the expansions so I can play a Dragon Disciple, which no GM will ever let me play. I’m playing your basic tank which has a nice simplicity to it. Of course I starting playing NWNs because I wanted something simple where a character carried a sword without all the baggage found in a MMORPG. Didn’t really feel like dealing with other people in my video game. Sadly soon people won’t be able to find simple solitude in video games replaced by exclusively online content. Probably makes for better games overall but I will mourn the passing of a mode of play.
Quote by Me
February 7th, 2006
Quote — Innate
February 7th, 2006
Innate, adj. Natural, inherent - as innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof [....] Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one’s ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one’s country, in the superiority of one’s civilization, in the importance one one’s personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one’s diseases.
–Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, 1906(?)
Reminder
February 6th, 2006
Running in the Rain
February 4th, 2006
So it’s really raining out there. Not just the little vague amounts of liquid water falling from the sky, but more sheets of water sort of rain. But I’ve been bad in regards to exercise this week and I generally like rain and it isn’t very cold so I just went and did my plan. I tend to do that a lot follow through with the plan ignoring obvious factors that should alter it.
The run wasn’t so bad but by the time I got back my clothes were like four times as heavy as when I left.
A neat effect of the rain was that when I was staring at my feet as I was running there was a shadow me doing the same thing under the road. The rain didn’t create a full on mirror where I could see details it just seemed to give my shadow a third dimension, reaching down under the road.
On a side note that might be an interesting icon for an invite. The stuck on the other side of the mirror thing, able to see everyone but forever apart. Maybe everyone has their own mirrors. A call for the breaking of the glass a coming together in shared space before being summoned back to our private mirrors again. It might work, I’ll have to think about it.
Almost went out to Dogfish Head last night but they close at midnight and it was already 11pm and I’d have to have taken a shower. I’m going to make an attempt to make it out there tonight. I’d really just like to watch some strangers, it can be very therapeutic.