existential fashion disaster

Years that end in 8 make me think of a Family Circus comic strip where one of the boys has just finished tracing or drawing “1998″ (or maybe it was 1988) onto a scrapbook or something and he’s saying, “This sure was a loopy year!” It’s not really funny, I know, but the image sticks with me.

I’ve had a great year, but I don’t really have the urge to recap it all. Maybe I’ll do one of those meme things on livejournal, later, where I take some snippet from a post in each month. I managed not to use the “see you next year!” line at all, even with all the people at the Y that I have to greet and say bye to, at the desk.

Just hoping that you all have a great new year and stuff.
See you….. later.

- Boston accents really are funny. I was conditioned not to respond much to them, while living out there, but when my Mom’s friend Joyce started talking about the Pops concert they went to and mentioned the “orchestra” (Auk-sturrah), I almost cracked up. I didn’t hear too many other examples, but once I heard that, my ears were sort of listening for it. No one’s mentioned anything overly funny about my accent out here. Dad trained himself out of his Boston accent to be on the radio, so I grew with a midwesternized sort of accent… but there are discrepancies, mostly in vowel sounds; some double-O words like roof and room have an oo sound in my head, not a uh sound… and it seems that there’s some long E and long A differences, too. Sarah works on N McLean Blvd. The first time I went there, the directions her mom gave me included a street that sounded like [Shirley] MacLaine… and of course there’s the example from that Threadless shirt that rhymed Cherry with Fairy, that might be close enough for spoken poetry, but one has a clear eh sound to me, while the other has a long A.

-  I miss playing music. I knew that already, obviously, but I took a ride with Mark to a couple music stores, looking for gifts for Raianne, and I missed even that part of the scene. Hanging around talking to music store employees, seeing how knowledgeable they are, guessing what kinds of shoppers the other people in the store are: parents, multi-instrumentalists, strictly piano, garage band kids, etc. I also almost went to a show at Ralph’s. I was extremely tempted, just to see some local music, even if it was metal(!) … but I didn’t end up going, mostly because I didn’t have my earplugs with me, but the yearning was there.

- While the GPS is useful out here for finding out how long it’s going to take to get places or getting around large obstacles like airports or finding out where the bridges over the rivers are, it’s not necessary, since the grid road structure seems to extend forever. It is, however, completely necessary when driving to new places in New England. Grid doesn’t exist out there, except in small pockets of residential suburbia or inner-city areas that happen to be uninterrupted by a river or a coastline or a humongous hill. Most roads go diagonally at some time or another, very few are straight for more than a mile at a time. If GPS is unavailable, a printed out set of directions from a map service is ok, if you have a decent navigator to read them to you. Getting directions from locals works in a pinch, but be prepared for landmarks that don’t really exist anymore (”bear left where The Fair used to be, then go up past the old closed Texaco and turn left at the building that used to be the high school. When you pass the parking lot that used to be the Ford Dealership you’re almost there, you just have to take what was the third exit of the rotary at that big intersection where they installed a light. Then it’s on your right, after the where the mill used to be…”). Of course, if you live out there, you just know which roads go where. I used to have mental pictures of where each road ended and which important roads it might intersect with along the way. Maybe I can start clearing out all the brainspace for other things, now.

- My little laptop could might be able to get me through a weekend or maybe even a week of regular use. It’s pretty beat up and kinda sad, in that it has no CD-Rom and has to have either wireless network or USB ports, since it’s internal USB port fell out. But it gets me to my mail and the rest of the web. It does just fine with that GPS stuff, when it doesn’t do that 25-minute blank screen before booting thing.

I wish the rest of the computers here had such minor problems. Frank’s is due for another upgrade, to be able to play Call of Duty 4. He thinks it’s the graphics card, it probably is, but that’s gonna require a Power supply upgrade … and since we left it in the crazy Gateway case, it’s gonna be easier and cheaper to do a case transfer. Not a huge problem, but still a big project. The fish tank computer was due to have the Reserator added to it, but after successfully fishing out the molex power lead that tells the reserator when to turn on, the machine won’t boot. It seems like a power issue, and the power supply was just the crappy stock Gateway… possibly not the best candidate for oil submersion. Maybe, after the upgrade, I’ll submerge Frank’s equally crappy power supply, instead. removing that tray from the oil seems like a really messy project that I’m not especially looking forward to. And then Sarah’s uncle Paul left his laptop here on Christmas… it was ridiculously infested with spyware and malware and adware, but it also can’t see its audio card… or, more accurately, it can see it, and install drivers for it, but only the line-in gets installed. For output, it says “no audio device.” It’s annoying. It also has a power jack issue, which, I believe i saw something about needing a re-solder in a quick google search. I’ve never been good at soldering.

I didn’t do too bad doing everything I wanted to do this visit. I’m glad I made that list, it certainly helped me remember stuff… I totally would’ve forgotten to get those hard drives in the mail if I hadn’t looked at the list today. Once I finish this entry and get the laptop in the suitcase, I’ll be totally packed, except for whatever clothes I take off tomorrow morning.I chose the biggest suitcase I could find in the barn. I think it’s just big enough, and that’s with one small carry-on.

Got my alarm clock on my cell phone all set up. My phone hasn’t been in need of constant charging, like it has in past visits to Dudley. Apparently, there’s a new tower in the area or something, because I have a great signal, even in Mom’s basement. Keeping that digital signal takes less battery power than struggling with an older not-so-digital signal.I guess the next time Mom upgrades her phone, she doesn’t have to go with a tri-mode phone.

Didn’t take a ton of pictures, but I’m glad I had the camera. I got a cute shot of Pam’s dog Mel and a couple random shots of Worcester. Oh, and on Saturday, me and my Mom’s best friend from high school, Joyce, went to 111 Chophouse. We had some amazing food. I had heard good things about the place, but, for some reason, neither Mom or I had ever been there. She got a gift card from one of her clients at work, so we took advantage of it. I took a couple pics while we were there of their monogrammed (logoed?) knives and our amazingly delicious dessert. White chocolate mousse in a chocolate tulip cup with whipped cream and a raspberry puree: yum. We really weren’t hungry, the servings were more than ample, but it sounded way too good, so we got one and shared it. When the mousse was almost gone, Mom imploded the cup and we each grabbed a couple bits. A piece of mine fell into my latte when I bit into it… and that just made my tasty latte into something amazing.

All in all, a good visit. I wish I had managed to see everyone that wanted to see me, but I did come close and in a very limited amount of time. I spent a good amount of time in Worcester and a little time in Woonsocket. Most of my time was out in the Dudley and other ‘burbs. Actually, after seeing the way Chicago suburbs really fit the description of a suburb, I’d say that Dudley and these other New England towns are somewhere in between suburban and rural. Dudley is certainly practically rural in terms of the kind of land and features you see, but the people and the community act fairly suburban. I dunno, maybe I need to go look at the actual definitions of those terms… but some other time, right now I need to sleep, so I can get up early and shower and get to my plane on time.

I’ve packed and prepared for my morning plane. This is the first of what will probably be my annual holiday visit to Mom’s. Been a while since I flew. I think I preferred the aisle seats to windows, but the allure of a window seat called to me and I chose one. I’ll just be chilling with my iPod for the whole ride, it’s a pretty short one, if I recall correctly. It’s an entirely different experience than driving out there. I miss seeing Mom; I miss some of my friends… but this definitely feels more like a visit, than a trip “home.” Here really feels like home, now. Sure, I don’t really have a desk of my own and the work situation is still a little more part-time than it should be… but otherwise, things are pretty darn awesome, here. There’s been some tension, but I think it’s related to gifts and the secrecy surrounding them. I’ll be relieved when all the gifts are open and everyone knows what they got and hopefully all the weirdness will blow over. I certainly spent way too much this year, and I know it. All year I spend stupid amounts of money on myself, I need to be able to make up for it during the holidays. I sent stuff to a few people, through Amazon, and got a whole lot for Sarah and her family. I might’ve gone overboard, but I hardly pay anything for my room and board here, so I don’t feel like it’s too much. Besides, I’m a damn good bargain shopper… it’s not like I paid full price for anything.

Anyway, planning on relaxing at Mom’s for a good percentage of my time at home, so I should be able to update a few times. Hope you all enjoy your holidays if I don’t see you!

We made lots of cookies.

First round was Monday afternoon. We got some peanut butter dough in a tube from the refrigerated section of Meijer… chilled it some more, sliced it into discs, shaped it into faces, stuck some broken up pretzels on for antlers, stuck some mini chocolate chips on for eyes, baked them for a few minutes, took them out, laughed hilariously at them, stuck hershey’s kissables on for noses. Voila, Reindeer Cookies.

School was cancelled on Tuesday, so Sarah’s mom was home and we decided to start round two early. We started with the cookies whose dough had to be chilled before the prep was done, some sugar crinkles and chocolate minty things. Once the parts to be chilled were prepared and chilling, we moved on to some peanut butter cookies (the kind with the Hershey’s Kisses in the middle of them). We had Frank’s help for those. Once those were all cooling, we got our sugar crinkle dough out of the fridge and rolled them into balls, coated them in sugar and finished them off… we forgot to set a timer for one batch, so it didn’t quite get as done as the others, but they’re still delicious. Then we started mixing up some M&M cookies and put them in the oven. A couple batches of those came out a little weird because the oven was set at the wrong temperature. The last couple batches came out just fine, though. We broke out this cookie-gun thing and Sarah prepared some colored buttery dough to shoot through the gun into some fun shapes. She made some trees and wreaths and flowers and sprinkled some colored sugar on them. Finally, we got out the chocolate dough that was cooling and rolled it into balls, making quite a mess of ourselves, cooked them, and then tried to spread these semi-melted colorful mint things on top of them. We got a little better at it with time, but some of them turned out ugly.

I don’t think I missed any. Enjoy the pictures. Round three is on Friday! Chocolate covered pretzels, Gingerbread, Bear Claw thingies. It’s gonna be great.

I don’t get paid enough to train people. I don’t get paid enough to empty trash and walk the building, either… I barely get paid enough to sit here and stare at a computer, though that really isn’t my job. There’s supposedly a new girl coming in this morning, who has never been here, and who I need to train. She’ll be sitting over at courtesy desk, so there isn’t a whole lot to explain to her. That half of the job is pretty simple, watch the check-in screen for notes, greet people, refill coffee pots, hand out towels, start loads of towels in the washer, file guest sheets. I almost get paid enough to do that job… but I’m not here for the money, I’m here so I don’t lose the retirement fund I’ve contributed to for the past however many years.

My headache disappeared sometime shortly after I got home yesterday. We put the tree up. The stand is a bazillion times better than those old overgrown ashtray with a retaining ring stands I remember from my childhood. Got a little tree sap on my arms and a lot on my hands. Getting it off my arms reminded me of the days at Camp when I was climbing evergreens for ropes course work almost everyday. I stopped wearing shorts and started wearing a long sleeve work shirt to avoid getting that stuff in the hair… it takes so much effort and/or so much really abrasive cleaners to remove it. Getting it off my hands was easy, but I’ve still got a couple little marks on my arm that I didn’t put enough effort into. The tree smells nice, though. I hope it lasts until Christmas, it doesn’t seem to be taking up as much water as I expected for the first day. It could just be a different kind of tree than I’m used to. Obviously, my “lottery tree” didn’t need water, and that’s all I’ve really dealt with for the past 6 years or so.

Back to the boring.

Mornings at the Y are especially boring when the basketball league takes the weekend off. The height of activity, so far, was selling a 24″ wreath. We’re pretty sure that our tree grew while it was up on the roof, on the ride home. I think we’ll be pushing furniture around this afternoon and putting it up. If my headache goes away, that is. I woke up with a little headache, and it has grown into a ridiculously painful mess. I tried drinking a bunch of water, thinking that I might just be dehydrated. When that had no effect, I tried some coffee. I don’t think it’s working, either. I’m in the home stretch, now, though.

Except for administering the post program surveys and evaluations… and entering all that data in the computers … Adventure Ed. is done for the season. I’m uploading the last of the pictures, now. I’ll probably have to put together a CD of them all organized into folders again for the kids, my coworker Antoinette or both. I should probably do that this weekend, so I can give CDs to the facilitators and teachers this week… just in case eMailing the students doesn’t go as planned.

Got a big dinner in the works for tomorrow… helped prepare some desserts for baking this afternoon/morning. I always feel really full after the Adventure Ed. overnights, so the idea of a big meal isn’t all that appealing right now, but I’m sure I’ll be hungry by tomorrow. A couple years ago, I went a little moblog crazy on Thanksgiving. Life was pretty different back then. I won’t deny that it’s fun for me to go back and read old posts. Especially the ones where I’m not doing as well as I am now. I was whiny and depressed a lot, probably terribly uninteresting reading for all of you… but fun for me, ’cause things are so much better now. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel ridiculously tired and on the verge of non-functioning after work some days, but now it seems like it’s a justified exhaustion instead of just not being able to focus or just having a broken head.

My Lenscrafters visit didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped. They would not put lenses into either of my old frames. The black plastic ones were “too dry” and might snap, or something like that… and the older ones were “too hard to trace.” I find this one harder to believe, since I had the lenses in those replaced a couple weeks after buying them, due to a giant scratch from a car door to the face. I’m gonna do a little research and see if this is some sort of scam by Lenscrafters. After shelling out the big bucks, I have some new frames. I’ll try to get some pictures up, soon. They’re all metal, so I shouldn’t get that “too dry” line again, and there’s no wire/nylon, the frame goes all the way around, so the “tracing” shouldn’t cause a problem, either. Of course I’m concerned about breaking them, since I broke just about every other pair of all metal frames I’ve ever owned, even that pair that felt heavy and unbreakable. I also keep getting the nose pads stuck in my hair when I pop the glasses up onto my head for a sec. I got too used to the plastic frames, I guess.

Digging into the moneys for glasses didn’t hurt too bad, since the money right now is constant. It’s only like this for about another month and a half, though. It’s March, almost April, and I don’t have a summer plan yet. The last time I waited this long was when I left the Woonsocket Y for Hockomock. That was a great switch, but was only possible because Bill Lawrence was a kind and generous camp director who saw a guy with 6 years of camp counselor experience and decided to give him a chance. I did find a Y to work for out here, so I don’t lose the retirement fund money… but I don’t know if their camp offerings really have a good fit for me, and they haven’t begged me fill one of their slots, yet. I’m pretty much a legal Illinois driver, now, though, so I could offer myself to the climbing or skate camps. My boss at Adventure Ed runs some sort of camp in the summer, too. It probably pays better than the Y, and almost definitely pays better than the resident camp up north with the Outdoor Ed Director position, simply because it’s a residence situation. I also haven’t heard anything back from them. Another co-worker mentioned working for him with Kayaks and Canoes… it’s different, but he’s a cool guy and I wouldn’t mind that kind of work, even if it’s just to broaden my horizons a bit.

Life otherwise is good! I saw Body Worlds 2 yesterday, at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was a little creepy, but pretty interesting. I was intrigued by the weird back muscles that seemed to overlap each other. We found it funny that there was a lot of intact genitalia, especially on some of the people put into very strange [and very revealing] poses. There was a lot of stuff written on the walls on the way in about confronting death and accepting it and not making it taboo… perhaps there should’ve been a panel dedicated to being ready to see a lot of genitalia, as well. The rest of the museum was pretty cool, and fairly genitalia-free. Our tickets included an OMNIMAX film. While we were waiting to get in, we talked about how much better than IMAX those three little letters could possibly make the experience. We were fairly awestruck by the theater itself, which was like a cross between an IMAX and a planetarium, the screen was rounded and went up over our heads and out about as far anybody’s range of straight-ahead vision. When the first full-screen image came up, there were a lot of whoahs and ooohs.

Flea Market tomorrow… and maybe a picnic if the weather is good? Looking forward to it.

I love it when science says I’m right… or in the right… or at least not all that abnormal. The study that one of today’s ars technica stories talks about seems to mesh well with the way I operate and have always operated. Both consciously and subconsciously, I always try to finish what I’m doing before letting anything distract me, because I know that letting those distractions in will make whatever I’m working on fail, or at least become half-assed, in comparison to what it could have been. I’m extremist, obviously, in that I purposefully avoid such distractions and/or put off things that might be important when I’ve prioritized something that may be less important [in someone else's eyes]. While reading the article, I couldn’t help but think about the tests I took at UMASS, and my ADHD diagnosis (based on the fact that I prioritized the classes I liked to the point of ignoring the ones I didn’t, because they were distractions). I also thought of the brilliant Crimethinc poster about ADD.