Wow, nearly a month without posting. Much too long. I shall endeavor to do better. In the meantime, here's some catchup and summary stuff:
Ruth got an iPod. I do not own an iPod. If you'd asked any one of our friends, they'd have told you there was zero chance that she'd get one before I did. Now she walks all over the house with little white buds in her ears, primarily listing to my playlist of peppy music.
I'm car shopping. Honda Civic LX, 5 speed manual, any color except white, silver or black. My purchase plan is simple: I know where one is, and I'm walking in with a checkbook. I'll tell the salesman "This is what I want." Then I'll write a check and say "This is what I'll pay for it, out the door." If he says yes, I sign the check and get a car. If he says no, I tear it in half, give him the half with my phone number on it, and go to the next dealer. There are five dealers within an hour's drive. Four have a car that meets my specs, and I've not checked the fifth yet.
Once I have a new car with an iPod interface, I'll get an iPod.
The last of the issues from my father-in-law's estate have settled out, with the house selling in under a month from putting it on the market through closing the sale. We're going to have a picnic memorial for him in July. It'll be at the park across the street from where he and Ruth Sr. lived for so many years, next to the benches and trees planted in their name.
I continue to listen my way through the 2005 South by Southwest Music Festival samples. I've listend to 250 or so songs enough to rate them 1-5. The bad news: 170 or so are 1 or 2, which means they'll be deleted once I'm thru the list. Only 16 are 4 or 5 stars. The good news: Of those 16, I have purchased or will purchase at least 20 CDs. My high runners so far: The Be Good Tanyas, Jolie Holland, Ambulance Ltd, Bloom, Susan Cowsill (of *those* Cowsills), Global Soul, Abra Moore, Alecia Nugent, Parade, Pam Tillis and a few others. Better, there are only two artists/bands in the high runners list that I'd even heard of. Still better, some of the 3's (which means I want to listen to them more) are coming out of genres that I either don't care for or intermix in odd ways - latino hiphop cowboy, power-pop satire, etc. Yeah, there are a lot of duds in here, but the nuggets are more than plentiful enough to keep me digging. And of course, after this comes the 2006, 2007 and 2008 collections. With any luck I'll finish before 2009.
Odd find of the lot:
Tammy Faye Starlite and the Angel Band. Country-western-rock satire of right-wing fundamentalist televangism, and
absolutely filthy. One reviewer describes her as "sort of a Pia Zadorable look-alike who pulls off an alter ego possessed by Tammy Wynette, Jesus Christ and Wild Turkey." Another says "When it comes to complete and utterly wonderful depravity, few have ever dropped their drawers, exposed every orifice and let out a lustful holler with as much panache as Miss Tammy Faye Starlite, whose self-released EP, On My Knees, sets a new standard for countrified carnality." Yep.
After swearing off buying new books last September, I have read down my 'to be read' pile . . . well, not considerably, but 20 or 30 books are gone from it. This week I made my first significant book buy since January, picking up "Matter" by Ian M. Banks and "The Terror" by Dan Simmons. I also replaced my falling-apart copy of Christopher Moore's "Lamb" with a new hardback release that looks like a bible. Gotta love it...
Travel, travel, travel. Between the convention circuit, business travel and family visits I'll spend every other weekend out of town from now through the end of July. One of the highlights will be the Cartel (hard to explain) meeting at Stanford, preceeded by a weekend visiting friends in the Bay area. And of course, there's always Anthrocon. For the first time since starting at the University I'm actually going to use an entire years vacation allocation in one year. For you on the SF convention front, look for me at Confluence and Marcon.
Work continues good, in spite of being peripherally involved in the project from hell. I spend a lot of time reading code and shaking my head, but it's all tolerable: I can either say 'no' to the code and turn it back for rewrite/redesign, or rewrite it myself without having to answer to the original author - and
he isn't allowed to reject my changes. I expect to cause more stress than I receive. :-)
Caitlyn continues her quest to be the worlds cutest baby, except that soon she'll have to move up a weight class and compete in the toddler division:
You can't really tell by the photo, but she has huge china blue eyes.
pissed off![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
tired
blah