Finally got an eye exam.

I am aging, but still under 40.  That’s when I fully expect to go from “nearsighted” to “unable to read a menu in the same time zone”.

I’ve gone from -1.25/-1.5 to -1.5/-1.75, though for contacts, she prescribed both to be -1.5 — in anticipation of my turning 40.  No signs of gloucoma, no astigmatism.  They took baseline photos of my retina.

Everything was fine until she manually checked my peripheral vision with my pupils dilated.  Then, we stopped being friends.  For a few moments.  I’ve got a followup visit on the 6th to see how the contacts she gave me are working out.

I’ve been ill.

So, what have I been up to?

I took the spambait on they.com, and instead of learning each one as it comes in, I now batch them up, and learn the batches once per minute.  I also snag everything that imap users put into their imap spam folder, and add that to the learning batch.  I keep the non-spambait stuff, and learn from the latest 30 of those each minute.

Did you know that they.com is getting about one spam each second?

It’s amazing how much I can get done if I stop doing work-work for a day.

I also caught up on a lot of blogging.  I’ve been using foxmarks to have one set of bookmarks across every system, and I created a folder called “2blog”.  Anything I come across that I want to blog about, I add to that folder.  I cleared about half of it out yesterday.  The really fun thing is that I can do that from anywhere, now!

We finally got a new dryer.  We’ve gone gas, this time.  It used to take 2 hours to do a load of towels — more recently, because I had to stop and untangle everything after the last baffle came out completely — but now it takes barely longer than the washer. I’m now thinking that I may want to reverse my standard method of doing laundry, and switch from starting with the whites (since I always ended up waiting on the dryer) to starting with the things done in cold water.

Bleh.  I’m blogging about laundry.  Time to go back to the 2blog folder, eh?  Here we go…

Strength and lonliness

Normally, weekend nights when we are home, we watch PBS Britcoms.

Tonight, PBS Mystery — a Brittish adaptation of Dracula — ran long. Instead of britcoms, we were presented with a half-hour animated musing on lonliness called “A Room Nearby“.

Instead of feeling for these people, I felt smug. They are talking about how lonliness is isolating, and dwelling on the negative aspects thereof, whereas by the time I was 14, I relished my lonliness, and used every moment of it that I could grab to forge my own identity.

C’mon, folks. Lonliness is not an affliction. It is not a curse. It is not neccisarily rejection by society. Even if it were, so what if it is? Take this time to forge yourself stronger. I cannot deny the ability of wallowing insofar as it can be a tool to eventually strenghten oneself, as much of the time that I now realize has made me stronger involved nothing more involved than myself and a Rubik’s Cube — or less (but we won’t go there today, WILL WE!?!), and faced with the almost archival fact that nearly 1/3 of gay teens attempt suicide (isn’t that number lower yet?), I can understand the need for such — well, what is it? A Short Film? A TV show? A mini-series? I must not be the target demgraphic. I’ve always had soneone to talk to, no matter how young or old.

I keep saying that “I am nobody’s demographic.” Whenever I say that, I feel that I’m being disingenuious. Then I think about it — Aside from “Dexter”, what have I found in popular culture to attract me? Certainly not the Police performing tonight. I have a Simpson-esque attitude toward almost all awards shows — or is that Allen-esque? No matter, because both those terms imply a marketability, in the sense that “Pythonesque” is now in the OED, which has allegedly disappointed John Clesse as much as I presume I must also be disappointed.

I’m still not going to hold back about my concerns about weakness, which I think if one of my greatest strenghts. Combine the best of New York City — that is, the directness; the best of San Francisco (ummmm, no comment), and the laid-backness of Austin, and you’ve pretty much got me.

And that all said, I still get both 80’s film references, and Pynchon references.

Oh, and I’m one of the best unix geeks you’ll ever meet. I’ve learned from the best of the best of the cream of the crop. I can make perl and sh sing.

And PBS is still playing “Keeping up Appearnaces”. Sigh.

Not me!

We stayed in a hotel in downtown Chicago. This place, which I will not name, was not only non-smoking, but smoker-hostile and smug about it.

So, late in the cold, windy weather, I bundle up and go out front to smoke before I go to bed. Two gentlemen are there already, one smoking, one standing behind the valet podium. The man behind the podium had something that caused him to spasm regularly — perhaps ALS, perhaps MS, I thought it unkind to ask. Soon, this person asked the one already smoking for a light. It took them several tries, including one discarded cigarette, but they got the job done.

Then the other smoker finished up and went in.

Then, a car pulled up.

The driver and his wife got out. She went inside, while he gathered up things to take in, all the while watching the two of us smoke. I was standing off to the side, while our spasming friend was back behind the valet podium.

The driver then came up to me, and whispered:

Are you the valet?

The only thing I could do was to shake my head no, and smile an almost-evil smile.

Busy day in the cold, cold north…

Grace and I have been busy.

  • Snow angel (not re-creating selected scenes from Fargo)She made snow angels.
  • We had a snowball fight.Snowball fight
  • She went sledding.Sledding

It is now 14 below. We’re staying warm, watching the game, and eating chili.

Wow, it is cold.

We’re in Antigo, WI. It’s -40 with the wind chill. Do I need to point out that it doesn’t matter whether I say that in Fahrenheit or Celcius? If you don’t count the wind, it’s only 15 below (F).

Why am I here? My airline miles from all the travel I did starting in 2000 were about to expire. Grace hasn’t really seen snow. There was a super-saver fare, and Diane’s father’s 85th birthday is coming up.

Need I point out how painful 40 below is? We packed 5 bags for 3 of us for 4 days, and it’s not enough.

Grace was outstanding traveling. I’ve gotten to spend lots of time with her, and she’s behaving extraordinarily well! The worst part of it all was when the plane was landing, and her ears hurt. She didn’t believe that chewing gum would help, and wouldn’t try yawning for me.

While driving from Chicago to Clintonville, WI, we stopped for provisions. Grace got out of the car to stretch her legs, and walked over to the snow by the parking lot. I stopped her and zipped up her coat, then she walked into the snow and picked some up — without gloves. Presumably to try and make a snowball. That’s her big thing about this trip — she wants to have a snowball fight with me!

She only did that once, go figure! It’s so cold that the snow is really dry and powdery. I had her stomp her feet all the way back to the car, so that the snow she walked in wouldn’t melt and get her socks and shoes wet.

Last night, on the way from dinner in Clintonville to Antigo, we saw the non-wind-chill temperature drop to 19 belowDsc04938. I’m quite certain that that is the coldest I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I am more convinced than ever that I will never choose to do this kind of winter travel ever again, nor will I ever move further from the equator than I do now — about 4100 miles.

A big step in not trying to lose…

So, Grace has been big on playing tic-tac-toe.  I try to let her win.

The other day, we started playing connect-4.  The real one, that drops checkers into the plastic maze.  I didn’t let her win.  She lost 5 games in a row.

Then, she started to win.  She won 4 games in a row before we had to go to Grandma’s…

Testing wordpress 2.1

I’m having some issues with the widgets — especially in widget configuration.Dsc04890

I’m really looking forward to the spell-checker, however!

Will inserting photos still work?

Yes, it will!

Almost another scooby movie…

We took Grace to see Happy Feet, and there were previews and commercials.

Of course, there was the clip about buying snacks from the concession stand, the only thing was this one was themed to look like Harry Potter. That’s when it occured to me, so I leaned to Cy and said:

Hey! It’s Harry Pot-head, and he has the munchies!

And that’s what makes it almost like Shaggy and Scooby.

Those Italian deer…

So, Grace had a birthday. She got lots of presents, including Sly Cooper 3 for her PS2.

Then, Cy had his Big Band thing again this year. Grace and I went to eat first, then we all went to eat afterwards, at the Y Bar and Grill.

Since G and I had already eaten, we only got some appetizers — some cheese bread, and some venison skewers. As long as the venison had not been in the spicy sauce they served it with, she loved it. We talked about how venison was deer meat, and she ate more still…

Then, the next day, she and Cy were playing Sly3. Where is Sly, in the world? Why, Venice, of course! So Grace demonstrated her mastery of word roots by asking

Is Sly inside a deer?

Yes, I’m bragging.