Monthly Archive for October, 2006

random day off

Published on October 31, 2006 in Family & Friends, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , .

Some small threat of rain combined with nonavailability of certain staff have pushed tomorrow’s high ropes day all the way to Friday. That means I have the whole day off. I haven’t picked out my next book yet… so I guess I’ll have to actually do some stuff. There’s a bunch of packing I need to do… but I am as unexcited about moving stuff and furniture as I am excited about actually going to Chicago. Did that make sense? I know it doesn’t really make sense, but grammatically? Who knows. I think if I start digging into it, I’ll get it done and be happy about it… so far, I’ve just had little bursts of motivation and taken care of one little section worth of stuff at a time. That’s not the way I do things when I really want to get them done. Hopefully, that will change, tomorrow.

I’ve been fairly upbeat and happy lately, mostly due to the prospects of seeing Sarah very soon, scouting jobs out there and moving there… only a few things of have brought my mood down: Wendy’s getting my order wrong; Why even offer a vanilla frosty, if you’re gonna give me the chocolate every time? TV show season finales being all cliffhanger and no resolution; I understand wanting to hook us in for another season, but really, they’re sacrificing content just to set up the anticipation. And no one wanting to sublet my apartment… I really don’t want to move this furniture.

    listening to:
    Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia
    Artist: The Dandy Warhols

Apartment?

Published on October 28, 2006 in Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Cheap apartment in Woonsocket available for sublet… not because I’m worried about the move to Chicago not working out and I’ll need a place to come back to, but simply because I don’t wanna move all this furniture. There’s nice couches and a comfy chair and a coffee table… and a futon with a decent mattress and a kitchen table and… it’s almost completely furnished with stuff I’ll have to bring to Mom’s or somehow get rid of, if I don’t find someone to move in. I have no idea if sublet is allowed in my lease or what, but my landlord’s been pretty cool about the many, many roommates who’ve swung through the revolving door here. So I kinda need it to be someone I know and trust. Any takers? Cheap! The place is fine for two, though, we’ve had as many as five people crammed in here at times.

In other news, the Ropes season is almost over… and then I go to Chicago! Yay! I’ll spend a week doing some job scouting, while I’m there and then we’re gonna go to Florida for the week of Thanksgiving… err, most of it. It’s like two vacations in one! Then I’ll come back here and finish packing things I need… and storing things I don’t need right away… and figuring out whether or not to trash all this extra furniture. I’ll have a lot more time to get through this packing process when I come back, I’ve been working just about every day, lately. After the super double vacation, I’ll just have the occasional Teen Center hours. Speaking of the teen center, time to get ready for work…

$10 sale at Threadless

Published on October 24, 2006 in Web. Closed Tags: .

early holiday shopping time?

check these out:

basement of the alamowar against workraygun eyesfast supper

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: stuff sells out fast there, especially during sales. Go buy!

photo updates

Published on October 19, 2006 in Family & Friends, Photo and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , .

in case you don’t browse my photo gallery every day, I’ve caught up on a lot of photo uploading lately:

I made a gallery from some pictures I took during Sarah’s visit. We really did a lot during her visit, but I only took pictures on a couple occasions… It’s mostly from the aquarium visit with my nephews and cousin Mark, and a few shots from our candlepin bowling adventure with Mom. I forget what distracted me and made me take so long to get them up. We also went to see some music at The Space in Hamden and I took some pictures of The Accident and Jerry. I put a couple of those in the Rock gallery.

Also added a gallery with some assorted foliage shots, since the leaves didn’t cooperate and turn early, while Sarah was here. The leaves have been turning quite slowly, actually, way too gradual to turn a whole hillside into a vibrant new england fall scene worthy of a jigsaw puzzle. I don’t think there’s anything spectacular in the gallery, but I’ve never been a huge fan of landscape-type work, not even my own. It has made me appreciate and enjoy the foliage here, though, especially since I don’t know how much of it I’ll see next year.

I’ve added a few shots to the Objects gallery over the past couple months. A couple of these are being used in the calendars I’ve got up at Cafepress. Still looking for more suggestions on photos that would make good magnets.

and this morning, I took a picture right outside my front door. There’s been a lot of construction on the street out front over the past four or five years. I thought I knew my road fairly well. They’ve cut a variety of holes in it… left it as a half dirt/half paved road for at least three months last year… and each of construction projects have left the road bumpier and more messed up than the last. I was sorta excited to see them scarifying the crappy pavement for a nice fresh layer. Then I was a little shocked when I saw the portion of exposed cobblestone right in front of my door. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess, all the roads out in these old broken down mill towns are probably old enough to be cobblestone down deep… makes me wonder how old my building is, and what kind of history it might have.

I heard it snowed in Chicago, already

Published on October 13, 2006 in Family & Friends, Photo, Random Thoughts and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I found out, from my high school’s myspace group, of all places, that the [principal and then] superintendent from my days there has died. He was a pretty awesome guy, and I’m kinda sad. He was the guy, right when he got that acting superintendent position, that me and my friends went to after we got guns pulled on us on school property. He took care of us and made sure that whole situation worked out for us and we felt safe and got an acceptable resolution. My favorite memory, though, was one morning, during my senior year, when a couple of friends and I skipped our morning classes and went to a breakfast buffet with him… and he paid! I also remember helping Stew, our band director, stage a silly slideshow and ceremony, including embarrassing presentation of cake and t-shirt, complete with smoke machine and lights… all for his 50th birthday, and we brought a whole lunch period into the auditorium as an audience.

Speaking of social networking sites, I’ve signed up for a Facebook account. The threadless group is what originally drew me there, but I’m actually fairly impressed with the features that set it apart from the other popular ones. Any of you on there? Add me as a friend, I only have one, right now.

I’m going through another Vonnegut reading fit. It’s all re-reading, but it’s been many years since I’ve read most of them. The plan was to read a few Vonnegut books, to get me back into reading, since I know I like them… and then read some new stuff. I haven’t made the switch.. I’ve got some ideas and suggestions, but I haven’t gone out to pick up anything new, yet. I’ve devoured four Vonnegut books, now. A couple more couldn’t hurt, before I start something else, right?

Sara (the roommate) has found a new place to move into with her boyfriend… so I am going to be roommateless very very soon. Sarah (the girlfriend) would love it if I moved out to Chicago with her; I would love it, too. So I’ve started the tedious task of figuring out how much of the ridiculous amount of stuff that I’ve accumulated while living in Woonsocket is going to come with me. Sarah’s parents’ place doesn’t really have enough extra room for all of it, and I certainly don’t need all of it… until we get a place of our own. So, I’m starting to make lists: Things I can move out there soon, stuff that has to wait until the last trip, things Sara (the roommate) will take with her to her new place and “borrow” until I need them, stuff that should be stored at Mom’s or somewhere out by Chicago, etc., etc., etc. I’m also asking around amongst my friends to see if anyone wants a super cheap apartment in Woonsocket… including a bunch of furniture. Any takers?

    listening to:
    The Spine
    Artist: They Might Be Giants

sorry, issues resolved

Published on October 11, 2006 in Random Thoughts and Web. Closed Tags: , , .

My webhost had some issues over the weekend that might have caused you to receive some extra eMails from the site about new posts, if you’re subscribed to receive notifications. Sorry about that. I may have also been somewhat unreachable via eMail, too. That part of the problem was resolved sometime today. I weeded through a ton of eMail and I think I got through everything important. Again, I’m thankful that I have a host who tries to roll with these issues as they appear and not use them to swindle me out of hundreds of dollars. Good riddance to bad Gunnels.

Threadless printed a Bananaphone design. As if that wasn’t enough reason to go buy from them… it’s inspired by They Might Be Giants. It’s mostly from Particle Man, with a small reference to Why Does the Sun Shine? It may have other references in it, too, I haven’t analyzed every little detail. I can’t wait to get it. I also just found out that this Bananaphone gem is being printed and released, soon.

I also seem to have gotten roped into quite a few TV shows, this fall. Some, I’ve been following for years, but there are a couple new ones, as well. I seem to have something to watch every night… sometimes a couple things. Glad I have the DVR.

I should be sleeping, I just wanted to update the site now that it works, again.

Look how cool I am!

Published on October 5, 2006 in Photo and Web. Closed Tags: , , , .

I seem to be the only Gallery Photo for City Lights, on Threadless, and it’s the shirt in the cool colors, that I had to go to Nextfest for… but what’s even City Lightscooler is that one of my gallery photos is now on the product page! If you go to the You Sank My Battleship page, and click on the photo a couple times, or choose the third one, you see me. Pretty neat, huh? And that got me a bunch of street team points, and a couple people have bought shirts through my link, so I’ve just about You Sank My Battleshipgot enough saved up for a couple free shirts! Super exciting stuff. There aren’t any shirts that I need right now, though. I’m hoping that something super awesome gets released on Monday. If I take some more shots, I could easily get two shirts for free, including the shipping costs. Taking the gallery shots was definitely fun… hopefully I’ll get inspired again. Threadless is awesome. They’re hiring part-time help, too. I was thinking about applying as a fallback… just in case the ropes/YMCA stuff isn’t gonna work out, or doesn’t pay the bills.

I got the proofs of the old and new calendars from Cafepress today. I also got a rectangular magnet made with the old tilted mug photo and it looks great! I’m gonna pick a handful of other photos that’d make good magnets and put them up there when I get a few minutes to figure out which ones would be best. Feel free to suggest some.

    listening to:
    The Proximity Effect
    Artist: Nada Surf

nextfest

Published on October 1, 2006 in Computers, Family & Friends, Photo and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , .

This morning at 5 AM, I got up and drove to New York City. The original inspiration was the fact that Threadless released a shirt that was only going to be offered in decent colors at the WIRED nextfest. I bounced the idea off Sarah, and she said that she loved nextfest last year, when it was in Chicago… her endorsement was what convinced me to actually go. I had been worried about the trip being more hassle that it was worth. The ride down was actually really smooth… too early for traffic. There was some heavy rain once I got to Connecticut, and it was raining lightly when I got to the city, but nothing too bad.

I spent a couple hours inside. When I first got in, about half of the exhibits weren’t even completely set up yet… exhibitors sleeping in on their last day or something… but by the time I got around to the beginning again, it seemed like everyone was there, so I wandered around again, to see what I’d missed and fill in all the gaps. I was pretty excited to find out that the Khronos Projector was one of the exhibits. I was fascinated by the concept when Arstechnica mentioned it… and today I actually got to play with it. I also saw this brilliant combination of climbing walls and music … why didn’t I come up with this?

other highlights

I found the khaki version of the Threadless shirt… and even though they didn’t have it in 2XL, I bought it. Then I wandered around a little, since I was gonna pay the same amount for parking, whether it was three hours or twelve hours. It was also completely sunny and almost 70 degrees by this time. I went all the way up 42nd Street to Time Square… popped in and out of a few interesting shops… headed back down the other side of 42nd and had some BBQ for lunch. It was a relaxing little daytrip to NYC; the only thing missing was Sarah. Around 2.30, I picked up the car and started driving home. I saw quite a traffic jam on the road I took into the city, but I had clear sailing. By the time I got to Rhode Island, I had caught up with the tail end of the storm again. Apparently, it was rainy and cloudy all day here, glad I got out of town.

When I got home, I must’ve still had the technology bug in me, so I busted open the new computer case and transplanted all the new hardware and the old hardware into a complete working computer. It’s sort of a resurrection of Death_Machine, but in a whole new case… looking very sleek and sounding very quiet. It’s new enough to need a new name, I haven’t decided whether to go with the obscure cartoon/book character theme, or if I should come up with something clever derived from Death_Machine and his new gleaming white exterior. Suggestions are welcome.

By the way, we’re on a new server, here. A new physical machine… but the same host. I like this host. When things aren’t so great, he owns up to it and does something about it… and doesn’t unapologetically charge me hundreds of dollars for it or try to tell me it’s my fault and I should “upgrade.” If you see something broken, lemme know.