October 2005

Amanda’s birthday week, and I didn’t even include a photo of her. Just ones taken by her, as all the last batch were hers. So I present a photo, taken by a guy from work who may or may not actually know how to operate a camera. Also, we are very much un-sober.

Just some more photo spamming. Some pics of the last week’s parties.

As promised from before, behold some of the work from Big Basin Redwoods State Park that I did a while ago. Working hard!

Going to physical therapy after not doing my exercises for nearly a week was punishment in and of itself. Especially after the bruising week I’ve had (literally). But Matt, my PT, definitely had some “fun” things for me to do to make up for the fact that I hadn’t done my homework and that I’d cancelled on him on Wednesday in order to better nurse my hangover.

Saturday night I drank too much, was out too late, did too much stuff, ran into a door (I think) and got a bruise on my arm. Sunday at work, I fell through the floor of our warehouse mezzanine (not my fault!), resulting in grid shaped bruising on my left thigh, and a nice bruise on my right knee, just where I normally have all my pain. Tuesday was a trip to San Francisco, a concert that I just wasn’t into, and then lots of tequila with Amanda for her birthday. Resulting in a Wednesday where I cancelled my PT appointment, and the biggest ambition I had was driving out to Amanda’s in the afternoon, then walking to Coffee Society for a cuppa.

I’m ready to slow the hell down again. Less drinking, more working out. Right.

I definitely need to put the brakes on. Too much stuff going on, followed with too much beer and tequila. It’s like college all over again. Maybe I need to learn to meditate.

It has arrived! Bryan and I ordered the latest George R.R. Martin installment of his “Song of Ice and Fire” series from Amazon UK and it arrived yesterday afternoon. A full two-and-a-half weeks before its release in the US. Not that we’ll get to reading it much before the US release date… I was nearly done with my last book (Shockwave by Stephen Walker) when A Feast For Crows arrived on our doorstep. In order to get the most out of the fourth book, I’m going to start at the beginning and read straight through. If I cut out everything else in my life…even at the speed I read, it’ll take a while. See you on the other side!

I’m minding my own business, surfing along some of my favorite sites, when I am struck by a particular banner ad.

You must be kidding me.

But the re-direct from clicking on the banner will send you to what I can only describe as a loser lifestyle page. Bryan says I’m coming down too hard on the social pariahs (my words, not his) that choose Magic: The Gathering over other teen vices like phone calls, personal hygene, music, television, movies (that aren’t Star Wars or its derivatives), or (again) personal hygene. The reality may be that M:TG players are a kind-hearted, soap-using, diverse-interest crowd, but that’s an alternate reality from the omg-emo, soap-eschewing, single-minded-troll-card-intensity crowd that haunts mall comic book stores. (If anyone read my blog, I’d expect dork-penned hate mail in volumes, but instead, Bryan will just tell me I’m judgmental and remind me again that I should read Harry Potter. In addition, perception is reality, no matter how much people try and say otherwise.)

Here’s the thing that irks me about M:TG. It is single-minded. While its players may occasionally stray into Hot Topic, for the most part they are narrowly focused on the comic book store where they can feed their card need, as well as stock up on comic books and pewter dragons with Be-Dazzler eyes. I may be a geek, but I have more than one hobby. Even in high school, where I was geeked out, I fell into more than one loser category. I was a band geek, a theatre nerd, a journalism dork, and in addition, I was on the basketball team. Say what you want about my geek cred, but I was diverse, and did more than sit behind the portables after school and have a gathering.

So go ahead dorkdom, tell me you have more than one interest. “OMGWTFBEDAZZLEDBBQ I play M:TG and D&D!” I can probably take you in a fight and/or outrun you after I steal your preciousssssss cards. Nyah.

I read, with great excitement, about a live-action performace of Buffy’s “Once More, With Feeling” which would be taking place in San Francisco. Bryan and I even debated going, pending my work schedule. But now, there’s no performance, because FOX has their panties in a wad. Jason Schultz’s LawGeek blog has a better write up on this topic than I could ever produce, but I would like to add my token protest here.

In addition, I sometimes wish that Joss got to own his legacy, rather than FOX having the final say. If Joss is actually ok with this performance, why can’t this group perform? Here’s hoping their Hail Mulder works.

Photos are forthcoming, which is lame of me since I saw Jenine today.

Yesterday, I had a loooong day. I left the house at 7:30am, and headed out to Big Basin Redwoods State Park. It’s a short drive from my house; just an hour despite traffic. Most of that time is because the mountain roads are single lane and twisty. Five of us from work went out to assist their trail crew and the Sempervirens organization to…well, “clean” several redwood groves. Now, if you’re not familiar with the fantastic California redwood, or Sequoia sempervirens, please do some reading. They’re amazing trees.

Basically, the Sempervirens organization buys up land that abuts Big Basin State Park, which encompasses the entire Waddell Creek watershed. (We were working on the opposite side of the park from where I did that bike ride in August.) They help inspire folks with money to purchase the land surrounding the park, and then deed that land back to the state parks system. The park itself has gone from its inception (in 1902) at around 3000 acres, to now covering over 22,000 acres. Most of the land has been given to the park system through the work of the Sempervirens. If you look at their completed projects, it’s quite easy to see the impact they have made on the park. The work wasn’t hard at all. It was barely “trail maintence” as I know it. We went in to an area that was to be viewed by some people who might want to buy it. We basically picked up and moved large branches and made a trail using the branches to point the way to strategic groves of trees, which we then cleared of branches, to invite people to step inside and witness the amazing circle of trees. The average buyer is much older than your general hiker, and needed a bit more coaxing to enter the woods. We were out there facilitating the “oh how pretty!” oohs and ahhs, to hopefully get these people to buy parcels of land. Really, the concept of cleaning the forest is silly, but if it gets these folks to do what it takes to save more land, then I’ll build a highway made of sticks from one side of the state to the other.

After the park work, I did an eight-hour day at actual work, where I did not do so well in the area of attention-span. “Two ears and one brain cell” was what I kept telling my staff as they asked me questions and received a blank stare in return. Then I headed home just before 10:30pm. Today I had physical therapy, and was just beat, so Matt did ultrasound on my knees before we did any other work. Makes the knees happy!

(Big cheers to anyone who can correctly identify that particular subject line.)

I use Bloglines to follow about 61 RSS feeds. Two sites that I love, but wouldn’t have time to read outside of syndication are MAKE: blog, which features DIY goodness like this monster wreath for Halloween, and Lifehacker, which features a slew of items to help one use one’s computer to be more productive (and less procrastinative…which is now a word). As Lifehacker preaches: “Don’t live to geek; geek to live.”

All this is an introduction to my new favorite online gadget to go with Bloglines. Remember The Milk. To quote their own mission statement:

Managing to-do lists is generally not a fun way to spend your time. We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand.

Frankly, I’d use this just to make sure Bryan got to his appointments on time. Rather than have him banned from my dentist for flaking on two consecutive appointments, he would have been pinged in Adium or gotten an SMS to his phone to remind him that he should go. It would be a whole revolution in living with Bryan! But I can also use it to ping myself for birthday reminders (which can be set annually!) and to remember that I have physical therapy next week at 11am instead of the usual 10 am. I can also remind myself to make those two phone calls I’ve been meaning to make. It can ping me via AIM or send me an email to home or work. Better yet, I can email myself a Milk-memo (as I’m going to call them) which will then get converted to a reminder! It can even export to iCal, for those who use it.

Remember The Milk has only been live for three days, and is still in beta. I think it’ll knock your socks off.

We have a camera at work that we can use. This evening I used it to take a picture of one of the guys wearing a horrible “fur” vest that we sell. It’s faux.

Darla: Do you know how many fake animals died to make that vest?
Kim: That’s a lot of Care Bears!

But I’m getting away from my point. My point is that we have a camera. And this photo has been floating around our store for more than a month. Sarah said she wanted to be featured in my blog more. Ta-da!

The fall television season is well underway these days. My TiVo is quite full, and my shows are fairly diverse. I remember the “good old days” when I watched only one or two shows. Of course, if I’d had TiVo in 1998, I would have been watching more than just The X-Files, I’m sure.

However, one of the “problems” I’ve noticed is that I don’t even know when anything is on these days. I can usually tell you approximately when something is on, but while I can tell you that a show is aired on Wednesday, I probably can’t tell you what time or which station the show calls home. The only stuff I watch live is…well I watched 10 minutes of a college soccer game this morning… This is my tv crack. (In addition to my Netflix crack.)

Sunday
Family Guy
Desperate Housewives

Monday
How I Met Your Mother
Kitchen Confidential
Arrested Development
Prison Break

Tuesday
My Name is Earl
Bones
House

Wednesday
Veronica Mars
Lost

Thursday
Alias
CSI
Without A Trace

Friday
Malcolm in the Middle

Saturday
Saturday Night Live

Yes, I watch a lot, I guess. But without commercials, I’m saving a lot of time! All that tv is less than 10 hours a week (with commercials cut out, figuring 44 minutes for an hour-long drama, and 22 minutes for a half-hour drama). I don’t know how much tv your average person watches every week (and I’m afraid to know), but it’s probably more than 10 hours. Where do they get that kind of time? We’re already three weeks behind on Prison Break because there aren’t enough hours in the day to have a life and watch tv.