As I write this, Mari should be already done with surgery. There’s nothing quite like remembering that one of your closest, dearest friends just went under the knife to put your whiney, sorry ass firmly in its place.
So for a few minutes I’m going to ignore my pain, instead hoping that hers is extremely short-lived and that she’s back up and kicking butt in no time flat.
Go forth and show the love, folks.
UPDATE: Oh yeah:
It’s all a blur in my mind today, but I know I had a good time this weekend. I had several good times, really. Let’s set the Way-Back Machine, Sherman, and I’ll try to cover the highlights of the days:
Thursday: (Yes, Thursday. It’s my weekend, I’ll start it whenever I damned well please. So there.) Dinner date with Lilith. Lots of conversation both mundane and meaningful. Teasing, flirting, all that good stuff.
Friday: Work closed down early, so I took off to the Greyhound station to help Hanson-Kun greet Kylanath and ayagi. (Side note – I accidentally blew off Dalemar for this. Bad ducky.) Ended up dining… correction, nibbling fondue and waiting and then dining… at Gustav’s. On Sandy, not the other one. (Another side note – Hanson-Kun and Kylanath both have pretty good write-ups for the weekend.)
Saturday: Up way way too damned early so I could make backup tapes on the AS/400 in time to head downtown to Powell’s and meet up with Lance and Isaac. Completely on a whim I called up Lil’, who coincidentally also had the same destination planned at a convenient time. So I was saved the trouble of waiting for a bus, and granted the boon of a bit of Lilith’s company before the major part of my weekend began. She teased me mercilessly, but she does that anyway. I just keep telling myself it’s part of her charm…
After mistaking the coffee room for the magazine room, I finally met up with Isaac and then Lance. We headed to the gathering place by way of Just Be Toys (because you can’t get too many opportunities to drool over imported toy-like goodness). We learned exactly why Lance owns a Dodge Ram instead of a ground-hugging sedan.
The afternoon and evening were spent eating, drinking (no, not that kind of drinking), talking and playing console games. By which I mean Soul Calibur 2. Exclusively. As always, Raphael is my main man. I successfully defended myself against all comers Saturday, until I finally got tired of stabbing controller buttons with my thumb. Besides, a guy’s gotta sleep some time, right?
Sunday: After getting almost no sleep (so much for that idea), we piled into vehicles to journey coastward in search of a campground suitable for fine picnic dining. We took the straight shot out Hwy 26 and found ourselves at Ecola State Park. (“Eeeee-co-laaaaa!”) We took the left fork and enjoyed the view from the promontory bluff. There’s nothing quite like seeing puffy clouds scudding by mere dozens of feet overhead. It was that kind of day at the Oregon coast, friends.
Pictures were snapped, sandwiches ingested, and a few brave souls adventured down to the (barely) available beach. I wasn’t in the right shoes for such activity, sad to say. So much for getting my feet wet, eh?
My bright idea for getting some beach time for all of us involved taking that right fork. We tried, but in vain. We don’t know why the gentleman with the STOP sign and the bright orange vest was detaining vehicles along that road but we didn’t wait the half-hour it would’ve required to satisfy our collective curiosity. Oh well. We decided to pack it in and head homeward-ish.
Which would’ve been more fun but for the fact that Hwy 101 was being partially detoured through “downtown” Cannon Beach. On a Sunday afternoon. On Labor Day Weekend. Yes, you can imagine the snail’s-pace action. At one point I looked out the right-side passenger window wondering who would be walking alongside our car, only to realize it was Isaac, who’d been riding in Lance’s truck but decided to amuse himself for a minute or two. Hilarity ensued as he then jogged across the street to go grocery shopping and was almost lost to us since traffic started moving faster at the same time.
Once back on the highways I started nodding off again. Stupid lack of sleep. And I can’t really sleep in a moving vehicle or I get dangerously motion-sick. Nodding off was bad enough as it is. The trip back wasn’t all bad, of course, and the detour to Fry’s was quite welcome.
Mind you, not that I should be allowed in that building at any time. I’m very good about only buying games that are at least a year old and have been drastically marked down. No way am I spending upwards of $40 on computer games. For $20 I picked up the Baldur’s Gate 2 set (original and expansion), which oddly enough was placed just down the aisle from a $20 copy of just the original game. Go figure.
That night saw a mild resurgence of Soul Calibur 2 gaming, but generally we just all wanted to go to sleep. Those grandiose plans of being on the road by seven o’clock didn’t pan out very well, though. Heh.
Monday: We all peeled ourselves off the floors and chairs and prepared to give Hanson-Kun his house back, more or less the way we found it. Wendi drove out and brought me home so I could mind the rugrats as she did a gig. I took the opportunity to introduce the kids to Baldur’s Gate 2, which (of course) Erica mastered and surpassed the boys at after a mere hour of watching how I played it. Damn but that girl’s smart. Her big brother’s damned smart too, but sometimes Erica really surprises me. I did train Alex on how to install the game, which he did all by himself on the “little computer” and he’ll be doing for his mom’s computer at some point soon.
One last hurrah for my weekend was a surprise “lunch dinner thing” with Lilith and Dalemar. A couple of hours with those two over the fine dining available at My Father’s Place is the perfect way to wind up a mini-vacation, I’ll tell the world. And I even got some fun reading material out of it. (My thoughts on the Spider Robinson “Callahan’s Place” fare will appear in a later entry, mark my words.)
And that about covers it. I’m sure there are bits and pieces of anecdotal fun that I’m forgetting, and I may just make silly little entries out of them in the days to come.
So, how was your weekend?
“So Karel, what the hell did you do all weekend?”
I’m so glad you asked, metaphorical reader! My weekend started midday on Friday when I came home to watch the kids while Wendi did the first of two DJ gigs for the weekend. We pretty much just goofed off all evening.
On Saturday, errands were run. For instance, I cleared out several months’ worth of material in my Future Dreams box. The haul included two copies of Protoculture Addicts (yes, it’s a dated Canadian rag of questionable worth, I know) as well as TPB versions of stuff I already had in single issue form. Let’s hear it for changes in publishing policy. The unusual item I acquired was “1602,” the new Neil Gaiman miniseries that takes elements of the Marvel universe and throws them way back in time and weaves them into a whole new story. At least that’s the idea. I admit that I’ve found it entertaining and amusing so far, but it’ll remain to be seen if it falls on its face later on.
As Wendi and I returned home from the shopping trip, who did I spot pulling onto our street just ahead of us but Geoffrey! And so the afternoon (and a bit of the evening) was spent gleefully playing a wide variety of computer and console games with him and Alex. For the record, I suck at Soul Calibur. Oh well. It’s still fun. The evening was rounded out with french bread pizza (ahhh, Stouffer’s, how I love thee) and four episodes of Angelic Layer. Think of the show as “Barbie meets Pokemon.” Sort of.
Sunday was originally “hang out at Lil’ and Geoffrey’s place” day, which did in fact happen but it also ballooned into an impromptu BBQ for all sorts of friends of the household. Unfortunately I was in a bit of a weird place emotionally so I wasn’t as good of company as I could have wished, especially given how many new people I met. It’s a good thing they like me so much… though only the gods know why! At any rate the burgers were very tasty, the well-chosen root beer (Henry’s!) was just what the doctor ordered, and the assembled company was among the finest in the city of Portland. Nevermind the dramatic undercurrents, I still think everybody had a good time. Yes, even me, for the most part.
Today was a blissfully quiet day at work (which means only a dozen or so small fires instead of two dozen small fires plus a major catastrophe), so I enjoyed a long lunch with Dalemar. It’s easy to enjoy a lunch when somebody else is picking up the tab, mind you. No, I kid! He’s great company, and I probably jawed his ear off a bit longer than I really ought to have. In between book recommendations, movie reviews and other forms of geekery we also engaged in the odd bit of meaningful dialog. I found myself much more relaxed in his company that I really expected to be, all things considered. This is a Very Good Thing.
And so I packed a fair amount of socializing into a surprisingly short amount of time. After the travails of the previous two working weeks, I needed some low-key downtime with cool people. I may even be ready for the rest of the work week now…
Alexander “The Spud” Kerezman was born eleven years ago, August 15th, 1992. No, I’m not posting baby pictures. I’m not that cruel. Instead I’ll just give you a couple of shots from the past year:
He’s grown considerably since last August, mostly in courage and perception. Not to mention that he’s already almost funnier than I am. I couldn’t possibly be more proud of the boy, I tell you.
Happy Birthday, Alex. You’re one great kid.
Happiness is…
… a surprise gift of homemade chocolate brownies.
Need I say more? I think not. We now return you to your regularly scheduled websurfing day. Thank you.
Here’s the brief rendition of the last 24 hours in capsule form for easy swallowing:
So yeah, somebody took their precious work laptop home, got infected by that bleeping worm, brought it back and made my day a living hell yesterday. I answered my cellphone blocks away from the office and knew that my day would consist entirely of fixing and patching, patching and fixing.
And so it did. Occasionally I sat down to nibble on some snack food, but generally speaking I was on my feet and scrambling around from about 9:30 on. Fun, wot?
I finished up at about 3:30, and Lilith (bless her heart) swung by to rescue me at 4:00… but first I was obliged to give the nickel tour to her and the “eldest demonspawn.” Nothing shatters a 14-year-old girl’s illusions about the radio business more effectively than a quick tour through the broadcast facility.
The evening was spent in the companionable environs of Lil’ and Geoffrey’s place, mostly spent cracking wise at various Animal Planet programming.
Today I’m attempting to reconstruct The Beast, a.k.a. The Standby Enco Server. Wish me luck, I think I’m going to need it.
