• TeeVee!

    Thanks to my pal at work, the guy who calls himself Hurricane, and his willingness to drive my sorry butt out to the Best Buy that actually had the model of TV I wanted in stock… I have a new working television. Yay!

    In other news, it’s too freaking hot. The only upside to this summer is that it’s taken longer than usual to really crank up to full temperature. My room’s a sauna, and that’s with the benefit of having kept all computer equipment shut down since last night. I didn’t turn anything on until a bit after 10pm (so I could write this entry and check email, mostly) and still… too darned hot.

    Unfortunately, the ready-availability threshold for buying an A/C unit may have already passed. Oh well…

  • Falling, falling…

    Mari and Doug swung by this morning to pick Kyla and I up for a trip out to see some waterfalls. We saw Multnomah Falls, Horsetail, and one other whose name escapes me now. (I knew I should’ve taken pictures of the signs. Nuts.) The trip reminded me, among other things, that I haven’t been out to see any of the falls since Ben still lived in Portland. I enjoyed the heck out of seeing them anyway, though.

    And yes, I did say “pictures.” I have a memory card chock full of ‘em which I’ll be posting soon. Give me some time; it’s been a very long and somewhat-eventful weekend… over too soon, for all that we had four days of it…

  • Best laid plans, what?

    The planned part of the day: The kids were to come over for a visit, Kyla would fix foodstuffs, and we’d play some games to pass the time. This would have gone well but for a big blow-out altercation involving one particular kidlet’s combination of finicky eating habits and lack of consideration. And I mean “big blow-out,” involving anger and tears and yelling and banging things around.

    Argh!

    The unplanned part of the day: There was a vague agreement that Kyla and I would meet up with Mari and Doug in the evening, possibly for going out to eat. Not only did we go out to eat (at the sushi-go-round place) but we also spent a fun late-evening playing games and generally being silly geeky people.

    Whee!

    So apparently the lesson here is, don’t plan things…

  • Ep3? Big whoop.

    The delightful Kyla and I checked out “Episode 3” this afternoon. Yes, that one. Our collective verdict? “Better than the previous two. Heavyhanded and obvious. Won’t be buying it when it comes out on DVD.”

    Curiosity satisfied. Now on to better things, like the impending Issue 5 of City of Heroes…

  • Aw… Isn’t she the cutest?

    So I was cleaning my desk and managed to unearth the scanner I’ve had tucked away for far too many months. On a whim I plugged it into my Linux box and… voila! Looking around for a test image to scan, I found this wallet-sized picture…

    Now isn’t that just the most adorable kid you’ve ever seen?

    (She’s still every bit as naturally photogenic now, most of twelve years later, mind you. The trick now, as it was then, is getting her to stay still long enough to snap her picture…)

  • Dear Immune System…

    In case my immune system is paying attention, I’d like to tell it one quick thing:

    It is not at all amusing to keep me up half the night with a sore throat and swollen glands right before my last day of work before a much-anticipated vacation that happens to involve a visit by my dearest beloved.

    Granted, I’m most appreciative that the symptoms seem to have gone almost completely away by mid-afternoon, but that doesn’t completely make up for the stress levels caused by worry over the fate of our plans for the weekend.

    That will be all. Thank you.