Omphaloskepsis  -

+ 3 - 3 | § ¶The weekend

Last weekend turned out to be pretty productive. I found three more boxes of books in my storage facility (including some Buffy hardcovers, most of the Roswell and Roswell High books, all of my Star Trek young adult books, and some odds and ends), and got them partially entered into the database. Joe and I got the fridge cleaned out, and did several loads of laundry. I went grocery shopping, and got Pepsi, Banquet frozen dinners, and Hot Pockets... if there is an up-side to Josh leaving, it's that I can eat cheaply again and save some money.

I also stopped by the Acme Comics... they had the final issue of the Spider-Man: The Other crossover (#12), even though #10 and #11 haven't come out yet. I guess that's one of the difficulties with a crossover between three different series. Marvel had the same problem with their Star Trek: Telepathy War crossover in the mid-1990's: The the issues came out in random order, with one of the middle issues running (IIRC) about a month late.

And because I missed it a few days ago, January 27th was the 14th anniversary of my first Usenet post (that E-mail address no longer works, BTW). Unfortunately, this particular post showed a misunderstanding of the concept of Usenet, seeing it as more of a mailing list that one actively subscribed to than a discussion area that one passively read. It appears that my second post, from March 28, 1992, was a little more on-topic.

davidh

+ 3 - 3 | § ¶Aunt update, presentations, and traffic

I heard from my grandmother this morning. It turns out that what she thought was another stroke last night was actually my aunt's blood sugar level getting extremely low. When that happened, she got confused, as often happens after a stroke. After they diagnosed her at the hospital, they gave her glucose and sent her back home, where she is currently doing much better. This is a big relief, though Aunt Garland is still suffering from the effects of the first stroke a few days ago.

I gave a presentation to $Supervisor.boss().boss() this afternoon. I felt woefully underprepared... I was still adding statistics and charts to the presentation literally seconds before I was pulled into the meeting. Surprisingly, it turned out quite well. The information I presented was apparently just what he was looking for, and I even got a "Congratulations": He'd had some doubts as to whether the plan $Supervisor and I had chosen would be effective, but the results (so far) have been very good.

Tonight after work, I saw a guy in a van run a red light. He had been sitting in the left turn lane for several minutes, far ahead of the stop line, which meant that the traffic lights would not notice that there was anybody waiting. Having compassion for the foolish driver, I pushed the pedestrian crosswalk button as I passed the corner, which initiated the cycle to give him a green light. However, he was not patient enough; he ran the light about ten seconds before he got the green. When will people learn that stop lines aren't just suggestions, but are actually useful for drivers to obey?

davidh

+ 6 - 0 | § ¶Bad news #2

My great-great-aunt Garland, in Creston, Iowa, had a stroke a couple of days ago, and another one tonight, just a few minutes ago. Prayers are requested for her, my grandmother who has been taking care of her, and my whole family.

davidh

+ 4 - 2 | § ¶Gone

Josh has moved back to Colorado.

He informed me Saturday night, after I got back from Bloomington-Normal, that he was going to fly back to Colorado Springs on Tuesday night.

I don't know if this is permanent. I hope not, but I think it might be.

I'm coping. Trying to keep busy with stuff, to keep my mind occupied. Watching CSI: Miami (last night's episode) and 24 (finally watched the first three hours, minus the last 10 minutes of the second hour, due to football delaying the show). Organizing books on the shelves (I think I have a way of sorting my Star Trek books that will efficiently fill the available shelves, that also makes sense). Sorting mail. Reading LJs. Not going to bed. Et cetera.

And here I'd thought things were going fairly well.

davidh

Current Mood: trying not to be depressed

+ 6 - 1 | § ¶Interviews, Schedules, and Embezzlement (oh my!)

Okay, it's been quite a while since I last updated. Here are a few posts that I'd been working on individually, all omnibussed together.

1) While in Creston for Christmas, Josh came up with the idea of creating an audio history of my family. We got a tape recorder and interviewed my grandmother and my great-great-aunt about various things... jobs they'd had, places they'd been, people they'd met, things they'd done, and most importantly, memories of ancestors that I'd never known. I learned quite a bit about my family through the process, and I'd like to continue the interviews with my parents and maybe some other aunts and uncles.

2) My old 9:30 or 10:00 starts to the workday have come to an end.

$Client is trying to reduce the number of contract workers they have, one of whom is me (one that they have, not necessarily one they want to reduce). So we're all coming under scrutiny. $Supervisor's boss talked to him about my hours. My later-than-typical hours have been beneficial to me, as they have allowed me to do certain work after normal business hours, where it won't impact many users if something goes wrong. However, this has had the side-effect of me not being in as early as other people, so if there is a problem first thing in the morning, it might be an hour or two before it's noticed and fixed if I'm not in.

On January 4th, I was asked to start coming in at 8:30am. All things considered, this wasn't an unfair request (okay, more of a requirement than a request), but I have a bad habit of procrastination in the morning. So far, I've made it in at or before 8:30 on all but two days; on one, I got in by 9:00, and on the other, I called in to let $Supervisor know I had an appointment that morning that would keep me out later.

3) The far half of the laundry side of the basement has been cleaned out, and my computer has been moved over there, along with a new chair that my brother Doug got me for Christmas (the back of the chair I'd been using had fallen off), and the couch from the TV side of the basement that had been belonged to my grandmother (dad's mom). The near half is a bit messy now with some of the stuff from the far side, but it's a whole lot more organized on the average.

4) Psi Phi restarted on January 18th. During the Chief of Operations report, I admitted to having borrowed money from the club's bank account last summer, without the club's knowledge or permission. I stated that I had now repaid the full amount, including bounced check fees the club had incurred when they had less money than they thought they did (and when I hadn't kept up with the expenses that I knew about in terms of paying it back), that I was sorry for doing so, that I would not do it again, and that I would take my name off of the bank account (once the newly-elected Captain and returning Grand Nagus were added to the account.

Eric (Xeen), as Captain, said that on behalf of the other officers, all was forgiven, since (a) the money has all been paid back now, and (b) it was my money to begin with. (Half of the money that Amazon sends me each quarter for people buying books and DVDs through links like this one, I donate to the club for their use, and the other half, I use on expenses such as hosting fees for the website. I started doing that voluntarily back in the late 1990's (which led to the club removing the requirement of members paying dues), and it's not required by the club that I continue doing so, though I do plan to keep on doing it.)

[As a side note, I know of at least three former Grand Naguses (Nagi?) who had used the club's treasury as a temporary personal fund during their respective tenures, each one paying the money back by the end of the semester. No, I'm not going to name names. But this sort of thing is hardly unprecedented in the club.]

Still, it was the wrong thing to do, and I am sorry for what I did. In particular, I'd like to apologize to Joel O., Elizabeth, and Jon, for putting them in a position where they had to keep this knowledge from the club toward the end of last semester.

5) At long last, all of my books have been catalogued. Or at least, all of the books that are in the house... there must still be at least one box of books out in storage since I know I am missing several Babylon 5 books. With my books and Josh's combined, there were about 675 books. They are stored in a MySQL database, accessed by a Perl program with a web front-end that I wrote myself; upon entering an ISBN, it fetches certain information from Amazon.com using AWS, and lets you edit it before actually storing it in the database; there's also a comments field where I can note things about the book, e.g. that it has been signed by one or more of the authors. It's not the prettiest thing, but it gets the job done. Now I just need to get it mirrored here on the site, and everybody can browse my library. :-)

davidh

+ 4 - 2 | § ¶New kitties

On New Year's Eve, Josh and I adopted two more cats. Originally brought home by my brother Doug from a restaurant co-worker, the two female littermates stayed at Dad's house when Doug moved out. However, Dad's allergic to these cats (not all cats, apparently just this breed, whatever that may happen to be), so he was not able to devote a lot of time to taking care of them and playing with them.

Doug had named them Sunny and Sable, but since they looked so similar, I could never figure out which one was which; I unofficially dubbed them "Itty Bitty Kitty" and "Medium". However, "Medium" soon outgrew the name, so I then started calling her "Big Kitty". (It turns out that Sunny was so named because, despite being mostly grey, her face had a lot of yellow and orange, so she was sunny. Sable, on the other hand, had a darkish face; sable is a dark brown color.) However, Josh and I each picked out a new name. Josh gave Sunny (aka "Big Kitty") the new name Nancy, after Nancy Reagan... we've now got Ronnie and Nancy (though they haven't met face-to-face yet). :-) I gave Sable (aka "Itty Bitty Kitty") the new name Grace. Josh was hoping for a First Lady name, while I wanted something sci-fi-related, and we ended up with both. She's officially named after Grace Lee Whitney (who played Yeoman Janice Rand in the original Star Trek), but there is also a First Lady Grace: Grace Coolidge, wife of Calvin Coolidge.

For the moment, we're keeping them segregated in the front bedroom, to let them get accustomed to the new surroundings and make a part of the house "theirs". Patches II has been sniffing at the door, so he seems to know they're on the other side. I suspect he will get along with them just fine, assuming that they get along well with him. (Or even if they don't... Patches I doesn't like Patches II, but II likes I.) Ronnie I'm less sure about, but hopefully he will at least play nice with them. Patches I is still staying in our bedroom away from the other cats, so she probably won't meet Nancy or Grace on her own. I may try to introduce them at some point... we'll see.

davidh