I'm not evil, it's just good press

Should be my last official post here.

2017-04-26T18:06:26Z

Find me over at dreamwidth as herefox (big surprise, I know) I believe I've also turned off crossposting now.

I'll miss lj, I spent many years here talking about nothing in particular but it's just not feeling like a terribly wise place to be anymore.

My first official post directly to dreamwidth

2017-04-18T21:43:05Z

So, this is kind of weird, I've been on lj for so long that this is vaguely like wearing a pair of shoes that doesn't quite fit. I guess I'll get used to it though.

I've been pretty busy lately, work had a huge deadline and then I went to Hawaii for a work trip (yeah, yeah, I know, cry me a river. Hawaii has never actually been high on my list of places to go since I don't like hot, humid AND I combust in direct sunlight...remind me what the benefits to going there are for me again?)

Anyway, the trip actually went well though I was sad that I didn't get to do some of the things I would have liked to do, some of the inland stuff/hiking, seeing volcanoes and shit. I was pretty much stuck at Wakiki beach for most of the trip.

The reason for going was because I was presenting a concurrent session tilted "Can't find qualified research administrators; build your own!" with my boss. It went very well. Given that it was in Hawaii we pretty much expected that we'd get maybe three people to come in to see it but the (admittedly not large) room was so full they had to get some extra chairs. One person said that it was one of the best presentations that they'd seen at the conference.

Anyway, have some pictures from Hawaii (hopefully I can figure out how to use a cut tag here)

Sunrise at Wakiki

And sunset
One more sunset because the woman in the frame amused me. She was writing with her toes on the sand and then rushing to try to take a picture of the words being eaten by the water. She wasn't having much luck.

This is what it looked like at midday. It was hard to find a place where there wasn't a billion people attempting to turn themselves into wooden statues of themselves unfortunately.

And the obligatory drink pictures:

Mai Tai!

You are required by law when visiting a tropical island to have a drink the color of windex. It's true!

In other news, the painting continues to progress. Here's a latest look at it.

End of an era

2017-04-17T19:32:45Z

I'm in the process of transitioning my journal from here to dreamwidth. I'd come close to doing so a couple of times in the past but this last one was the last straw...I'd already not renewed my premium account this year but I'll probably only post here once or twice more. Debating whether I want to figure out the hassle of deleting all my old entries. I suspect I should but I have no idea how hard the process is.

I think I'll probably finally lose track of a couple of people that had kept me on here. This makes me sad.

it's a start.

2017-01-30T23:40:09Z

I planned to write a whole update here but instead ran out of time so have the starts of a painting where they no longer are creepily missing eyes and such. Long way to go on this one still but I'm picking up technique a bit again after a long time not painting with oils.

The (Monster) Movie in my mind

2017-01-20T13:02:27Z

I had a dream twice tonight about two large snakes, one a king cobra and one a very large asp, fighting in the backyard of the house I grew up in.

The first dream I mostly thought this was cool but the second time I had it we had a dog and I was trying to keep her from going outside and getting bitten. And then my mom decided to go poke at the doggy door and caught the attention of one of them which was about to come in when I woke up.

The last was patently ridiculous as my mom is terrified of snakes to the point of once she beheaded a six inch garter snake with a hoe because she was scared of it.

While this was impressive since who knew I was the son of Momnan the barbarian, I don't think she'd have been in any way, shape or form, be soliciting attention from a three foot snake.
I'm sure there are very Jungian meanings to this (I'd say Freudian but I'm pretty sure I know what Freud would assume snakes represent and I'm not at all scared of penis :-P) Likely it means I shouldn't have had that roasted garlic and pepperoni pizza for dinner. Or possibly that my subconscious is more worried about a certain inauguration happening today.

I still need to post about FC but given the second time I had the dream it woke me up and I seem to have acquired a sore throat over night I am going to finish this post, e-mail work that I'm not coming in because A) sore throat (though it may just be allergies) and B) We are currently having severe thunderstorm warnings and it's coming down like I should build an ark. I love walking in the rain and I'm enjoying the storm but possibly having a cold is not the time to be doing my Final Fantasy X impression by dodging lightning bolts. Especially since I won't acquire a cute but deadly plushy at the end of it.

Pondering joining the mass migration to dreamwidth but there are some very dear people here that I'd be worried about losing touch with if I did. Of course there are some very dear people I'm probably losing touch with if I don't too. Dilemmas.

Okay, e-mail to work and then back to bed.

Fairy land

2017-01-05T21:33:38Z

My morning walk in today was rather like being in a fairy tale.
The walk through the enchanted forest:

To the wizard's tower:

Though I don't actually walk anywhere near the tower to get to work. The clouds were just cool.

It has, once again, been eleventy billion years since I posted. I think the problem is that I feel like I should post tons about what's going on then I get overwhelmed at the time it will take and never post at all.

So things that have been going on:
Just finished the winter break. It was mostly restful at least until Vegas anyway, which is a city designed to be the opposite of restful.

I did have a small christmas eve get together where I did not make small food choices. I made a kale, cranberry and sweet potato salad (surprisingly tasty though I think I'd have like to have broke up the kale with another green. I know it's trendy but I get tired of it), coq au vin, homemade pasta (only because I got the mixer attachements to make it from a lovely friend for Christmas and wanted to try them out), french onion soup and a lemon meringue pie.

I had a better time this year in Vegas than last year for New Years though there was one unfortunate fight with a friend about rooms that was frustrating but could have been worked out. All ended well though.

I did end up with a bit of a stomach flu on the day I was leaving, however, and having a stomach issue and needing to deal with a plane is not a fun place to be in. It was uneventful though and I managed to bum a ride from the same friend I had a fight with home so i didn't have to do the hour and change commute I would have had to do on my way home if I'd done it as originally planned. Promptly slept for fourteen hours.

I could have done without the last day before going back to work to be sick though it was admittedly a fairly mild version of stomach flu. Mostly consisted of being blargh and not even wanting to contemplate eating rather than reenactments of the pea soup exorcist scene, which is what it was the last time I had it.

Still wasn't feeling too hot yesterday but made it the whole day. Today, not too bad but still doing JUST fine on one granola bar and two jolly ranchers. Though I may just say to hell with it and get nachoes on the way home.

Other than that, FC is next week which means it's even closer than usual to the winter closure. Should be fun.

More importantly I'm going to be doing a speaking engagement with my boss at a conference in April. The conference will be in Hawaii. So yay? (aka yay for Hawaii, ? for why did I suggest doing this for the speaking thing)

Anyway, I'll try to be better about posting but I always say that, don't I?

All we know...

2016-11-04T16:47:47Z

Been a bit again. Things are finally calming down a bit so here's a bit of a catch up post.

One of the major reasons I haven't posted for a bit is that I went on a work trip to San Antonio. It was a good trip. I fell in with a group of people from Rochester, New York that I spent most of the time when not in sessions with (Nick, Kate and Deb) Good times. Even got to go gay bar hopping one night. Amusing the one bar we actually had fun at the bartender spent much time horrifying Kate with a discussion of the hanky code.

Higlights (sort of) of the conference:
Sunday: Brunch with bottomless mimosas then taking the riverwalk taxi for the entire length of the ride, which took about three hours. It was pretty and we had a very amusing pilot who told lots of stories and offered to split her tips with us if we stayed on the boat because we kept waving at passing people and just generally being goofy. Also, Nick accidentally took a video that stars my crotch (he forgot it was recording and put the phone down...many giggles were had tracking the favorites on facebook once he posted it.)

Sunday night: They drove us 40 miles from the hotel to a ranch for the opening reception. BBQ for the food (of course). Music was WAY too loud, there were long horned cattle you could take your pictures with and fireworks. However, they pretty much kept us trapped there for the entire event and everyone I was with was twitchy after the first hour and a half. Much grumpy by the end.

Wednesday: Visit to market square before heading off to the airport. Restaurant below was there.

The above pictures were all taken on the Riverwalk. They had fountains like that interspersed along the walk ways in the main area. Most of the actual main area was restaurants...lots of places didn't have rails next to the water so I wonder how often they have to fish drunk people from the water ;-)

We were told this was a festive restaurant. I was sadly disappointed, as you can see ;-)

I'm going to cut this off and start another post regarding what I've been up to since I got back (not much) since this is kind of long with the pictures.

A couple of photos

2016-10-11T21:37:11Z

A photo of a tree at the Halloween Haunt. I liked the way it looked with the lighting

This is a picture I mentioned a few months ago when we did the big photo hunt. We finally got a copy! This is the puzzle group with Tippi Hedren! Who was quite charming btw.
From the left:
Holden, Kiwa, Ian, Tippi, Ryan, me, David and Bill.

Spinning my wheels this morning

2016-10-10T16:32:55Z

Not really getting traction on the whole work thing but I'm here and attempting to at least be pretty at my desk even if I'm not being particularly effective. Meetings begin in an hour and go for pretty much the rest of the day which is probably why I'm having a hard time focusing.

So I'm writing here instead. Aren't you lucky? ;-)

I am, hopefully, coming a bit out of a slump I've been in for what feels like forever...at least I managed to do some fairly major organizing in my bedroom this weekend, which is usually a sign that I am back with the coping...I always manage to stay ahead of the public areas, at least to some extent, because I'm used to having roommates that aren't really good with the cleaning to my standards but my room slides more and more into hell pit when I'm worn out or feeling down. For instance, my dresser had been broken for about a month and a half now and, other than removing the drawer, which was fairly difficult just because it had fallen off the rail, the fix took all of five minutes. And I knew it would when it broke in the first place. But I was vacationing in the land of not coping all the same.

There remains still a great deal to do since this most recently series of overwork and general blahs has been so long but there's at least a start.

I also started thinking twitchily about painting something which is an even better sign, honestly.

The rest of the weekend was pretty good though I missed the final Frolic party at The Stud because I'd already made other plans when they announced it would be the last. I hope they find another home soon because it's my one big social event...I love my friends but as half of them are scattered across the bay area and difficult to pin down to hang out it's good to have another outlet.

The plans that I did have, though, were something I had never done before-The Halloween Haunt at Great America.

I had a good time (and incidentally have a season pass now so I should try to go at least once or twice more) The new Mass Effect themed ride was pretty nifty.

I had apparently pulled a muscle doing push ups earlier in the day so some of the safety harnesses on the rollercoasters were unpleasantly painful.

The haunt itself was interesting. They had several mazes that you could go through (read: Haunted Houses) Most of them were amusing though not particularly scary. The Toy Factory was...not okay, scary dolls are scary. The corn maze was also moderately terrifying but it was mostly due to over use of fog machines. When you KNOW there are people in there meant to jump out at you and you can only see about a foot in front of you it's a bit nerve wracking.

So that was fun and full of bad food as these things usually are. I, amazingly, did not get sun burnt, largely by setting an annoying alarm on my phone to go off every 90 minutes to reapply.

Did get very wet on both the rapids ride (which we rode twice right when we got there.) Someone was basically the Hawkeye of the quarter water jets and nailed us. Eventually dried off only to go on the log ride. Btw, if you ever get into the log ride and the boat is already full of water? Just accept the fact you're going to get soaked.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing all awesome-ly and stuff.

I know, I suck.

2016-09-26T15:46:12Z

I haven't posted in ages. This is almost entirely due to work (and being a little draggy/down lately for no discernible reason other than I kind of hate summer and work is still attempting to kill me.

Anyway, this work thing isn't likely to let up for the next two months or so...expect me to be scarce. I'm still trying to keep up with reading though.

Word of advice: While feeling needed is nice and all, allowing yourself to become the single point of failure in several very important processes? This way lies madness and the need to spend almost ten hours yesterday pretending I'm Deadpool and beating people up because I can't brain well enough to do anything else (admittedly this may have been partially because A) it was hot and B) I'd been to renfaire the day before and more than my share of alcohol was consumed)

As these things go...

2016-08-15T17:27:33Z

Yesterday I went to see The New Mikado with my roommate (It's de-Japanese'd so that the problematic bits of it are mostly non-existent). It was pretty amusing. However, having had approximately three hours of sleep due to going to frolic (Had fun, left kind of early, danced a fair amount, was hit on about five minutes after walking in so slightly good for my ego though the guy in question was a social butterfly and promptly disappeared for the rest of the evening...which was fine)

Anyway, so the theater was hot, the overture very long and I started dozing off a bit in the first act, at least enough to have one of those quick dreams that one sometimes gets...or at least I do.

One of them was dreaming that I'd left a stove burner on and I needed to go home right now and turn it off.

I hadn't cooked anything that morning so I knew it wasn't true but I still had a nagging feeling that the stove was on.

Anyway, later...by the time I got home the feeling was gone and the stove was demonstratively NOT on so I probably would have forgotten it entirely. Except later I made a quesadilla with the stove, went in my room and ate it. Went back to wash the plate and noticed the stove seemed quite warm. Checked the burner. It was off. Splashed water on the burner. Immediate steam. Fiddled with the knob a bit. Couldn't get it to turn off even though the light wasn't staying on when the knob was in the off position. Finally ended up putting on an oven mitt and pulling the heating element out so that I could submit a fix request.

Anyway, one of those random coincidences/psychic flashes I guess. And an actually useful one though, dear universe, lottery numbers would be even better? Just in case you're wanting to help out again.

Very glad nothing awful happened as that could have been bad.

I don't think I posted last week. Did another room escape, this one was "The kingdom of cats" Nice to not have something so gritty, mostly it was puzzles instead of find the key. Highly enjoyed even though we just barely made it out because they gave us extra time

Other than that, new roommate moved in on Monday. He seems to be working out thus far. He's had a bit of relationship drama in the last week but he's not being unpleasant about it so I'm pretty impressed even if he's 19. Still need to have the chat with him about chores in the near future so we have some division of labor.

Okay, off to a meeting. The first of many today, I fear.

Just desserts

2016-08-09T19:41:17Z

Lavender blueberry mousse for dessert tonight. I wanted to do rose blueberry but the thought didn't occur to me till too late to get rosewater.

The rest of the menu is:
Green salad
Chicken rolls stuffed with mushrooms, leeks, rosemary, lemon and monterey jack cheese in a madeira sauce
Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Roasted broccoli.

ETA If I ever do make this with rose instead of lavender I should see if I can find some rose petals to candy as a garnish.

herefox @ 2016-08-02T11:16:00

2016-08-02T18:16:02Z

We (95% sure) have a roommate!

He's said he's moving in but until the papers are signed I'm still a little twitchy. He is, unfortunately both straight and very young. Not that the straight part is a problem (obviously since we offered the room to him!) but it does mean some of the occasional shenanigans involving playing dance games in underwear and stuff may be awkward for him. These things don't happen often but they do happen. So we'll see how that goes. I suspect the more likely amusement factor would be that he has a girlfriend and she could conceivable walk in on such things *laugh*

The young is...not unexpected since only someone without a lot of stuff would take the room. I was originally assuming that we wouldn't go with him because he'd said in his original e-mail that he was a barrista and planning on going back to school-neither of these things are reassuring when it comes to rents in Mountain View. However his dad came with him for the first part of the interview and mentioned that in shortfalls he would be covering the bills and that we shouldn't worry about that (I assume dad wants his son to be OUT so he can live again *laugh*)

But really, what one me over was the first thing he said after greeting us was "You have a lot of books!" in a tone that made it sound like this was a virtual wonderland to live in. I highly approve of such attitudes, as you might imagine ;-)

So, for the never ending birthday weekend post, part 3

After the alphabet puzzle we went off to a park to solve mini puzzles. I didn't do so well here having got a monopoly one that I took far too seriously...I suspect I would have done better with another puzzle.

I THINK I'm forgetting a puzzle here or getting something out of order. Perils of not writing this up immediately. In any case the next thing I'm sure that happened in order was lunch at a wing place and additional mini puzzles. This time there was one specifically aimed at me though I didn't actually solve it entirely...more on that in a bit. It involved a series of musical and who the PM had seen them with. I did chase my tail on this one a bit at the beginning based on not reading carefully but that was also because I was making sure we got a table and such.

I also ran into a problem where I didn't ALWAYS know who the PM had seen a show with and other people were buried in their own puzzles. In any case, I got stuck at the very end because I didn't understand the clue I unearthed until someone piped up "We need something Joey" which I immediately answered Pal Joey, a show I know about but have never seen.

Lunch was admittedly a bit hurried as we had an appointment at a room escape! I've been wanting to try one of these forever and, amusingly, one of our friends that was puzzle solving had asked on the same day we were leaving if anyone would eventually be interested in doing one of these so this was a very awesome surprised (also I was happy that the PM got to participate in something instead of just sitting there twitching that we were going in the wrong direction *grin*

Sadly I have a lunch thing to go to now so the escape room and the rest of the day shall have to wait. If nothing else this is inspiring me to write more on lj than I have in ages!

herefox @ 2016-08-01T09:53:00

2016-08-01T16:53:16Z

Another weekend has come and gone resulting in...nothing much really. I'm definitely more fried that I am willing to admit to even myself. I spent most of the weekend playing puzzle quest marvel superheros and reading instead of doing things like, I don't know, laundry.

I did get most of the way through cleaning the storage unit in the process finding many, many comics that I'd forgotten about that were mostly in astonishingly good shape given they've been in a non-weather/vermin protected bowling bag for approximately eleventy-mumble years (I think it may even be perilously close to voting age, honestly) So they have been rehomed into a bit that actually seals and the temptation to go through them and read bits and pieces is high, though that requires finding space in my room for them instead of storage so...we shall see.

Other than that bike boy turned us down citing the room being small. He's been sufficiently high maintenance that I can't find it in myself to be too disappointed though I'm very tired of looking for a roommate and wincing at the additional expense for my roommate and I (Mostly my roommate, he's been very nice about covering the extra rent but it's not terribly fair to him. Need to figure out something awesome to do for him. We have another person coming tonight though I don't have terribly high hopes for him as he mentioned he's a barrista and...y'know, expensive. We'll see though. The search will have to be put on hold for a bit after him if he doesn't fit/take it because my roommate is going to New York for a week starting Wednesday.

I'm pondering going to a happy hour hosted by the gay and lesbian staff group this Wednesday myself. I've never gone and I don't know anybody so the idea is vaguely terrifying but I'm also in a rut with not meeting new people and think it would be nice to possibly meet someone interesting. Which, I doubt, but you never know. Perhaps more on that later.

And now, on to the fun bit. Part two of the birthday trip. I shall put it behind a cut because I've already babbled incessantly and it's going to be full of far more babble, I'm sure.

When we last left our intrepid adventurers they had returned late from disneyland to their well earned slumber. A couple of the group decided to stay up and have a couple of drinks but knowing that I have trouble sleeping in general and we were talking about getting a reasonably early start as there were milestone times we had to hit (there was one we all knew about but the puzzle master snuck in another that we didn't know about until just before)

I awoke, as I often do, early and finished solving the first puzzle-the one with the tshirt. The shirt featured a picture on the front with each of our individual characters and, on the back, a picture of the puzzle master's (henceforth to be known as PM for brevity's sake) character, a unicorn. The unicorn had several batches of color on the horn. I had noticed previously on the way to Disneyland that there 7 rows on the horn, seven of us and the spaces on each row matched the species of the character on the front. Arranging the letters matching each color spot on the horn in the order of the spectrum we got "Honk if you're"

The answer, of course, being "horny"

Don't worry, not every puzzle will get a detailed breakdown, I can't remember most of them, for one thing *grin*

Having solved this and people still not being up I read and got sucked into some truly appalling cartoons that the friends I shared a room with were watching until it was time to go off to Denny's for breakfast (we needed a place that wouldn't complain about working puzzles while we ate)

Denny's food was Denny's though I did order a chorizo and egg dish with scrambled eggs and it came out over easy. When I sent it back (I don't really like my eggs goopy) it came back ten minutes later and some had obviously just mashed the eggs together so the yolk was all over everything. I was displeased but I didn't want to hold the group up so I ate it. Adventures in eating at Denny's

The puzzle there was a list of clues that we had to fill out and then spell out the answers with scrabble tiles that, had, unbeknownst to us at the time, had black light paint on them (we were given a blacklight flashlight to use for the day) Once it was spelled out the letters were used to determine the answer to the puzzle (I don't remember how exactly other than the number of each letter was important, not the letters themselves.)

The clue led us to the next stop on our trip, the museum of death. Now the puzzle hunt being film noir themed meant that when the PM had noticed that we were close to something so aptly named that we should stop in though there wasn't a puzzle specific to the actual museum. Which was kind of good because I don't think anyone really enjoyed the museum. It had sections on serial killers with some very graphic photos, traffic accidents, suicides and the one that finally pushed me past the nope factor, a t-shirt that someone had been wearing during a botched electric chair electrocution.

There were some interesting things there but the sheer amount of nope and bad feeling made me glad we were done with it.

The next puzzle had to do with faked obituaries. The people who had "died" all had done something, whether a book series, song, poem or what have you that had featured the alphabet in it. Using that you were able to match words in the obituary to spell out different names. Then you needed to determine how they had died.

This one took awhile and we were already walking back to the car stuck on what to do with the names after until it hit on me that we were supposed to use the Edward Gorey Gashlicrumb tinies alphabet to spell out a word. The answer was "Birth" (I remember that one because it was my birthday weekend)

Leaving it here for the moment as I have a meeting to go to in a minute. I'll try and wrap it up sometime today if I can.

Birthday weekend, round one. Fight! (or Post! as the case might be)

2016-07-29T18:23:58Z

So I've been wanting to post something longer for a couple of weeks now but my work deadline was definitely interfering (there were a number of 10-12 hour days in there. Granted I was working from home a lot more than is typical, which was nice, but I'm still pretty burnt out on the other side of the deadline (though not really on the other side of the deadline, more on that in a bit))

I just realized I nested parenthesis which I don't think is valid english but it amuses me so I'll let it stay.

So what's been going on aside from boring work deadlines?

Still haven't found a roommate. The bike guy has been given a "we need an answer by today" e-mail so there's still a possibility there though he's beginning to feel extremely high maintenance so I'm not sure how I really feel about him. However, the hope of getting someone in so that my roommate isn't covering yet another month of rent is minimal this late in the month if he doesn't take it.

But in better news, despite having to cancel my day off for my birthday and the Monday after a very good time was had on the southern Californian Disney and puzzle hunt adventure. I shall put this part behind a cut as I suspect it is likely to be long.

So my roommate designs puzzles as a hobby. He sort of does it for a living as well though those are coding problems his designs for google, but he does what he typically calls puzzle events. He had been talking about doing one for a group of our mutual friends for quite awhile and around the start of this year planned a vacation down south that would include such a hunt that he designed. (It has been amusing living with him since he's often come out and started to say something and then gone "whoops, I can't say anything about the puzzles")

Anyway, it just so happened that the weekend that worked for everyone happened to be my birthday weekend, which made it even better for me (I was only insufferable once when I insisted in riding in a car with my closer friends rather than my roommate and his friend that I...dislike is a strong word but haven't been impressed with in the past, lets say. I was later very glad of this decision as he apparently drives like a fiend from hell and weaves in and out of traffic and I would probably have been stressed the entire way, even if I would have gotten places much faster)

So we ended up meeting at my place on the afternoon of my birthday and going to collect the two friends that live further south after a bit of wine since some of us were off a couple of hours earlier than the rest. And then we were off though we did stop in for mexican food before heading out. Which reminds me, I do take back the not being insufferable a bit...I did insist on real food rather than fast food a couple of times on the trip as well.

We didn't actually reach the hotel till almost 2:30 am which was...late. Especially given the first thing up on our plate was Disneyland (a place that I've always gone to with people who milk every single minute of it being open) So we basically fell into bed immediately after receiving the tshirts that my roommate had made for the event...this was important because they were also a puzzle.

Me being me I woke up basically four hours before everyone else so I was glad that I had A) brought a book and my kindle and B) had a puzzle to solve while I waited for everyone to catch up to the unfortunate wakefulness trend. I didn't manage to solve the puzzle on the shirt despite working with my friend David on it though by the time we were in the car to Disneyland I had the insight that would allow us to solve it later. So go me!

Disneyland itself was fairly good though my roommate and his friend do it every year. Thus they had a very definite agenda about doing the parks and there wasn't a lot of...stop and smell the plastic that I normally associate with Disneyland. We also had a few puzzles to solve related to a toon ride (license plates on the cards on the ride), space mountain (we had to count the number of left turns on the ride to solve that one) and tower of terror (the answer was determined by how they load the ride)

I had an okay time though the not eating real food that persisted until I put my foot down the day we left started home (My one attempt to leave the park to eat in downtown disney instead of having expensive awful park food was looked at with a bit of horror, for instance) I think I like my other friends more laid back approach to the park other than the run here, run there, do this. We spend the day from about noon till closing there and we didn't even actually MAKE it to all of the park because some parts of it were out of favor, one assumes *laugh*.

We did however ride Star Tours, Space Mountain, Tower of Terror, The Indiana Jone's ride, the blaster one which name escapes me, and I forced everyone to ride the rapid's ride in CA adventure when it was already mostly dark because a theme park visit isn't a theme park visit until you end up shivering due to ill advised water ride riding (ask me about the time I went three times on a rapids ride while it was hailing, for instance ;-)

There were also drinks at one of the bars in CA adventure and all in all it was a good time.

I'm actually going to stop here for the moment as this is getting rather long and the puzzle hunt part promises to be even longer. I want to post before going to lunch as my luck the computer would crash and I'd lose everything I've already written :-)

herefox @ 2016-07-11T14:31:00

2016-07-11T21:31:20Z

Brief update.

Just had another roommate turn us down. Uncle died. Work sucks.

Anyone have a bed I can hide under?

Because there needed to be one thing more

2016-07-08T16:03:12Z

Last night, exhausted from work, allergies and the fact that I'm not sure there's not been a single week in the last month where there wasn't horrible news about more people being shot I was playing a game where I make little dwarves dance to my will. As one does when they feel the need to pretend to be a benevolent god. Then my phone rang.

Looking at it I was unnerved to see it was from my mom's phone...now, mom doesn't call me. She never calls me. On major holidays and my birthday I have to call my mom instead of her calling me (incidentally she gets sad/upset if I don't call on those days without a prior excuse about why I can't call on my birthday. Mom...bit of a martyr complex as much as I love her ;-)

So she only calls when there's bad news.

Which there was. One of my uncles had fallen and hit his head. His wife, my favorite aunt growing up though we've drifted quite a bit apart these days, had been for the last few years working in San Jose while maintaining an apartment in Gilroy where my uncle was staying (he was a shut in who hadn't worked in years...the last time I visited them I saw neither hide nor hair of him for the six hours that I was at their house)

This meant he wasn't found for quite some time, had bleeding in his brain and, while in the hospital, is presumed to be only supported on life support now and even if he survives the removal of said support, likely to have sustained major brain damage.

So that happened. Apparently the police were very rude and unpleasant to my aunt about why she wasn't there when he fell. Because people don't need to, you know, work and stuff.

Anyway, I'm sad but not devastated by this although perhaps it will hit me later and I'll be more upset. In some ways it may be something that actually makes my aunt's life easier (which I sort of feel horrible for saying but it's how I feel a bit)

Today walking into work one of my colleagues, as the first thing she said to me, commented that I looked exhausted. Yes. Yes I am. I could greatly use time where I didn't have a single thing to worry about. This does not, however, appear to be on the horizon anytime soon.

In other news we have two more roommate interviews this evening after which I hope that we will be able to make a decision/secure someone to pay the third of the rent that I can't afford to really help pay.

Stop the world, I want to get off

2016-07-06T22:08:44Z

Actually it's not as bad as all that but I couldn't think of anything wittier.

Once again a long absence from posting. This time it's 99% to blame on work as I have a huge deadline I'm in the midst of (Long story short. We usually budget sponsored research across the whole school but this year they asked me to do it across the departments instead. This increased the amount of work by a factor of 12. And no that's not an exaggeration. Also we're doing the new process in a brand new system that still has bugs in it. My life is fun right now)

However I'm seizing the moment to write because A) I love you all and B) I got to a point where I need to start digging into the budgets in more detail and I figured that milestone lets me take a tiny bit of a break, especially as I have to leave early for book club tonight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor)

So you get my babbling for a bit.

We still haven't found a roommate. There are two sort of on the hook right now (and one that's being flaky) but one would be decided on the basis of only a phone call as he's moving up from San Diego to work at Stanford. He is also a straight non-furry so I can see it being a bit fraught possibly.

The other my roommate may be meeting tonight in my absence. Given that he kind of liked the guy that horrified me by, while we were sitting at the dining room table discussing the room and complex, got up and started going through the kitchen cabinets, taking stuff out and commenting about the contents. I was fairly sure if we'd let him move in he'd have done the same thing with our bedrooms! So this meeting without me may not be the best idea but what can you do?

The flaky one we both liked but he's in limbo with not being sure if he'll land a job in SF or down our way. So it's fairly understandable why he might not want to commit to one or the other.

In other news...well, there really isn't any other news. I am fried. Very, very fried. I do have a short vacation for a trip to southern California with friends to do a puzzle hunt (my roommate designs them as a job/hobby and is tailoring this one to us) So that will be fun but it's right before my deadline is actually, you know, due, so that's a bit stressful too.

I stop being the answer to life, the universe and everything a week from tomorrow.

First drawing I've finished in a long time

2016-06-11T02:10:24Z

Half tempted to try painting this in gray scale with just light tints in places because I always like when people do that with photographs.

The scan isn't that great, getting a shadow on the page but my scanner is sort of balanced on the bed right now rather than being on a flat surface due to tv drama and rearranging stuff. Still, it turned out not so bad, I suppose. I find I've been not wanting to draw animals that much as late. I'm sure that will pass soon.

herefox @ 2016-06-07T15:35:00

2016-06-07T22:35:52Z

Trying to be much better about posting (though I haven't had a chance to catch up with READING this week) It helps if I have a picture or something I want to post which is why you've been getting inundated by them lately.

The weekend was pretty good. I actually took Friday off as I wasn't feeling very well so by the time Saturday rolled around I felt up to actually getting some stuff done. Which was good as my brand new, shiny, new handmade coffee table was due to arrive. Which it did.

For those playing at home, a somewhat sad picture of it.

Hand made redwood all from the same tree. It raises and lowers so it can be used as a sideboard and it also can be folded up and moved out of the way should we need the space free. Very happy with it.

Also on Saturday my friend Kurt stopped by so there were mimosas, games and cooking shows. Good day.

Sunday I took it a bit easy other than doing laundry since I had done a great deal the day before.

Work doom approaches in the sense of the budgeting process starting up soon (technically it HAS started but I can't do anything yet) It's new this year and a lot more work so it will remain to be seen how insane I am by the end of it.

Did not go running during lunch or before work today. Fail. I need to start doing that again. Instead, however, I baked the following lemon handheld fruit pies a la hostess (I didn't frost them though. Started to but then decided to see how they are without)

Other than that I'm in a better head space about some things than I have been in a long time. Other things remain screwed up but one thing at a time, right? ;-)

Oh, and in case you're wondering, no movement on the roommate situation yet.

The only problem....

2016-05-31T22:47:55Z

With telecommuting is that typically I start my Tuesday night dinner during the work day. Means I can make more complicated things and sometimes make dessert. However....I have to smell things cooking all day.

Tonight's dinner is a roasted garlic and caramelized tomato sauce with zucchini, red pepper and crumbled chicken parmesan sausage served with a green salad and garlic bread. The sauce has been cooking since about 1 today and the garlic was before that.

My stomach has been growling for the last hour. Also there's an open bottle of wine that was used in the sauce just sitting there tempting me when work stupid happens ;-)

A rare weekend post

2016-05-29T15:36:13Z

Mostly to say; and....the paperbacks are done. Still so much to do around the house but at least the two most daunting things are done.

About two tote bags of books that I shall sadly donate to the rest of the world. Most of the books aren't bad, they're just things that I don't see myself rereading. It's still sad sometimes because there are occasionally books I've had for almost thirty years.

There's much cleaning left to be done. Yesterday was an entire wash as I played video games pretty much all day. And finished season one of Lucifer, which...fucking cliffhangers (in a good way)

My new coffee table should be arriving next week! Very excited. Pictures, of course, shall be forthcoming. It's far more my style than the one my roommate had even though his was quite nice. I picked up the best coasters ever as well...

Otherwise a quiet evening. I really should go running but given how bad my allergies were most of the week I'm also wanting to limit my exposure to, you know, outside so we'll see.

Sorry for the picture heavy post. There were many things that amused me. I'm hoping in between other things that I'll find the energy to finish up the drawing I'm working on this weekend.

Once again

2016-05-23T17:42:23Z

It has been ages since I posted. It's not really intentional, I had a bunch of things I wanted to talk about but life being what it is I never got around to it. Highlights as follows:

Went to New Mexico to visit family: It was a fairly good visit, a little slow. Made a tour of
Craft breweries in the area off and on because it was something to do. Made a few good discoveries

Went to Reno for Biggest little fur con. Had fun. Lost money gambling as one does, saw awesome
Jazz concerts by Reveille and the Swinging Tails. Ate too much food. Drank too much but never
got really drunk, failed at giving away ALL the cookies (browned butter sea salt and oatmeal
cranberry. I think the main reason is that they didn't pair well with beer *grin*)

Found out one of my roommates is moving out.

This last was the main reason I hadn't posted. It took a while for my roommate to tell my OTHER roommate and I didn't want to blab it all over the internet and have him find out accidentally. There was no real reason that it took so long, it's just that the roommate needing to be told is having a shit time at work lately and is never home and it's the sort of thing that you probably shouldn't do via text message if you can help it.

Long and short is that my roommate bought a house and, rightly, would like to actually live in said house. He'd actually mentioned he was looking but from what I knew of the real estate market in the
area I expected this take months and months (to be fair, I think he did too) It took about two.

So good for him and all that, he gave me enough notice of his looking that I wasn't mad (unlike the last roommate that did this. HIM it took me ages to forgive)

Anyway...we are (sort of) currently looking for a replacement. As of last night he's staying through June so it's a little less time critical that one may have thought. Which is good because it's involving much furniture swapping and organizing of things and these things take time. And given that neither of the others are home much a lot of what needs to be done is sort of falling to me. As these things tend to do (I think it's because I'm the one that CARES about them half of the time)

And that's my life at the moment. In the realm of good news my brother went to the doctor for the first time in twenty or so years and, surprising no one, was diagnosed with moderate to severe depression and given medication. Which, in shocking news, he's actually going to take. He'd always said he'd never take this sort of thing. Keep your fingers crossed that he will do so and he gets lucky with the med fairies and they line up with the one he was prescribed. He also had a host of other things that they told him, they're checking into his persistent stomach issues and he's annoyed about being over 200 pounds and actually mentioned, unprompted, about going to the gym with my mom.

I'm expecting that soon little leprechauns will be showing up accusing me of stealing their lucky charms given how likely any of that stuff is. Here's hoping he follows through!

And that, as they say, is that! I had lots of pictures of food to show y'all but they're not really relevant at the moment. Have pictures of my new organized hardcovers instead (I wished I'd taken a before pic)

It's Wednesday!!!!

2016-03-30T19:45:44Z

I'm not actually excited about Wednesday but I felt the need to have some exclamation points somewhere. Sort of a fake it till you make way of approaching the rest of my day, I guess.

Everything continues to be busy. Mom was in the hospital for part of last week and the weekend with a chest infection. I got very angry at her doctor telling her that she probably had pneumonia and then CANCELLING her appointment. If I'd been in the state the Dr. might have been picking up pieces of himself.

She's doing sort of okay now, still sick. They did see something funky when they scanned her chest...hoping it's just something from the infection and not something else...keep your fingers crossed.

Given it's the first year in ages where we've gotten more than minimal rain, everything is blooming. It's also been windy. This has led to my having a headache almost instantly every time I walk out the door. It's fun for the whole family.

Other than that. Baked Guinness gingerbread yesterday to have with corned beef, colcannon and roasted broccoli. Colcannon was not popular, people didn't like having vegetation infesting their starches apparently, but everything else was a success: here was the cake.

I also finished and gave away my third baby blanket to my good work friend Jennifer. I think it turned out well (Pictures after cut because I don't want you whole timeline to be fox made things)

And that's all from the peanut gallery, I guess. (My mom uses that all the time, I've never looked it up for fear that it's some weird racist thing that I've accidentally used for years. Sometimes ignorance is bliss) I need to do the zombie run 5k ASAP but I have book club tonight so it may not be till tomorrow...I didn't get much running time in prior so I suspect it's going to be a pathetic time but at least I'll have done it.

How is the rest of the universe?

Ugh

2016-03-11T22:19:15Z

I know, I know, it's been ages again. Sooner or later work will actually kill me instead of my just saying it will kill me and then you'll be sorry!

I have, unfortunately, had a sinus headache since Tuesday. It has been varying in degree but it's definitely making the get stuff done quotient very small. Which is bad because more and more pressure is coming down the pipe to become a developer extraordinaire! We'll see how that goes. Let me tell you I'd better get a hell of a bonus sometime this year.

Other than that, Consonance was last weekend. A good time was had though it was bit more mellow than some previous years. The dead dog was already starting to die down around 11:00! It was the first one in a bit where I spent a great deal on cds though due to collecting things I didn't have an picking up Jeff and Maya's new cd.

In other news I've read about four books this week, two of them which had just come out. I have been attempted to knit like the wind as I have exactly a week and change to finish a baby blanket I'm only 2/3rds done with. My TV in my bedroom died and a replacement has been ordered. My desktop computer also appears to be dead which leads me to believe that I should not trust my UPS any more. I can probably resurrect the desktop with a new power supply though.

I didn't really draw much at the con since there was the whole knitting like the wind thing. I did however color a bit because I found a nifty fox card and it was a good break from windy knitting. It turned out okay, I think.