Interviewed by jazzfish
1) How’s life in Norfolk?
I really like it here. There’s more to do than I can possibly keep up with, lotsa good friends, and the scenery’s suprisingly good for a large metropolitan area. I do miss mountains, all the lovely folk in SWVA fandom, and not having to commute through a congested bridge-tunnel every day; and of course it would have been nice to be near my Mom when she got hurt. But otherwise, this is an excellent place to live.
2) What tech toy do you not own (and don’t plan on acquiring in the next three months) that you wish you did?
A GPS navigator for the Hyundai. I still do just enough convention driving and the like that it would come in handy.
3) What’s your favorite nonfiction book?
Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. It’s a brain-stretcher of a book, one that I’ve had to read many times to access most of the meaning, but one full of fascinating ideas and profound concepts involving music, art, literature, language, biology, and computers. I must be a graduate of the book by now, though, since I think his views on the future of Artificial Intelligence are quite pessimistic. OTOH, what do I know?
4) What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Working the Copy Center counter at Staples. The work itself was fine, but I had such difficulty with abrasive customers and co-workers that it made my previous job of vacuuming and emptying trash cans for an office building look absolutely peaceful.
5) How fast do you type?
To my own great surprise, around 60-65 words a minute. Surprising, because I kind of two-finger type. An actual typewriter would kill me, because I hit the “delete” key a lot. Still, my old boss at Thrifty Nickel once said I was the fastest, most accurate bad typist he’d ever seen.
Der Ruleses:
1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, ask them 5 questions.
Lunch and a walk
Finished my 10th mile of the new mile-a-workday program. At this rate, I should reach Rivendell by Christmas 🙂 Yesterday and today were beautiful walking days – 70 degrees, light breeze, cloudless skies. I notice that I’m slightly less overheated and winded than I was two weeks ago, though much progress remains to be made.
With the removal of two 200-calorie Cokes from my day, and a 200-calorie walk in addition, I’m hoping I see even a tiny bit of body difference in a month or two. I mean, I figure my diet beforehand was in the 2,200 – 2,400 calorie per day range, so that’s a fairly big cut.
After around 20-years, I have reconnected with cynical_prophet. He and I used to be thick as thieves in the Pathfinder days, but we had a falling out. That water’s long passed under that bridge, and I found him through clicking random LJ links – it’s good to hear from him again. Hard to write a short letter about “here’s what I’ve been up to for the last two decades”, though.
Feets don’t fail me now!
Hey there! I need opinions from the wise folk of LiveJournal.
So, I’m getting about a mile of walking in per day, but after a week, I’m still a bit winded and overheated when I finish.
Mt. Fuji comes to Mohammed
Just found out that Anime Mid-Atlantic is being held right in my backyard next month.
Anyone on my Friends List planning to go? Not much fun going to a con unless I can hang with some cool people. Besides, I haven’t been to an anime con in years and years – may need someone to show me the ropes!
Getting the hang of Tuesday
Rough start to the day.
Didn’t sleep well – under-hydrated, I think. 200 spam messages from last night in my inbox: the Russian spammers are trying some new tricks. I can’t even read most of the e-mails. More idiots driving 45 in the passing lane, then shifting right and doing 70 in the slow lane; and to top it off, my morning podcast glitched out halfway into the drive.
On the other hand, I was greeted again this morning by friendly ducks on the way out to my car. Last night was great, with pizza and WoW provided by Starr and a remarkably clean apartment she’d spent her “lazy day” scrubbing. And this morning I heard that my longtime partner-in-crime Tom Monaghan, one of the few Starfleeters to hold officer posts on USS Heimdal, Pathfinder, McKay, Yeager, and Ma’at, signed his first fiction book contract! Awesome!
So karma balances, and if the rain lets up at all I’ll get some more walking in today. Into the fray!
All is foggy to me
This morning brought a bank of that 30-meter visibility fog, and the “bridge from nowhere to nowhere” effect on the Monitor-Merrimac. Already, though, it’s turned clear, mild, and sunny with a cool breeze: I suddenly want to skip work tomorrow and go to Busch Gardens. Won’t, of course, but still.
Yes, “I can’t support your virtualization software at this time” means I can’t troubleshoot the apps you’re running in it, either.
I finally have the free Pirates of the Carribean MMO running correctly on my laptop. I’m likely to play it about as often as I launch Second Life – which is to say, almost never – but it’s amusing nevertheless to get “FedEx” quests* from Johnny Depp. None yet from Orlando or Kiera, but then, those are probably saved for people who actually play.
Starr went to her mom’s on Tuesday to plant the irises I retrieved. Turns out there were about two dozen, so with the other plants she’d brought, she spent most of an afternoon digging. Add that to her hospital shifts for Wednesday and today, and I’ve got a still-tired lady on my hands!
Happy WoW stuff: thanks to shrewlet, I got all the materials to finish building Mirandala’s epic quality Destruction Holo-Gogs. Among other materials necessary were 206 chunks of difficult-to-mine ore… I can only assume that a LOT of refining is done to turn that into a single pair of goggles.
Also, my polymorph quest issue was resolved while I was offline, so Mir can now turn people into pigs. Thank you, GMs! Too bad that the spell’s unavailable to my warlock, since I named her Circy.
And thank you ranchonmars for the postcard! I have too aged since the Pathfinder days, but it’s dang nice of you to say otherwise 🙂
*Game character A gives you item to take to character B, who will reward you with money, loot, XP, or often as not another FedEx quest. Perversely amusing when characters A and B are less than 20 gameworld yards from one another.
2008: A Hampton Roads Odyssey
BIG weekend.
rhaps and shrewlet came down, partially to socialize, and partially to pick up some unused floor tile from Starr’s mom.
I won’t list all the places to which I drove on Saturday and Sunday, it would be tedious for both writer and readers. But my destinations involved finances, prescriptions, breakfasts, lunch, dinner, additional socializing with Dwight, Bert, and Meche, HD channels for the TV, tile collection, and flowers.
The irises were interesting. Turns out that they were free because I had to dig them out of the lady’s downtown Norfolk garden myself. In the rain. And I hadn’t brought tools. And there were two hens and a rooster looking over my shoulder and providing constructive criticism.
On the other hand, the additional HD channels were all free, and consisted of content such as Discovery, Science, Food Network, Bravo, and TLC: the only sort of channels our TV tends to be tuned to anyway. We did watch 2001: A Space Odyssey on Universal HD, learning that yes, a pretty movie gets prettier at 1080i.
Good weekend, but I’m pooped.
Must – Control – Jaws – of Death…
The cat wishes everyone to know that he was highly paid for this television appearance. The hamster… would like some more carrot bits please.
Game blogger Tobold suggests that WoW players would reach endgame with far better raiding skills if there were quests where you had to practice raiding with sets of NPCs. Aside from the time pressures, one reason I don’t do instances is that I’m not very good at them, and I think this is a fine idea. When I do have to hit an instance dungeon for a quest, I usually end up in the company of several far-higher-levelled guild mates, and my presence becomes a bit unnecessary. This idea would mitigate the problem a bit.
rhaps and shrewlet are coming down this weekend, which is a good thing because my Technicon experience was extremely rushed. I envy Rhaps’ new iMac, which is the same model as my Mom’s. But I’ll have my Mac Pro soon enough.
Paying bills, finishing paperwork, getting all sorts of ducks in a row this week. (They were sitting out front again this morning, enjoying the humid weather.) It all feels good. Also: new blender yay 🙂
The Last Days of Technicon 25
My Sunday Technicon experience was brief and poignant. Reluctantly awake by 10:00, and out of the Microtel by 11:00, I headed back to McBryde for a final time.
My plan was to leave Blacksburg by 1:00, thereby getting home around 6:30-7:00 and having time for dinner and decompression, so my time was brief and rushed. I got to catch up briefly with nanoreid, had my picture taken with ranchonmars‘ Skull plush, and won an awesome Thunderchild print from rattrap. (It’s based on a plastic model I designed and we built many years ago.)
I finally had a few seconds to stop into Spiel, where I talked to jsciv for the only time during actual con hours. Touched base with rubinpdf, too; I hear ashoemaker was there, but I didn’t see him, though I did see markush on the way out. Since auction pickup hadn’t yet started, shrewlet offered to collect the print for me so that I could get on the road, and as I left the auditorium where the auctions were held, it seemed like half the con called out goodbyes. Just a little tiny bit verklempt, I was.
I drove home on 460 rather than battle the interstates; I got a far more peaceful drive for my trouble. Faint rain misted my windshield most of the way back, but posed no driving hazard, though I more than once encountered the damned “I refuse to be passed by a Hyundai, even if I was 15 miles under the speed limit!” attitude. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was so bushed that I sat a couple inches lower in the car seat, making the hood seem to disappear behind the dash.
Finally, I made it home. Starr and Midori were most pleased to see me. I presented Starr with the custom art I commissioned from rainbowsaber, and heard happy squees for the rest of the evening.
Sleep came upon me with no trouble at all, that night; and thus endeth the story of a happy Technicon. I’m already looking forward to next year’s: Jerry’s a good man who knows a thing or two about making a con happen, and I’m already tagged to do my shtick again. And this time, I’m bringing Starr!
(Say, who’s FanGOH for 26? And who’s got pics online?)
