decent weekend

nice to spend some time with Loren, for a change. he didn't make it last weekend at all, and a couple weekends before that he didn't make it either. that makes for a pattern of "a couple weeks off, a couple days on", which is a particularly irritating combination of frustrating and annoying. so i took advantage of a slight lull in the work schedule at the end of last week and enabled a 3-day weekend with m'boy.

Thursday night we made our way through another of Hiyao Miyazaki's films, My Neighbor Totoro, which was aimed toward a little younger audience than i anticipated, but was still funny and enjoyable. i was tired enough that i missed the last 10 or 15 minutes of it due to falling asleep on the couch. Friday we took care of chores and got the house in order, and i watched him chew through a couple levels on a PS2 video game Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves, and we had steaks for dinner and watched a bunch of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the evening. Saturday we got to play some chess, and a round of his D&D Three Dragon Ante card game (despite neither of us seeming to muster quite a firm enough grasp on the rules of...), and we ate a great spaghetti dinner while we plowed through another DVD of Star Trek: The Next Generation- which incidentally had a couple of excellent episodes on it: one which i'd never seen featuring a temporal anomaly allowing an appearance by (the previously deceased character) Tasha Yar ("Yesterday's Enterprise"), and another which i've seen often in which Data creates himself a child ("The Offspring"). fun stuff, there. Sunday we did put the final nail in the chore coffin, got in a couple games of darts, played a little Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi (2, i think) on his PS2; just enough to know that it would take more than a couple hours for me to master that head-to-head game sufficiently enough to be any kind of competition for him, and headed downtown for the Sonics / Clippers game at Key Arena, courtesy of my folks' Christmas present to us. the Sonics got beat down handily, shooting slightly less than 33% from the field, and around 60% from the charity stripe, losing to the (lackluster!) Clippers 98-76. it was the Sonics' mascot Squatch's birthday, and at one point i had my eyes on the game and he ran up a row of seats literally right over my head. Loren and i had a great time at the game, with excellent seats, despite the loss.

only things of note (not that they're particularly important in the scheme of things) that i left out of this weekend were finishing T.H. White's The Once and Future King (great book, 2nd time i've read it), and beginning Harry Thompson's To the Edge of the World (only just begun it, but so far so good).

so much for the weekend. Loren's back to his mom's in the morning, and i'm back to work. PEACE

night crew

once again, Benny and i spent the evening in lifts out in front of Nordstrom's in downtown Seattle. somewhat pleased to find those LED christmas lights coming out more quickly than i anticipated. i finished clearing the lights out of two trees Benny strung, one rather small (but again particularly annoying) tree i strung, and about 1/3-1/2 of another one i strung. we got the whole west side of the building done, not too bad for the first night, and just barely beat the rain. i felt the first drops on my face as i was carrying the last of the road closure signs back to the truck. it was cold but my new Carhartt coat (courtesy Jason and Melissa via Christmas- thanks guys!) was up to the task. the corduroy collar on that coat kinda rubbed my neck raw the first tew times i wore it, but it seemed to have mellowed out, until tonight when my safety harness was pulling it out of place constantly, and rubbed me raw again in a different way...don't know if the collar gets less abrasive or more flexible over time or what, but that's a minor thing compared to freezing your ass off all night. it's really an amazing coat, much lighter than most of my other "warm" coats, and hands down the warmest one i have.

so, here i sit at 6:07am, drinking my coffee, in my old black sweat pants and my favorite oversized sweatshirt, both nice and warm from 5 minutes in the dryer. feeling a little tired, but i made it through the shift OK, since i stayed up as late as i could stay awake last night (well, the night before last i guess), and slept in until 12:39pm.

Loren's mom still hasn't gotten him to school, and i think they started again Wednesday. pretty typical, and i'm not happy about it. the boy has some very low marks in some of his classes, and sitting around playing video games at the Ronald McDonald House in Seattle might be plenty fun, and it's certainly more convenient for his mom (with all the twists and turns in the saga of her niece's youngest boy, who's pretty seriously sick), but it's just not right. regardless of what's going on around Loren, the bottom line is: school and sports practices are not a high enough priority for Loren's mom, and, not unexpectedly, this attitude rubs off on him. he's got his work cut out for him, and i'm in his corner, but fully expecting him to drop off the honor roll and tank this quarter. i'll give you three guesses who'll get to be the bad guy when that happens....

OK enough about Loren's school. in fact, enough about everything. this is inf, signing off. have a nice day, i'll be sleeping through most of it.

Christmas present

becomes another Christmas past (always liked the double entendre implied in Dickens' A Christmas Carol: Ghost of 'Christmas present'). it was a nice one, as i was / we all were able to spend it with my / our entire family- something remarkably rare.

i finished wrapping Loren's gifts unusually early this year, despite a later-than-average start on my shopping, and got a bit more sleep than i'm used to on Christmas Eve; another welcome change.

as normal (when Loren's here on Christmas), Loren spent the morning opening his gifts from me (and those Santa brought him). usually Santa brings me something as well, which is really very thoughtful of him. Santa gave me a box of Boston baked beans (the candy, one of my favorites) in my stocking, as well as some gummi bears (another fave), and a much needed box of pencils for the cup on my desk, which has been conspicuously bare for weeks now. two things i like and one i needed; i certainly can't complain.

i also took matters into my own hands this year, buying a dart board that can accept either steel or soft-tip darts, and scores electronically. i've been wanting a steel-tip board for a long time, and it should provide us a decent return in amusement for the money.

i also splurged and bought another freestanding lamp for the living room, since it's usually dark when i get home from work, and what i've had in the living room proves insufficient to get the place clean. it's full-on winter shedding season for Chowder, and the dog hair's going to be a constant battle for weeks.

got some nice pictures today, which i'll eventually get to posting somewhere...and sending along to those who've requested them (or will now....), which brings to mind both the nagging USB interface problem which seems to linger on in this computer, and the running back-theme of if i should establish my own domain.....something else to chew on, but not tonight.

i got too many nice presents from my Most Excellent family to name in the time i'm willing to spend posting tonight, including a couple rather unexpected belated birthday presents. many thanks to everyone! Loren enjoyed himself, and it was great watching Ethan and Cole.

i wrapped some books for Cole in a box that was large enough but too deep, so i packed an old bath towel in the box on top of the books to keep it from collapsing while wrapping it. when Cole opened the gift he pulled out that frayed, old, pink towel and exclaimed, "I got a towel!"- which was hilarious. i tried to explain to him that it wasn't his gift but he wanted none of that- he was happy with the towel. Loren tried to help him out by taking the books out of the bottom of the box for him, at the same time as i was trying to direct Cole's attention back to the "real" contents of the box, so of course Cole saw an empty box that everyone was trying to convince him held his real present! totally funny. Jason said he'd be pretty tempted to let him have the towel. have to admit i was tempted to do just that myself; but Nichole had intervened by this point and directed his attention to the books. all in all, i think Ethan and Cole liked the little Superman and Batman action figures the best of what Loren and i gave them.

we give up a lot which has value, growing up, and we don't notice it until it's a moot point. it's really a joy to have children around to remind us of who were were, and how we used to relate to the world.

i took a picture of Loren with my parents before we left this evening, and Loren stood between them, with his arms comfortably around their shoulders. he's in between Mom and Dad in height now. there's not a lot of little left in him, and i'm going to miss him when he's out in the world. sometimes, maybe especially times like Christmas, i miss him already. five years, ten years from now....i can't imagine. i'm going to have to find something to fill in the big hole that'll leave, because right now....there's nothing else there.

Loren decided Chowder would have a better time staying home in the warm house than staying out on the deck or out in my folks' back yard (he'd be much too rambunctious in their house with a crowd like we had), so that's what he did. i slipped him a half dozen dog treats and a big piece of roast beef as we left. this evening, as Loren and i capped off the day with a little Deep Space Nine on DVD, Chowder got some more of my Boston baked beans, and one of Loren's Milk Duds, and he helped himself to a couple pig ears from the open bag in the den. i think he felt like he made out OK today, too.

off to work tomorrow to earn the mortgage payment and the first dent in the Christmas credit card bills. Jason & Melissa are off for the week, and Loren's going to spend the day with them tomorrow. Melissa generously offered to come pick him up tomorrow, which gives me an extra half-hour to an hour of sleep (quite welcome) and Loren and Melissa even more...plus Loren gets to hang out in the house and sort of acquaint himself with some of his new stuff.

so, ol' inf here's for the sack.

Merry Christmas everyone.

done with nights

Benny and i managed to finish the last of the trees the night crews were taking care of on Saturday night. the paychecks for the last few weeks have been more than welcome, but i've been ready to be done with graveyard shift for a while. time to move on to other things.

yesterday i tried to stay awake long enough to get my schedule turned back around. made it until about 2pm, figuring i'd get up and watch the Seahawks / Broncos night game, but i slept right through the alarms and kept right on sleeping until about 4:30 this morning. oh well...there are still a few games left in the regular season, and they're playoff-bound, so i'll get some more Seahawks football in.

today found me putting the finishing touches on my recommended reading page, getting it all up to date with my reading list page, as well as my page of what i've been watching, and putting another chapter in my latest book behind me, eating some food, and generally getting ready to experience this thing called "daylight" again.

i'm presiding over a board meeting for the homeowners association tonight, have to spend a little time getting reaquainted with the issues i've planned on raising. if i'm to be the one who drags this board and community kicking and screaming into the future, i want to be prepared. i'm certain the others involved in the board aren't going to be as prepared as i am, and doubt many of them will even be familiar with the association rules and guidelines, despite having literally months to get acquainted with them. in the end, this gives me an advantage i intend to press. nothing ever gets done around here, and i aim to make sure that changes.

the meeting conflicts with Monday Night Football, but unfortunately MNF didn't seem to be a priority to anyone but me.

i have some other observations to make regarding the board and its members but i'll save those until after the meeting, since i'll likely end up talking about what went on there a little anyway.

besides that, i'm a little behind on the chores, and i'd like to be caught up before i leave the house for the evening. a couple hours ought to do the trick. chore time also translates into time listening to music, which is always welcome. i've really developed some consistent habits over the last few years, and that's one of them.

Loren's mom called me this morning to try to talk Loren out of bed; he didn't want to get up and her first impulse was to call me to attempt to coerce him. i did, since i'd rather not see him be late for school, but he literally put the phone down and refused to talk to me. that was pretty rude, but not altogether surprising. i actually feel like i should have told her she'd have to handle the situation on her own; i have enough instances of "being the bad guy" without being her hammer as well. hindsight....

guess that's it. guess it's a shower, some coffee, some music and chores then.

Happy Birthday to me.

hurray. i made it to 39.

spent the last 2 hrs winding down from another night of hanging Christmas lights in downtown Seattle, specifically by continuing the update of my 'recommended reading' page (link's in the top right section of this page). it's gonna take me a while to finish updating all with reviews of all the books i've read since i initially published that page almost 2 years ago. that's one page that hasn't been getting its fair share of attention. oh well, no one's perfect, and it's not as if editing this stuff takes no time.

time to put something in my stomach and hit the hay, see if i can actually wake up in time to pick Loren up from school this afternoon, and squeeze in a little time with him before heading back to work tonight.

plus ça change. i think that's the right accent....