On Saturday, Lilith and Geoffrey and I travelled north to Seattle. The impetus was a party thrown by the proprietors of the forum called Pool, but as a fringe benefit we were invited to visit some new friends Lil’ and Geoff’ had made online recently. First we stopped there for sandwiches and lots of fun getting-to-know-you conversation, then Lil’ and I took off for the party.

Pooligans, and friends of Pooligans, are some of the nicest, cleverest, most interesting folks to spend an evening with. Jak and Karawynn’s “ReLease” shindig was one of the nicest parties I’ve ever been to, no question about it. I even managed to operate quite far from my normal comfort zone, and yet lightning didn’t strike me dead on the spot. Good times indeed.

Lil’ and I finally started zonking out about half past midnight so we very reluctantly said our goodbyes and exchanged lots of hugs, then trekked back to our hotel room for the night… or morning, if you prefer. After some mild amusement involving the fact that we’d both forgotten to pack toothpaste, we finally conked out.

We hooked back up again with Lil’ and Geoff’s new friends the next day for a tasty brunch (you can not go wrong with eggs, bacon and toast, you just can’t) and another few well-spent hours of chit-chat and comedy. Mind you, at one point early on I pulled a stupid move: I doubled over laughing at a joke, fell over sideways… and conked my head but good on the wood trim part of the armrest on the loveseat I was sitting on.

Ow. Yeah, I gave myself a nice little concussion. The pain went away after about an hour, but I sort of faded in and out of coherence until we were almost home that night. Ow.

Even with the stupid headbanging moment and not enough sleep, it was a fabulous weekend during which I met a number of damned nifty people. Not bad, not bad at all.

So, uh, what have I been up to these last four days? Well, I worked a “normal” shift Friday. I was home Saturday with the kids. I spent the first part of Sunday curled up in bed, not so much sleeping as just sort of recovering. What finally got me moving was hearing some music playing in the living room.

Erica was using the multimedia computer and playing some InuYasha soundtrack cuts. That was enough to bring me out of my torpor and get me into the living room. What woke me the rest of the way up is that the myHTPC display was showing “album art” for the InuYasha directory.

Long story short, I know how album art works now. Hah!

While explaining the feature to Erica, I tested it by navigating to the Nausicaa soundtrack directory (yep, the cover-art JPG showed up just like it was supposed to). While I was there I queued up some of the tracks and told Erica about how those songs are from one of my all-time favorite anime. Okay, mind you I haven’t actually seen an uncut subtitled Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind. I own a copy of the hacked up dub called Warriors of the Wind, though. Erica decided she wanted to see it, and have me watch it with her. And that’s exactly what we did. (She liked it. That’s my girl!)

(But wow, it’s been a few years. I’d forgotten just how awful some of those voices and lines really are.)

During the movie I got a call from Dalemar, who outta-the-blue invited me to do some LAN gaming. Mechwarrior 4, to be specific. Who am I to turn down some gaming, eh? It had been far too long since I’d fragged, yes indeed.

So I got together with him, the Ratboy and a couple of their friends to experience… pain, really. I’m not a very good mech builder, and I’m an even worse mech pilot. I had fun, though, and that’s what counts. (Okay, I had an absolute blast. No complaints at all.)

Yesterday didn’t give me much I really want to write about until after about 9pm, when I went over to hang out with Lil’ and Molly for a couple of hours. Good stew, good chit-chat, just what I needed after a day full of tense frustration highlighted by the closest thing to a full-on anxiety attack I’ve had in ages. Whee.

Today was a much mellower day, though the 24 computers Corporate ordered as 2004’s replacement “budget” showed up this afternoon. Guess what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks at work?

I did take another picture, the other day. I couldn’t be bothered to upload it until tonight. Sorry.

Yep, Erica made a bunny out of snow. Ain’t that cute?

So here I am at work, past 8pm on a Friday night. Why? Email stuff, mostly. As in, if I don’t get the email server purges done now I may face a catastrophic failure before Monday. Le sigh.

One of the engineers was kind enough to run me down to Zupan’s and back with some food to keep me going for the evening. While looking for snack chips, I spotted a product that made my eyes bug out… so of course I had to buy and try it.

Is it just me, or do these two words not go together? Of course… these Cheetos are quite tasty, so I suppose I’m making much ado about nada.

Now back to watching the email maintenance run, and run, and run. Have a great evening, all!

UPDATE: Jenn came up with something that makes even less sense… vegetarian bologna. What’s the world coming to, eh?

I looked outside this morning. Yep, still white. I turned on the news. Yep, still cold, still crappy bus service (though that’s no fault of Tri-Met!), and the thaw’s not due until almost quitting time.

For grins and chuckles I took my camera outside. What surprised me wasn’t how white everything looked, but how well I was able to stand on top of the snow. I felt a bit like Legolas in FotR. Can you say, “solid layer of ice atop five inches of snow”? I knew you could.

By the way, pictures are forthcoming. I just have to wait for my camera battery to recharge. I knew I forgot something important yesterday… and where the hell is my spare? Argh.

UPDATE: Spare battery found. Here are some new pictures. More to come, probably…

I woke up this morning with the alarm. Then I looked outside, and became alarmed.

“Well then,” I said to myself, “What do the weather people have to say?”

Several minutes of websurfing later:

“What? To travel is to put one’s life at risk? Hmm.”

I was still considering it when I looked outside just in time to see a huge gust of wind sweeping the fine, frozen powdery snow off the rooftops and swirling it about. “Ah,” I then said, not caring who might be listening, “I don’t think I want to spend upwards of an hour commuting in that, waiting for buses and then hiking the rest of the way to work.”

Instead, I stayed home to drink cocoa and take more pictures…

The year wasn’t all bad, but it wasn’t that good either. I’m more than ready for 2004 to begin.

I was going to get more introspective and detailed, here, but I just can’t seem to work up the enthusiasm required. Suffice to say that much has changed this year, and I’m still trying to settle into the new scheme of things.

Here’s hoping you and yours have a splendid new year, friends.