BunkBlog

_Thursday_

This turned into a truly random meandering thought, so bear with me. I don’t actually have a point.

I have a story that I’ve been writing since 1987, which I haven’t opened in months. I made character sketches in 1990. I made graphic designs of the hardware involved in 1994, so as to better visualize and explain it and avoid inconsistencies. It doesn’t look like I’ll be submitting that to Aboriginal Science Fiction after all (for those who don’t know, that mag is defunct now). Maybe I’ll finish it someday, but don’t hold your breath.

Funny how dreams and passions get waylaid, isn’t it? 13 years ago, I’d have assumed by now I’d be well-off and working as a computer geek somewhere. The details were unimportant to my 18-year-old self. It’s all about the details. Five years ago, I assumed I’d be single, living in California, being a beach bum and computer geek. I also had rediscovered my interest in writing (not poetry – I was never good at that) as well as my interest in creating graphics, both flat and 3D. I even started working on some new models and produced a corporate logo to spec in 1999. I was envisioning a solitary life of work, geek toys, and the Pacific hitting the rocks outside my house. Well, that didn’t happen. Life never works out as you expect, does it?

Life is good. I have a house of my own (It isn’t as large as my brother’s house, but it’s got a larger yard and I’m allowed to have a garden. Nyah!). My bride is amazing and we get along remarkably well on most days; I trust her with my heart and soul. The boy is the cutest and smartest toddler in the whole world. My job doesn’t make me want to kill people, pays well enough and it’s only 8 hours per day and no weekends (contrast to the previous 12 years). My debt is going down, and I’ve heard that my ex’s debt is going up. Kind of a personal vindication there. We cook varied meals, lots of desserts, and nobody cares if I do any situps or run 2 freakin’ miles ever. Pretty damned good.

Being somewhere you didn’t envision is not a bad thing. If life was predictable, what would be the point in living it? It’s a long and winding road, or the road less-traveled. Whichever allusion you prefer.

I tried being deep and mysterious for a while. It just felt like too much work to put on airs. So many people have a hard time just being themselves. There’s a guy I know named Mathew that I could probably write a good “thought” about someday. Not today though – today is all about me.

Is domesticity a bad thing? I don’t particularly enjoy going out to bars. When I was in the army, I’d go out with coworkers occasionally, but we had decent places to go that included decent food or pool tables sans coin returns. Just going to a bar doesn’t appeal. I’d much rather invite folks over to my house for an evening of drinks and talking. Maybe throw in a veggie platter or something and a party game. I don’t own any party games, but I’ve been told they can be fun.

I like spending time at home, curled up on the couch with a book, watching the boy play with his blocks. I enjoy putting together big towers for him to destroy. Does that make me boring? Well, good thing I don’t care about your opinion then. 😛

Art can sometimes invoke a reconsidering of life. Truly great art, anyway. The movie AI, for instance. Although the reviews belabored the film for its overuse of cliches and the visual bludgeoning at the Flesh Fair (which scene could have been cut a bit), it got people talking about important issues so it counts as good art. The issues that could be discussed include re-examining one’s life to see what’s truly important; looking past superficiality to another’s true intent; how anthropomorphizing objects can be cute in children and disturbing in adults; if people didn’t need other people, would we put up with each other? But, I digress. Wait, I had no point in the first place…

That cut on my hand was not fully healed after all. Or at least, that’s what the burning sensation from the phosphor must have meant last night when I was cleaning the tile. Still not as good a psychotic cleanser as the stuff we used professionally, but I don’t think there’s an industrial chemical supply house around here that will sell me sulfuric acid so my toilets will sparkle. 🙂

Last week I made a triple-layer cheesecake, which consisted of butterscotch, dark chocolate, and white chocolate layers of cheesecake, covered with candy drizzles on top. Oh, and it had a chocolate crust.

Since I rarely make anything “normal” and we still had a package of cream cheese left, I bought more cream cheese and baked a classic New York style cheesecake tonight. We’ll see how it turns out after it cools. I’m sure the top will crack, even though I’ve loosened the sides…

I’m pretty sure this isn’t what she wanted, but it’s what she asked for…

Be very careful with typos when you’re requesting userpics, I’m taking them all literally now. 😉
current_mood: evil

I’ve decided to not deign to answer those who purposely mangle their mother tongue online. No longer will I respond to anyone who asks me, “wat dew u lyke 2 yews 4 dat?” or any other inane crap. Typos are one thing, unfamiliarity with a language is another; purposely misspelling things just to be “kewl” is stupid, moronic, idiotic, and several other synonyms.

So, all you “leet” folks out there – piss off. I’m not going to answer your questions, except perhaps to tell you that you are not speaking any language I recognize. Phbt!
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current_mood: giddy

The boy has been repeating the tagline from the latest Carl’s Jr commercial all through dinner.

Doan bodda mee, I’m eating!

current_mood: amused

Quite probably the most physical exertion I’ve put forth in more than a year. This garden better have actual growing stuff when we’re done. Ouch, my shoulder…
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current_mood: exhausted

There are good months and bad months. This is a good one.

• I’m still married to a wonderful sexy woman who puts up with me with minimal complaint.
• The boy is still as cute as ever, and proving to a smart little boy.
• I’ve made record time on writing reports and such, despite two of the reviewers sucking up half of my alloted time just sitting on the documents.
• The IRS check showed up at the same time as my bonus from work, which was just in time to help with the closing costs on the house.
• As a friend needs some financial assistance to help with hospital costs, the VA finally comes through with the money they’ve owed me since October, which makes it easy to give away 2 grand without screwing up my own family.
• Same day I drop the check in the mail to pay my Amex corporate card, I get the settlement from the company for that trip.
• I’ve been told I may go to Hawaii on a business trip in August. Better than Omaha in February, you betcha!

That about sums it up. Go me!
current_music: Prince – Kiss
current_mood: happy

If you want to see what a pink house looks like on the inside, check out our photo album. The latest page includes photos of the new digs, the backyard, and a few of Alex being cute. Pretty much never going to escape those Boy pics.

Settling in for another long day of doing nothing while waiting for one of my eight bosses to do his job. Good thing I’ve got that Dashiell Hammett story on the Palm…
current_music: Texas – Say What You Want ( Rae & Chri
current_mood: frustrated

Welcome my little sister, , to Livejournal land! The first of my family to figure out how to enter a username and password when I sent them an invite code.

Now, start updating, girl.
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By popular request (OK, so it was one person but I thought it was cool), I’ve added another design to my retail experiment.

This one I’ve not yet integrated into my main page and may never bother to do so, as the store is so inherently time-limited.

That’s right, I’m capitalizing on the stress of others. Well, they asked me to! Camp Xray has opened. I’ll probably do up a Camp Xray2 for another design I’m working on, but figured I’d get this one up quickly. Hope you poor schmucks down in Cuba enjoy flipping off authority. Yep, thought you did.
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current_mood: sleepy

OK, we have a house. It’s amazing, I was beginning to doubt whether this would actually happen, but we are now living in our new house. We got all the heavy stuff and most of the other stuff moved today, and appliances and living room furniture delivered right on time. Woohoo!

Now we have to unpack those 8 million boxes, try to organize things in some coherent fashion, and I have to go to Omaha on Tuesday. Omaha, again…

Conversation that spread over 8 days, compressed for your viewing pleasure:

You need to send us these documents, some of which don’t exist on earth.
-OK, I'll make something up
*Dead Silence*
-Did you get the documents?
Yeah, and there are problems we weren’t going to mention until it was too late for you to get the mortgage approved.
-Great, so what's the problem this time, jerkwad?
We need a deferrment letter that states 12 months
-OK
…
-Here it is. Now what?
Great, but we meant 12 months from next week, not 12 months as any reasonable loan company defines time.
-Let me reach through the phone and strangle your stupid ass
…

Morons should not be allowed to handle money outside of a McDonald’s.

30 years ago, you knew how to type if you were a secretary or clerk.
15 years ago, you knew how to type if you were a geek.
Today, you know how to type, of course.
current_music: UB40 – If It Happens Again
current_mood:

Finals are over. Whatever I earned on those two tests, it’s out of my hands now. Thank goodness.

UMUC’s Distance Education program sure turned out to be a mixed bag. Good English class, albeit with some real stupid classmates; horrible Economics class, with even dumber classmates and an apathetic instructor. Hopefully these classes don’t drag my GPA down too much. It’s only 6 credits of 50, so I’m confident. 🙂
current_music: Cracker – Guarded By Monkeys
current_mood: relieved

I think there is little chance of the emailed gift certificate ever actually arriving for my mom’s birthday last month. The problem, of course, is all due to my entire family being computer-stupid. Not just computer-illiterate, but stupid. It’s like they don’t even consider learning anything I tell them. Why does my sister insist on using Hotmail when she has a perfectly good email address that belongs to the ISP she pays for? Why is the concept of email redirection (aliasing) so completely alien that neither my mom nor sister can wrap their minds around it?

Hotmail, for those who don’t know, is evil. They have this wonderful feature, enabled by default, called “Junk Mail Folder” which is intended to hijack spam and keep it out of your inbox. Considering that Microsoft seems to sell your Hotmail address to everyone on the planet, this seems like a peculiar thing to do. Kind of like taxing farm subsidies. Anyway, if your Hotmail address isn’t in the “To” or “CC” lines of an email, Hotmail assumes it is junk mail and throws it into the Junk Mail folder. Since I’ve grown tired of figuring out what my siblings’ email addresses are as they change more often than my home address, I’ve set up aliases for them. When I email mom@andysocial.com, for instance, it gets redirected to (get this) my sister’s email box. Why? Because my mom doesn’t have her own email, even though sis uses Hotmail and all of her kids have at least one email address each. Someone in that house can set Grandma up an email account, but nobody ever does.

Now, since the gift certificate from Amazon was sent to “mom” and not my sister’s Hotmail address, it got thrown in the Junk Mail. This is all my theory. Trying to get any kind of coherent conversation about computers from my family is like talking to a chipmunk. It may be amusing, but not very informative. So, I email my sister directly, with a CC to “mom” and tell her what to do if she does not see two copies of this email in her inbox. Does she do it? No. I have no confidence that my mom will ever get this gift certificate. I really should stick with paper when dealing with these twits.
current_music: Whodini – Freaks Come Out At Night
current_mood: annoyed

If you ever find yourself on a SkyWest plane that is going to somewhere larger than St. George, Utah, I’ve got some advice.

Don’t sit in row 13. There are only two seats in row 13 of the “larger” SkyWest planes, and the other half of the row is the tiny little bathroom. Imagine being in seat 13B, and everyone wanders by, bumps your armrest with their fat asses, and goes pee or worse. Whew! Glad I got rows 6 and 9 for my flights. hehe
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current_mood:

So, who has gotten jiggy with someone other than their SO with that SO’s permission? You know what I’m talking about: swinging, swapping, group sex, and so on. I know there are some folks on my “friends” list that have been there, done them…

How’d that go?
current_music: Smashing Pumpkins – Try Try Try
current_mood: curious

Sure am glad to be home. Omaha is a dull, dull, town. Sorry, anyone from Nebraska, but it’s true. You’d figure a city that size would be more interesting.

In other news, if someone 15 years ago had told me I’d oneday be standing in the headquarters for Strategic Air Command (now called STRATCOM), I’d have sworn they were full of shit.
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