to about 35,000 statewide.
i met Loren's 2nd cousin Elijah this morning, seems a nice boy with good manners. all three of the variously-sized young-uns are out soaking up a little more snowshine. since i finished my book, i started on Deception Point by Dan Brown; not that i've finished working my way through ...Tristram Shandy yet, but sometimes you just want to read something you don't have to jump to the appendix every other paragraph in order to understand the references the author's making. don't get me wrong; the effort's worth it, but i'm lazy enough to appreciate entertainment that doesn't require as much effort.
tried to get my clock back on the nights by staying up all night last night; hopefully Loren's mother will get back early enough that i can get at least a solid 4 hrs of sleep before i go in tonight...if i had to guess- and i haven't been out in this yet today- looks like conditions aren't too severe for commuting, at least from the north end. not even sure if my partner Benny's had power or not; he might not be able to make it, and i don't intend to call and risk waking him up before about 5pm to find out.
the boys just returned from their snow jaunt. apparently they got in quite the snowball fight, and their heroics will live on in the annals of neighborhood lore for generations, though they sadly came out on the losing end of the stick. can't help but think the outcome might have been otherwise had they not been kicked out of the neighboring apartment complex's playground as illegal aliens. the managers of that complex are on the board of directors of the homeowners association here, along with me. long history of problems from their residents, and rack my brain as i may, i cannot come up with a single instance of Loren's having caused any problems for them...so i'll be bringing that little matter up personally, while i have them conveniently present at the board meeting i called for Dec. 4th. they're certainly within their rights to kick them out- but it was unnecessary. Loren tells me now: the ladies weren't all that nice about kicking them out, but added that they were told they were trampling a flower bed. Loren's response was that it was a little hard tell what was a flower bed when everything's buried under the snow. good for him! she pointed at a sign and told them there were "signs all over" that said only residents of the apartment complexes were allowed there- but she pointed to a sign that only mentioned unrelated things, and he pointed out that the sign said nothing of the kind. i love this kid. i guess the lady finally pointed out one of the actual ones, so they left. gotta smile....love it when Loren knows he's not doing anything wrong and doesn't let people- even adults- just push him around. not that i've ever had a problem with authority, mind you.
those are the same ladies that used a feeble excuse of the "possible impending collapse" of the roof of the basketball court as an excuse to forbid some children of one of their residents to throw a Halloween party there. i was annoyed about that and told them that while i supported their right to make a decision concerning the use of common facilities by their own residents, i thought their concern of damage to the court was an overreaction, and the argument they gave the parent and kids involved was disingenuous. i'm sure they didn't like that much, but i offered it as a personal opinion, so screw 'em.
live and let live, already. seems to work for many who actually give it a try.
2006-11-27
damn it's late
just completely devoured the 5th book in Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series, Heartfire. i'm pretty familiar with a lot of his work now, having read all the books in the Ender and Homecoming series (both sci-fi) and all but one of the Alvin series. if there's a running theme in his work that i can see, it's his knack for creating moral dilemmas for his characters. the Alvin series takes place in an alternate history of the United States in the late 18th & early 19th centuries, fictionalizing some well-known historical figures (Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Henry Harrison, Andrew Jackson, and Napoleon, to name a few) almost, but not quite, to the point of unrecognizability, and using them to lend some historical weight to the landscape his completely original (and more central) characters inhabit. fun stuff.
another theme in Card's work is obviously to use children (often fantastically gifted ones) as his main protagonists, and i'm not sure if this makes it easier for everyone to empathize with, or just me in particular, but it's certainly effective where i'm concerned.
moving on to other subjects:
it snowed nearly all day today, from about 10am on, letting up a little in the afternoon and coming back for real in the evening. knocked out power to at least 2500 people in northern snohomish and south whatcom counties, and piling up about 5" deep in the most average place i could find to measure this evening. a blanket of white, which Loren wasted no time getting out and snowballing it up in. i joined him for a bit but since i've been freezing my tail off hanging Christmas lights on graveyard shift in downtown Seattle for the last couple weeks, i'm a bit too fond of the warmth to spend a lot of time out in it. barring a heap more severe weather, it'll be more Christmas lights to hang tomorrow night (tonight, now- i believe i mentioned it's quite late) and i'm sure i'll get a fair measure of cold for ducking out of it this afternoon.
Loren's school is cancelled tomorrow, which simply broke his heart.
Chowder went nuts when i let him out in it this afternoon- that dog does love the snow. pretty much anything new and different is OK by him.
Loren and i spent the 4-day weekend hangin' out. he spent a good deal of time messing with the new Nintendo video game system (the Wii) she bought him. it was originally supposed to be a Christmas present, but she opted to "guarantee" she got one by camping out in front of the local Target store for the first shipment, which necessitated her bringing her younger son Phoenix along, and the surprise was sacrificed, so she just gave it to them. Loren's loving it, especially the Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 game she got as well. the thing's got an unconventional motion-sensitive controller (which you already know if you don't live under a rock) which allows realistic motions to be used interactively with the games, i.e. swing the thing like a bat to hit a baseball, use the two pieces of the controller simultaneously in punching motions to hit an opposing boxer, swing the controller forward underhand to bowl, etc. pretty neat. it'll be interesting to see what types of things the game designers come up with to exploit the technology.
Loren also spent a fair amount of time playing games on his computer, which made me quite happy, since i spent a fair amount of time getting it set up and workable, and doubtless makes his grandparents happy since they gave the bulk of the system to him.
tomorrow Loren's mom's going to drop off Phoenix, and Loren & Phoenix's cousin (damn-i-forgot-his-name), who's 5, while she wrestles the bad roads to Children's Hospital in Seattle with her neice Jennifer (the boy's mom) and Jennifer's other son, age 1, who has some fairly rare sort of bone cancer. they're going to postpone a bone marrow transplant treatment (if i understand correctly) for the boy until after the holidays, which should be good for everyone involved. neither Phoenix nor Jennifer's older son would have much fun making a likely 5-hr round trip to Seattle, as well as waiting through the brain fluid tap procedure they're going to do on the little one tomorrow, so they're coming here. Loren was all thumbs-up to that.
i saw Nichole on the news this morning, at the beginning of the Seattle Marathon- first time i can remember seeing anyone from my family on television. Loren saw it too. fun stuff there.
Loren kicked my butt in the first 2 of 3 chess matches we played this evening- beat me pretty handily in the first 2, and fought well before i defeated him in the last one. just when i think his attention span in the game is suffering, he does something brilliant. either that or i'm not very good, or possibly both. fun, though. still like to play chess, and though we don't play all that much, there's a table with a board set up on it in the living room pretty much all the time.
haven't exactly enjoyed the experience of hanging Christmas lights in the cold and wet at night, but the timing was near perfect and i really couldn't turn it down after finding myself summarily dismissed from my former job. sounds like there may be some work for me through the end of the year at Hollywood Lights, if'n i can do it. i've been wearing my wrist/thumb brace hanging the lights; i tried it without and it left me in a lot more pain than normal. there's really no improvement in my wrist to speak of, and i need to get back to the doc. i've given up on filing paperwork over the internet, a method i was more than a little inclined to use, given the amount of writing necessary on the work history forms they sent me, but eventually just grinned and bore it since their web site is just one more jumble of red tape. i haven't been back to the doc in quite a while, partially because i've been working nights and partially because Labor & Industries hasn't compensated me for my claim-related expenses or paid the doc yet, since they've been waiting on the paperwork to allow or reject my claim. the holiday weekend's been a little more delay for me, but this week i'll get their forms in the mail and the ball rolling again- the injury's been around for months now, and isn't healing on its own.
suppose that's all the news that's important to print. PEACE
another theme in Card's work is obviously to use children (often fantastically gifted ones) as his main protagonists, and i'm not sure if this makes it easier for everyone to empathize with, or just me in particular, but it's certainly effective where i'm concerned.
moving on to other subjects:
it snowed nearly all day today, from about 10am on, letting up a little in the afternoon and coming back for real in the evening. knocked out power to at least 2500 people in northern snohomish and south whatcom counties, and piling up about 5" deep in the most average place i could find to measure this evening. a blanket of white, which Loren wasted no time getting out and snowballing it up in. i joined him for a bit but since i've been freezing my tail off hanging Christmas lights on graveyard shift in downtown Seattle for the last couple weeks, i'm a bit too fond of the warmth to spend a lot of time out in it. barring a heap more severe weather, it'll be more Christmas lights to hang tomorrow night (tonight, now- i believe i mentioned it's quite late) and i'm sure i'll get a fair measure of cold for ducking out of it this afternoon.
Loren's school is cancelled tomorrow, which simply broke his heart.
Chowder went nuts when i let him out in it this afternoon- that dog does love the snow. pretty much anything new and different is OK by him.
Loren and i spent the 4-day weekend hangin' out. he spent a good deal of time messing with the new Nintendo video game system (the Wii) she bought him. it was originally supposed to be a Christmas present, but she opted to "guarantee" she got one by camping out in front of the local Target store for the first shipment, which necessitated her bringing her younger son Phoenix along, and the surprise was sacrificed, so she just gave it to them. Loren's loving it, especially the Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 game she got as well. the thing's got an unconventional motion-sensitive controller (which you already know if you don't live under a rock) which allows realistic motions to be used interactively with the games, i.e. swing the thing like a bat to hit a baseball, use the two pieces of the controller simultaneously in punching motions to hit an opposing boxer, swing the controller forward underhand to bowl, etc. pretty neat. it'll be interesting to see what types of things the game designers come up with to exploit the technology.
Loren also spent a fair amount of time playing games on his computer, which made me quite happy, since i spent a fair amount of time getting it set up and workable, and doubtless makes his grandparents happy since they gave the bulk of the system to him.
tomorrow Loren's mom's going to drop off Phoenix, and Loren & Phoenix's cousin (damn-i-forgot-his-name), who's 5, while she wrestles the bad roads to Children's Hospital in Seattle with her neice Jennifer (the boy's mom) and Jennifer's other son, age 1, who has some fairly rare sort of bone cancer. they're going to postpone a bone marrow transplant treatment (if i understand correctly) for the boy until after the holidays, which should be good for everyone involved. neither Phoenix nor Jennifer's older son would have much fun making a likely 5-hr round trip to Seattle, as well as waiting through the brain fluid tap procedure they're going to do on the little one tomorrow, so they're coming here. Loren was all thumbs-up to that.
i saw Nichole on the news this morning, at the beginning of the Seattle Marathon- first time i can remember seeing anyone from my family on television. Loren saw it too. fun stuff there.
Loren kicked my butt in the first 2 of 3 chess matches we played this evening- beat me pretty handily in the first 2, and fought well before i defeated him in the last one. just when i think his attention span in the game is suffering, he does something brilliant. either that or i'm not very good, or possibly both. fun, though. still like to play chess, and though we don't play all that much, there's a table with a board set up on it in the living room pretty much all the time.
haven't exactly enjoyed the experience of hanging Christmas lights in the cold and wet at night, but the timing was near perfect and i really couldn't turn it down after finding myself summarily dismissed from my former job. sounds like there may be some work for me through the end of the year at Hollywood Lights, if'n i can do it. i've been wearing my wrist/thumb brace hanging the lights; i tried it without and it left me in a lot more pain than normal. there's really no improvement in my wrist to speak of, and i need to get back to the doc. i've given up on filing paperwork over the internet, a method i was more than a little inclined to use, given the amount of writing necessary on the work history forms they sent me, but eventually just grinned and bore it since their web site is just one more jumble of red tape. i haven't been back to the doc in quite a while, partially because i've been working nights and partially because Labor & Industries hasn't compensated me for my claim-related expenses or paid the doc yet, since they've been waiting on the paperwork to allow or reject my claim. the holiday weekend's been a little more delay for me, but this week i'll get their forms in the mail and the ball rolling again- the injury's been around for months now, and isn't healing on its own.
suppose that's all the news that's important to print. PEACE
2006-11-07
flat bushed
it's 7:09am. just got done filling out my ballot, just in time. first time i've ever voted mail-in, rather than going to the polls, which would have been difficult this year since they don't exist.
never mentioned here that i got laid off a couple weeks back. interesting timing, considering the wrist problems. boss said he was closin' up shop, not sure if i believe him or not....seen him lay off other people he wanted to get rid of before. regardless, it's not my problem anymore. i've run my last doubler, burned my last triangle, smelled that damned stomach-turning, bacteria-rampant coolant for the last time, which doesn't exactly break my heart, despite the fact that i got laid off without any notice whatsoever, nor received any severance pay for that inconvenience.
i could grouse about all this and dwell on hard feelings, but i'll just wash my hands of the place and move on, in a couple more sentences. the family that owned and predominantly operated the shop were certainly nice enough people to work with, but i have to count that job among the worst i've had, considering i worked pretty darn hard, pretty darn consistently, for a very long time, and showed aptitude for tasks beyond those assigned to me, without ever getting the chance to expand my skills or even take full advantage of what i brought to the table. that's a good enough note on which to end this little summary of my experiences there.
hope to receive my outstanding paychecks in the mail today, and i'm hoping the $20 or so (maybe more?) in expenses i paid out-of-pocket for company supplies, gas, etc., will be included in that. wouldn't surprise me if i never saw that money, though, but i could certainly use it right about now.
obviously the next step was to apply for unemployment benefits, so i did. then it was time to update the resume (imagine the last 'e' in that word with the proper accent mark, if you'd be so kind...i'm not feeling ambitious enough to copy one out of the character map). this was the point at which i realized that particular document failed to survive my last hard drive failure. wonderful. found the single remaining hard copy in my possession, and recreated it from scratch, with the required updates. i think those things are like a work of art; it's never really finished, you just reach a point where you think you have to stop working on it, already.
started looking for something to do, when an offer to string Christmas lights for Hollywood Lights came along and i couldn't refuse, despite the fact that it's likely a couple weeks of graveyard shift in what's likely to be a significant amount of precipitation. desperate times, and all that. i haven't made a late mortgage payment yet, and i'd rather not start now- it's really one of the few things that's keeping my credit rating from being completely in the toilet. actually, i manage to pay all the credit card bills on time as well, but the balances keep going the wrong way a little at a time, and since they raised the minimum payments on the cards i'm beginning to get a little nervous about being able to make them on time. and we all now what that means: ludicrous hikes in the interest rates, followed by even more difficulty making the payments.
guess i have financial stuff on my mind....
must be about time for a cup of coffee....too bad i'm all out. guess i should go make some. i've been trying to get my schedule turned around for the graveyard thing bit by bit, and i'm still awake at 7:36, so i guess i've just about got it. wow...25 minutes goes by fast when you're blogging.
the NBA is back in action, and i'm on board a fantasy league with 30 teams (of which i think 28 are actually helmed by Real Live Humans, from the far reaches of the globe in some cases). i missed the live draft, but ranked at least some of the players i wanted beforehand, so my automatically-picked #1 pick, Ben Wallace, who's playing Center for the Bulls this year, landed on my roster. with this many teams playing, everyone's got maybe 1 superstar at best, and the rest of the team is fairly deep into the league's talent pool. 10 players per fantasy team, for 30 teams, is basically the top-rated 300 players in the league. so far i'm doing alright; i eeked out a win in the first fantasy period (1 week) with a win, outperforming my opponent's team in 6 of 8 of the stat categories, which are: field goal percentage, free throw percentage, # of 3 point shots made, overall points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocked shots. i made my first trade early on, trading Matt Carroll of the Bobcats for Johan Petro of the Sonics, partially because i needed another center for the days Ben Wallace doesn't play, and partly because the Sonics' starter Robert Swift tore his ACL and is out for the year (providing the opportunity for Petro, the only returning Seattle Center, no pun intended, to get increased minutes), and partly because he was an available Sonic that might fit into my roster, and partly because he was the highest rated Center on the free agent list when i figured out that i was overly heavy at the Power Forward position and underpowered at Center.
this year's standout performers so far are Leandro Barbosa, Ben Wallace, Al Harrington and Carlos Arroyo. Delonte West has been a disappointment so far, and Petro really hasn't done much yet at all, but i have some hope for both those guys. filling out my roster this year are Antonio McDyess, who can't seem to hit a shot to save his life in the first 4 games of the year, but plays decent defense, Brian Cook, of the Lakers, who's doing fair, Eddie Jones of the Grizzlies, also doing fair, Antonio Daniels, the former Sonic, with the Wizards now, not performing too badly, and the aforementioned Petro. fantasy basketball is grueling, and trying to perform well with a so-so team in a head-to-head league means keeping a close on everything, and being able to schedule your guys properly. scheduling your guys is easy when you don't have to choose between players, but considering you can only field 7 starters, and 5 of them must occupy all five positions, and some players are eligible at only 1 position (others two, but which two varies), that means you can only choose two other players of the remaining 5 if everyone's playing that day. knowing which three players to bench requires knowing what statistical categories you're likely to win or lose, easily or marginally, knowing which of your players are likely to give you the best chance to win those close contests, and what stat categories to give up on, and when, in order to score a win in a majority of the categories on a given week. in practice this means (for me, anyway) tracking my guys' stats daily. last year i had less players on my team, and less stat categories to keep track of, so i had to rework the spreadsheet i built last year...which required a lot of doing. also, the percentage categories are figured for the team as a whole rather than an average of the individual players' averages, which requires inputting 4 sets of numbers instead of 2. then of course, you have to arrange the data in a form that's easily digestible or it's all worthless....takes some fairly involved formatting. but my fantasy spreadsheet this year is a work of art; again, a work of art in progress, but it's better than last year's (which wasn't bad at all), despite being more complex, and i've learned a little about conditional formulas and formatting, as well as graphing, in the process. the joys of obsessive compulsions....
well, i've now been typing for 58 minutes solid, so i gather this is going to be a long entry.
i figure no entry this long should go by without saying something about Loren, so i'll mention that he's nearing the end of first period in school at this moment, on the 2nd day of the 2nd quarter of 8th grade. he spent the last weekend here, Thur-Sat, and we watched a lot of TV, which i didn't feel extremely bad about since we had such crappy weather. Fullmetal Alchemist, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Monty Python's Flying Circus. you get the picture. we played a bunch of games of chess too, each of us playing a lot more quickly than we have in the past, which made for some interesting games. i think he plays better when we don't spend so much time on the games, and in a lot of ways it's more fun. i might still win most of the time, but he certainly makes it difficult- and he very nearly beats me quite a bit.
his mother brought him by my folks' house on Halloween, as usual, and we took some decent pictures, which i haven't uploaded to my computer yet. i'll prob'ly post some on here when i do. afterwards we all headed over to Scott's house. nice to see him, it's been a long, long time again. Scott's dog Loki has a fairly advanced case of cancer in his lymphatic system; Loki looks downright healthy, but we all know how these things usually go. can't help feeling like Loki's got a lot more life in him than the vets might think, though. he's a tough one. prednisone treatment is doing him some good, and i hope it continues to for a long time- always liked that dog.
Loren's mom's dog Sid was killed by their neighbor's dog (their conclusion, though no one saw it actually attack Sid). bitten in the abdomen. not sure if they found it dead or not, but no matter- still terrible. liked that dog too, despite his contribution to the cacophony that is a house full of Chihuahuas. he was feisty for a little guy. Loren was pretty upset, as i'm sure everyone in their household was. tough to lose your longtime pets.
suppose i'm all typed out for now, having typed all the news, bad, mundane, and otherwise that comes to the top of my head. not bad for 1hr 13min of a Tuesday morning.
never mentioned here that i got laid off a couple weeks back. interesting timing, considering the wrist problems. boss said he was closin' up shop, not sure if i believe him or not....seen him lay off other people he wanted to get rid of before. regardless, it's not my problem anymore. i've run my last doubler, burned my last triangle, smelled that damned stomach-turning, bacteria-rampant coolant for the last time, which doesn't exactly break my heart, despite the fact that i got laid off without any notice whatsoever, nor received any severance pay for that inconvenience.
i could grouse about all this and dwell on hard feelings, but i'll just wash my hands of the place and move on, in a couple more sentences. the family that owned and predominantly operated the shop were certainly nice enough people to work with, but i have to count that job among the worst i've had, considering i worked pretty darn hard, pretty darn consistently, for a very long time, and showed aptitude for tasks beyond those assigned to me, without ever getting the chance to expand my skills or even take full advantage of what i brought to the table. that's a good enough note on which to end this little summary of my experiences there.
hope to receive my outstanding paychecks in the mail today, and i'm hoping the $20 or so (maybe more?) in expenses i paid out-of-pocket for company supplies, gas, etc., will be included in that. wouldn't surprise me if i never saw that money, though, but i could certainly use it right about now.
obviously the next step was to apply for unemployment benefits, so i did. then it was time to update the resume (imagine the last 'e' in that word with the proper accent mark, if you'd be so kind...i'm not feeling ambitious enough to copy one out of the character map). this was the point at which i realized that particular document failed to survive my last hard drive failure. wonderful. found the single remaining hard copy in my possession, and recreated it from scratch, with the required updates. i think those things are like a work of art; it's never really finished, you just reach a point where you think you have to stop working on it, already.
started looking for something to do, when an offer to string Christmas lights for Hollywood Lights came along and i couldn't refuse, despite the fact that it's likely a couple weeks of graveyard shift in what's likely to be a significant amount of precipitation. desperate times, and all that. i haven't made a late mortgage payment yet, and i'd rather not start now- it's really one of the few things that's keeping my credit rating from being completely in the toilet. actually, i manage to pay all the credit card bills on time as well, but the balances keep going the wrong way a little at a time, and since they raised the minimum payments on the cards i'm beginning to get a little nervous about being able to make them on time. and we all now what that means: ludicrous hikes in the interest rates, followed by even more difficulty making the payments.
guess i have financial stuff on my mind....
must be about time for a cup of coffee....too bad i'm all out. guess i should go make some. i've been trying to get my schedule turned around for the graveyard thing bit by bit, and i'm still awake at 7:36, so i guess i've just about got it. wow...25 minutes goes by fast when you're blogging.
the NBA is back in action, and i'm on board a fantasy league with 30 teams (of which i think 28 are actually helmed by Real Live Humans, from the far reaches of the globe in some cases). i missed the live draft, but ranked at least some of the players i wanted beforehand, so my automatically-picked #1 pick, Ben Wallace, who's playing Center for the Bulls this year, landed on my roster. with this many teams playing, everyone's got maybe 1 superstar at best, and the rest of the team is fairly deep into the league's talent pool. 10 players per fantasy team, for 30 teams, is basically the top-rated 300 players in the league. so far i'm doing alright; i eeked out a win in the first fantasy period (1 week) with a win, outperforming my opponent's team in 6 of 8 of the stat categories, which are: field goal percentage, free throw percentage, # of 3 point shots made, overall points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocked shots. i made my first trade early on, trading Matt Carroll of the Bobcats for Johan Petro of the Sonics, partially because i needed another center for the days Ben Wallace doesn't play, and partly because the Sonics' starter Robert Swift tore his ACL and is out for the year (providing the opportunity for Petro, the only returning Seattle Center, no pun intended, to get increased minutes), and partly because he was an available Sonic that might fit into my roster, and partly because he was the highest rated Center on the free agent list when i figured out that i was overly heavy at the Power Forward position and underpowered at Center.
this year's standout performers so far are Leandro Barbosa, Ben Wallace, Al Harrington and Carlos Arroyo. Delonte West has been a disappointment so far, and Petro really hasn't done much yet at all, but i have some hope for both those guys. filling out my roster this year are Antonio McDyess, who can't seem to hit a shot to save his life in the first 4 games of the year, but plays decent defense, Brian Cook, of the Lakers, who's doing fair, Eddie Jones of the Grizzlies, also doing fair, Antonio Daniels, the former Sonic, with the Wizards now, not performing too badly, and the aforementioned Petro. fantasy basketball is grueling, and trying to perform well with a so-so team in a head-to-head league means keeping a close on everything, and being able to schedule your guys properly. scheduling your guys is easy when you don't have to choose between players, but considering you can only field 7 starters, and 5 of them must occupy all five positions, and some players are eligible at only 1 position (others two, but which two varies), that means you can only choose two other players of the remaining 5 if everyone's playing that day. knowing which three players to bench requires knowing what statistical categories you're likely to win or lose, easily or marginally, knowing which of your players are likely to give you the best chance to win those close contests, and what stat categories to give up on, and when, in order to score a win in a majority of the categories on a given week. in practice this means (for me, anyway) tracking my guys' stats daily. last year i had less players on my team, and less stat categories to keep track of, so i had to rework the spreadsheet i built last year...which required a lot of doing. also, the percentage categories are figured for the team as a whole rather than an average of the individual players' averages, which requires inputting 4 sets of numbers instead of 2. then of course, you have to arrange the data in a form that's easily digestible or it's all worthless....takes some fairly involved formatting. but my fantasy spreadsheet this year is a work of art; again, a work of art in progress, but it's better than last year's (which wasn't bad at all), despite being more complex, and i've learned a little about conditional formulas and formatting, as well as graphing, in the process. the joys of obsessive compulsions....
well, i've now been typing for 58 minutes solid, so i gather this is going to be a long entry.
i figure no entry this long should go by without saying something about Loren, so i'll mention that he's nearing the end of first period in school at this moment, on the 2nd day of the 2nd quarter of 8th grade. he spent the last weekend here, Thur-Sat, and we watched a lot of TV, which i didn't feel extremely bad about since we had such crappy weather. Fullmetal Alchemist, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Monty Python's Flying Circus. you get the picture. we played a bunch of games of chess too, each of us playing a lot more quickly than we have in the past, which made for some interesting games. i think he plays better when we don't spend so much time on the games, and in a lot of ways it's more fun. i might still win most of the time, but he certainly makes it difficult- and he very nearly beats me quite a bit.
his mother brought him by my folks' house on Halloween, as usual, and we took some decent pictures, which i haven't uploaded to my computer yet. i'll prob'ly post some on here when i do. afterwards we all headed over to Scott's house. nice to see him, it's been a long, long time again. Scott's dog Loki has a fairly advanced case of cancer in his lymphatic system; Loki looks downright healthy, but we all know how these things usually go. can't help feeling like Loki's got a lot more life in him than the vets might think, though. he's a tough one. prednisone treatment is doing him some good, and i hope it continues to for a long time- always liked that dog.
Loren's mom's dog Sid was killed by their neighbor's dog (their conclusion, though no one saw it actually attack Sid). bitten in the abdomen. not sure if they found it dead or not, but no matter- still terrible. liked that dog too, despite his contribution to the cacophony that is a house full of Chihuahuas. he was feisty for a little guy. Loren was pretty upset, as i'm sure everyone in their household was. tough to lose your longtime pets.
suppose i'm all typed out for now, having typed all the news, bad, mundane, and otherwise that comes to the top of my head. not bad for 1hr 13min of a Tuesday morning.
2006-10-28
ya learn something every day...if you log on to Wikipedia
i'm fairly well acquainted with music theory, but i have to admit i didn't know:
the smybol for a treble clef is a stylized depiction of the letter G superimposed over the letter S, and the curl on the G commonly surrounds the line of the staff denoting G, hence the name 'G clef'. i also didn't know that moving the vertical position of the treble clef symbol so that the curl on the G surrounds another line changes which notes are assigned to the lines of the staff. For example, moving the treble clef vertically down on the staff (as was sometimes done in the Baroque period for music in a high range) changes the bottom line of the staff to G above middle C, effectively rendering the whole staff 3 semitones higher in range. handy.
similarly, for the bass clef (also known as the F clef) the depiction is of a stylized letter F, with two dots representing the letter's horizontal strokes, and (you guessed it) those dots surround the line of the staff representing F. vertical variations in placement of the F clef on the staff also similarly alter the notes assigned to the lines of that staff, with named variations including the baritone clef (F assigned to the 3rd line down on the staff) and the subbass clef (F assigned to the bottom line).
and there are a ton MORE clefs. the more i learn about musical notation the more i realize how much i don't know. understanding the scales and modes will only get you so far....i wish i could sight-read.
the smybol for a treble clef is a stylized depiction of the letter G superimposed over the letter S, and the curl on the G commonly surrounds the line of the staff denoting G, hence the name 'G clef'. i also didn't know that moving the vertical position of the treble clef symbol so that the curl on the G surrounds another line changes which notes are assigned to the lines of the staff. For example, moving the treble clef vertically down on the staff (as was sometimes done in the Baroque period for music in a high range) changes the bottom line of the staff to G above middle C, effectively rendering the whole staff 3 semitones higher in range. handy.
similarly, for the bass clef (also known as the F clef) the depiction is of a stylized letter F, with two dots representing the letter's horizontal strokes, and (you guessed it) those dots surround the line of the staff representing F. vertical variations in placement of the F clef on the staff also similarly alter the notes assigned to the lines of that staff, with named variations including the baritone clef (F assigned to the 3rd line down on the staff) and the subbass clef (F assigned to the bottom line).
and there are a ton MORE clefs. the more i learn about musical notation the more i realize how much i don't know. understanding the scales and modes will only get you so far....i wish i could sight-read.
2006-10-23
closing in on the end of October
i just seem to always get too busy (read: lazy?) to post anything here....ridiculous, really, considering the small amount of time it takes to make some kind of comments about what's going on. however, there have been times (in the last...what...four weeks?) that i've actually considered posting about this or that, but the details seemed more important than a brief gloss over would do justice to, and so: i end up with nothing. not exactly a better alternative....
can't even remember where i left off last time, so i'll try to post something currently relevant and possibly, in the process, address the ever-widening information gap.
let's see. wow, it's been well over a month...
i suppose mentioning that a couple weeks ago i initiated an L&I claim for my left thumb/wrist, which had been bothering me increasingly for the last couple months (since early August). actually, Loren was having some trouble with one of his feet for a couple weeks, intermittently at first, then more regularly, and i took him over to have his Uncle Chris take a look at it, on the off chance that the problem was more serious than it seemed to be. Chris's advice to Loren was to take it easy on it, and wait another week to see if it got better, and if it didn't improve to get it X-rayed. turned out to be unnecessary, it's much better.
while i was there, i mentioned to Chris that i was having trouble with my wrist, and that i thought it must be something related to repetitive motions or something, considering i can't remember doing anything specific to injure it. he asked me to show him where it hurt, and in a very brief examination came to the conclusion that i have something called De Quervain's Tenosynovitis- a repetitive stress injury to two of the tendons from the thumb. they take a diagonal turn over the wrist, passing through a sheath, and continue up the forearm, and they're used in pretty much every grasping motion you can make with your hand. the test for this condition is called a Finklestein's test: you place the thumb in the center of your fist, and rotate the wrist away from the thumb- and this proved extremely painful. it's a no-brainer that this is at least a good deal of the problem i've been having.
knowing the problem and getting it treated are two separate things, and i decided to go to the Everett Clinic close by my house to get it looked at. i opened the L&I claim and went to the doc, mentioned Chris' preliminary diagnosis, and the doc checked it out for himself, performed the same test Chris did, and came to the same conclusion. he prescribed wearing a thumb splint (which i'm wearing at this very moment), and a week's worth of hydrocortizone, in gradually diminishing doses, to fight the inflammation in my wrist. my condition improved somewhat, and i suspect that wearing the brace, which precludes my doing some of the more strenuous activities i perform with regularity at work, had as much to do with it as the steroids did.
at the end of a week i went back and got it re-examined. the movement is better but it's still painful, and my range of motion without pain wasn't much better, though the pain wasn't quite as bad. new presription: another week in the wrist brace/thumb splint, and 800mg 3x/daily ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory). tomorrow's Monday, and after work i'll be heading back to the doc for another look-see.
i'm not seeing as great an improvement in it this week as i did the first one, though it has improved somewhat, and i'm curious to see if the doc's going to immediately jump to shooting my wrist full of hydrocortizone (ostensibly the next step in the treatment procedure, and likely the last one before surgery may be indicated). i'm also wondering if it's possible that he'll recommend i continue another week in this brace (and the anti-inflammatories) before shooting me up. i'll find out tomorrow.
i've pretty much concluded that i'll let it go as far as getting my wrist shot full of hydrocortizone before consulting a specialist, but i'll certainly seek the advice of a specialist before consenting to any surgery...this is my hand we're talking about here, the dominant one at that, and i'll be damned if i want just anyone cutting into my wrist....i've never had any problems with my wrists before, and i want an expert doing the diagnosis before anyone touches me with a knife.
on to other subjects.
in my usual obsessive manner i've begun downloading and conventionalizing (in my way) a series of live performances from the group Sound Tribe Sector 9...an ongoing project. they're a jam band that's kinda captured my attention; not everything they do is golden, but they're definitely good, and free music is always welcome. i found a large cache of their stuff here as, well as a ton of other free, legal, live music downloads at the same overall site here. i like the idea of taper-friendly bands, and i think it's interesting that a group would consider their live performances open season for bootlegging, in this day and age. while i certainly understand a group's prerogative to maintain financial control of their work, and their inclination to profit from it, i have to admit i respect that there are musicians who are more motivated to expose people to their music first and profit from it second. since i certainly don't consider the (pitifully few) recordings of the music i've written to meet a sufficient standard of professionalism to be commercially viable, i've allowed (some of) them to be freely distributed for the sake of the music itself. i'm not sure i'd do the same with recordings which were more professionally produced, at a greater expense, but i'd certainly consider, at least in the short term, allowing recordings of my live performances to be freely distributed. especially in the short term, that's excellent publicity. of course, since i'm not currently performing, it's a purely philosophical position....maybe someday i'll be lucky enough to have the opportunity to put it to the test. in any case, Sound Tribe's pretty good, check 'em out.
changing gears again:
Loren spent the weekend here this weekend, most welcome, as always. we didn't do much. watched a lot of Star Trek. i let him stretch his legs on his computer, which i recently got running, after a long- much too long- period of down time. actually, kudos go to my friend Nic at work, who made the suggestion (which i'm slightly embarassed to admit now i didn't think of myself), of trying a USB mouse on the machine. sure enough, though the trouble with Loren's computer likely started as a combination of problems, after completely wiping the system and starting from scratch, it's evident that the last remaining problem was a faulty PS/2 mouse connector on the motherboard, and the USB mouse is an effective bypass. so, i spent the majority of last weekend installing and configuring games on his machine, and this weekend he spent a good deal of his time enjoying the fruits of my labor. my mom salvaged a computer desk from her next door neighbors and it fit into the only possible place Loren's computer desk can be located, so it's an upgrade from the other free-on-the-side-of-the-road table that was serving as his computer desk....an upgrade all the way around. and i gained a laundry table, a little more horizontal space with which to offload and fold clothes. i also picked up a new mouse for this dinosaur-of-a-computer, an optical one, which effectively ended the maddeningly frustrating experience of using the dilapidated $7 old-school ball mouse i've had for the last year or so. should have spent the $20 a long time ago, but couldn't stomach spending more for a really nice mouse....maybe when i get my new computer, which i'm completely chomping at the bit for, since using Loren's machine for a few days...way outclasses this one. Loren's computer (predominantly donated by my dad, though i contributed a few components) has three times the processing speed, three times the memory, twice as good a video card, a faster CD drive, and double the hard drive space. the only thing better on my computer than Loren's are the speakers and the sound card. the speakers stay on my machine, but Loren will likely inherit this SB Live! card when i upgrade as well.
enough on Loren's computer.
i spent a fair amount of time this weekend doing chores, getting other horizontal spaces cleared. Loren and i watched plenty of Star Trek; we're now through the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, and VOY. no series hits a home run every at-bat, and the Star Trek series are no exception, but by and large they're the most entertaining shows on television (and occasionally brilliant) and pretty much Loren's favorite TV. we continue to work our way through the Fullmetal Alchemist anime series as well, and we're still plugging away (more slowly) though the Frieza saga of Dragonball Z. we've seen most of those before, but it's fun to watch them in order, without commercial interruptions.
today was week 7's big day for the NFL; the Seahawks lost at home to the Vikings, likely largely due to Matt Hasselbeck's game-ending knee sprain early in the 3rd quarter. Seneca Wallace came in and handed the ball off once before throwing an interception, and the Seahawks never recovered. they've had to deal with a few key personel changes and some key player injuries this season, but they're doing fairly well despite today's loss. everyone here's hoping for a repeat trip to the Super Bowl (though a rematch with the Steelers seems increasingly unlikely at this point) and they've certainly got a shot at it. i'm personally getting amped for the NBA to get underway. spent a little time this weekend checking out the NBA fantasy leagues offered on NBA.com; so far haven't officially begun a team with a viable league yet, but there's still hope....which reminds me i should go check on that...
work is still work. i've spent the last two weeks mostly running the CNC torch, which is the easiest thing for me to do in this wrist contraption. i expect i'll be doing the same tomorrow, before i head out to the doc.
i suppose that's enough for one post. always seem to be playing catch-up on the blog lately. guess there's nothing really to do for that; sometimes you make a choice between living your life or writing about it...and if you spend too much time writing about it you start writing about writing about it...and who wants to read that? not me.
ciao and if you haven't seen it, watch Miyazaki's Porco Rosso- it's a good flick.
PEACE
can't even remember where i left off last time, so i'll try to post something currently relevant and possibly, in the process, address the ever-widening information gap.
let's see. wow, it's been well over a month...
i suppose mentioning that a couple weeks ago i initiated an L&I claim for my left thumb/wrist, which had been bothering me increasingly for the last couple months (since early August). actually, Loren was having some trouble with one of his feet for a couple weeks, intermittently at first, then more regularly, and i took him over to have his Uncle Chris take a look at it, on the off chance that the problem was more serious than it seemed to be. Chris's advice to Loren was to take it easy on it, and wait another week to see if it got better, and if it didn't improve to get it X-rayed. turned out to be unnecessary, it's much better.
while i was there, i mentioned to Chris that i was having trouble with my wrist, and that i thought it must be something related to repetitive motions or something, considering i can't remember doing anything specific to injure it. he asked me to show him where it hurt, and in a very brief examination came to the conclusion that i have something called De Quervain's Tenosynovitis- a repetitive stress injury to two of the tendons from the thumb. they take a diagonal turn over the wrist, passing through a sheath, and continue up the forearm, and they're used in pretty much every grasping motion you can make with your hand. the test for this condition is called a Finklestein's test: you place the thumb in the center of your fist, and rotate the wrist away from the thumb- and this proved extremely painful. it's a no-brainer that this is at least a good deal of the problem i've been having.
knowing the problem and getting it treated are two separate things, and i decided to go to the Everett Clinic close by my house to get it looked at. i opened the L&I claim and went to the doc, mentioned Chris' preliminary diagnosis, and the doc checked it out for himself, performed the same test Chris did, and came to the same conclusion. he prescribed wearing a thumb splint (which i'm wearing at this very moment), and a week's worth of hydrocortizone, in gradually diminishing doses, to fight the inflammation in my wrist. my condition improved somewhat, and i suspect that wearing the brace, which precludes my doing some of the more strenuous activities i perform with regularity at work, had as much to do with it as the steroids did.
at the end of a week i went back and got it re-examined. the movement is better but it's still painful, and my range of motion without pain wasn't much better, though the pain wasn't quite as bad. new presription: another week in the wrist brace/thumb splint, and 800mg 3x/daily ibuprofen (anti-inflammatory). tomorrow's Monday, and after work i'll be heading back to the doc for another look-see.
i'm not seeing as great an improvement in it this week as i did the first one, though it has improved somewhat, and i'm curious to see if the doc's going to immediately jump to shooting my wrist full of hydrocortizone (ostensibly the next step in the treatment procedure, and likely the last one before surgery may be indicated). i'm also wondering if it's possible that he'll recommend i continue another week in this brace (and the anti-inflammatories) before shooting me up. i'll find out tomorrow.
i've pretty much concluded that i'll let it go as far as getting my wrist shot full of hydrocortizone before consulting a specialist, but i'll certainly seek the advice of a specialist before consenting to any surgery...this is my hand we're talking about here, the dominant one at that, and i'll be damned if i want just anyone cutting into my wrist....i've never had any problems with my wrists before, and i want an expert doing the diagnosis before anyone touches me with a knife.
on to other subjects.
in my usual obsessive manner i've begun downloading and conventionalizing (in my way) a series of live performances from the group Sound Tribe Sector 9...an ongoing project. they're a jam band that's kinda captured my attention; not everything they do is golden, but they're definitely good, and free music is always welcome. i found a large cache of their stuff here as, well as a ton of other free, legal, live music downloads at the same overall site here. i like the idea of taper-friendly bands, and i think it's interesting that a group would consider their live performances open season for bootlegging, in this day and age. while i certainly understand a group's prerogative to maintain financial control of their work, and their inclination to profit from it, i have to admit i respect that there are musicians who are more motivated to expose people to their music first and profit from it second. since i certainly don't consider the (pitifully few) recordings of the music i've written to meet a sufficient standard of professionalism to be commercially viable, i've allowed (some of) them to be freely distributed for the sake of the music itself. i'm not sure i'd do the same with recordings which were more professionally produced, at a greater expense, but i'd certainly consider, at least in the short term, allowing recordings of my live performances to be freely distributed. especially in the short term, that's excellent publicity. of course, since i'm not currently performing, it's a purely philosophical position....maybe someday i'll be lucky enough to have the opportunity to put it to the test. in any case, Sound Tribe's pretty good, check 'em out.
changing gears again:
Loren spent the weekend here this weekend, most welcome, as always. we didn't do much. watched a lot of Star Trek. i let him stretch his legs on his computer, which i recently got running, after a long- much too long- period of down time. actually, kudos go to my friend Nic at work, who made the suggestion (which i'm slightly embarassed to admit now i didn't think of myself), of trying a USB mouse on the machine. sure enough, though the trouble with Loren's computer likely started as a combination of problems, after completely wiping the system and starting from scratch, it's evident that the last remaining problem was a faulty PS/2 mouse connector on the motherboard, and the USB mouse is an effective bypass. so, i spent the majority of last weekend installing and configuring games on his machine, and this weekend he spent a good deal of his time enjoying the fruits of my labor. my mom salvaged a computer desk from her next door neighbors and it fit into the only possible place Loren's computer desk can be located, so it's an upgrade from the other free-on-the-side-of-the-road table that was serving as his computer desk....an upgrade all the way around. and i gained a laundry table, a little more horizontal space with which to offload and fold clothes. i also picked up a new mouse for this dinosaur-of-a-computer, an optical one, which effectively ended the maddeningly frustrating experience of using the dilapidated $7 old-school ball mouse i've had for the last year or so. should have spent the $20 a long time ago, but couldn't stomach spending more for a really nice mouse....maybe when i get my new computer, which i'm completely chomping at the bit for, since using Loren's machine for a few days...way outclasses this one. Loren's computer (predominantly donated by my dad, though i contributed a few components) has three times the processing speed, three times the memory, twice as good a video card, a faster CD drive, and double the hard drive space. the only thing better on my computer than Loren's are the speakers and the sound card. the speakers stay on my machine, but Loren will likely inherit this SB Live! card when i upgrade as well.
enough on Loren's computer.
i spent a fair amount of time this weekend doing chores, getting other horizontal spaces cleared. Loren and i watched plenty of Star Trek; we're now through the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, and VOY. no series hits a home run every at-bat, and the Star Trek series are no exception, but by and large they're the most entertaining shows on television (and occasionally brilliant) and pretty much Loren's favorite TV. we continue to work our way through the Fullmetal Alchemist anime series as well, and we're still plugging away (more slowly) though the Frieza saga of Dragonball Z. we've seen most of those before, but it's fun to watch them in order, without commercial interruptions.
today was week 7's big day for the NFL; the Seahawks lost at home to the Vikings, likely largely due to Matt Hasselbeck's game-ending knee sprain early in the 3rd quarter. Seneca Wallace came in and handed the ball off once before throwing an interception, and the Seahawks never recovered. they've had to deal with a few key personel changes and some key player injuries this season, but they're doing fairly well despite today's loss. everyone here's hoping for a repeat trip to the Super Bowl (though a rematch with the Steelers seems increasingly unlikely at this point) and they've certainly got a shot at it. i'm personally getting amped for the NBA to get underway. spent a little time this weekend checking out the NBA fantasy leagues offered on NBA.com; so far haven't officially begun a team with a viable league yet, but there's still hope....which reminds me i should go check on that...
work is still work. i've spent the last two weeks mostly running the CNC torch, which is the easiest thing for me to do in this wrist contraption. i expect i'll be doing the same tomorrow, before i head out to the doc.
i suppose that's enough for one post. always seem to be playing catch-up on the blog lately. guess there's nothing really to do for that; sometimes you make a choice between living your life or writing about it...and if you spend too much time writing about it you start writing about writing about it...and who wants to read that? not me.
ciao and if you haven't seen it, watch Miyazaki's Porco Rosso- it's a good flick.
PEACE
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