| Greetings From Austin |
[Jul. 25th, 2008|09:43 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  Austin-riffic | ] |
Today has been fun, but relatively low-key. We got into Austin around 11:30, determined where the hotel was (6th and Guadalupe), hit Book People and Whole Foods, then got Jane her requisite (veggie) Bean Burger at EZ's. After that, we went to the LBJ Presidential Museum & Library. While that may not sound like a boatload of excitement, I assure you it was the bomb for a pair of history geeks like Jane and myself. I'd been once, long ago, and Jane had never been and it was a great way to kill a couple of hours. Honestly, I'm in awe of LBJ's presidency. I lived through it, but I'd never really stopped to add up all the amazing changes that got pushed through Congress on his watch. Makes me proud to be a Texas Democrat.
This evening, we met up with Iolo for dinner at Chuy's, with A along for the ride. Good times were had and many important world problems solved once and for all. Or not.
(Incidently, Iolo is his SCA name. And yes, computer game geeks, the character in Ultima was inspired by and named after him. In the spectrum of people who've had an influence on me, he rates somewhere between non-biological older brother and the cool uncle I wish I'd had. He's one of the dearest people in my life and it's been too long since we've had a chance to visit.)
Now, we're ensconced in our room. It's early and Austin's nightlife is happening right down the street, but we're rather tired and decided to make an early one of it. Tomorrow, we have brunch plans with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) burgundy, and will play things by ear beyond that. |
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| Another Milestone |
[Jul. 24th, 2008|08:05 am] |
Fifteen years ago today, I stood up in front of a small group of friends and family in Jane's parents' living room and did the smartest thing I've ever done in my life.
Married her.
It's a bit hard to fathom that it's been that long, really. It's also really amazing to realize that we just keep getting stronger as a couple as the years go by. I know how lucky I am, and I know that fifteen years is just an arbitrary number, divisible by five. But I can count on one hand the number of marriages among our friends that have lasted as long as ours or longer and I'd still have a few fingers left over.
So, I'll mark this day as one of the best two of my life. |
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| What An Incredibly Shitty Year For the Gaming World |
[Jul. 23rd, 2008|02:04 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sad | ] |
So far this year, we've lost Gary Gygax, Bob Bledsaw (founder of Judge's Guild), Erick Wujcik (creator of many notable works), and now N. Robin Crossby, creator of the Harn setting has passed away.
This is, as the kids say, "teh suck." |
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[Jul. 22nd, 2008|02:33 pm] |
Things have improved a bit. I decided to go have crispy spicy asparagus for lunch, which necessitated a trip to Half-Price Books. I couldn't figure out what I was in the mood for, but finally decided a James Ellroy paperback would do. I got a copy of Clandestine (one of his early novels) for a couple of bucks, then discovered it was an autographed copy. Groovy.
Of course, this means I'll be unable to use conjunctions while thinking, speaking, or writing for a few days. That always seems to happen when I read Ellroy. |
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| Dear Media |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|11:13 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | amused | ] |
Texas is large. Very large. Seriously, you should look at a map sometime.
When I see a headline like "Texas Braces for Dolly", it makes me laugh, because to be fair, a tiny bit of Texas is getting ready for what MIGHT end up a Category 1 hurricane by the time it makes landfall. The other 95% of the state is likely to be watering their yards and staying out of the heat as per usual for this time of year.
I know you need to make news stories and yes, a Cat 1 will likely bring some heavy rains and flooding in an area that doesn't need it, but in the grand scheme of things, this is a non-story. In fact, if the expected landfall were say, forty miles further south, I doubt you'd be reporting it at all.
Just sayin'. |
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| My Day, So Far |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|09:08 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
Get up too damned early.
Get the boy up and get him dressed so we can be out the door on time.
Drive to the main office arriving by 7:30. Plenty of time to break stuff with no one around.
Start breaking stuff. Nothing is working. Spend an hour doing same and finally determine that nothing I can do is going to fix the problem.
Start thinking of work-arounds. Discuss ideas with Front Desk assistant manager (they're the area most impacted by this weird little outage).
Notice my head is hurting. Take an Imitrex.
Head to my office. On the way, take a call from Bossman. Inform him I couldn't fix it, and discuss workarounds some more.
Decide it's still early, so stop at Taco Cabana to pick up breakfast.
Get to office, discover that Taco Cabana got my order wrong on a nearly inedible level.
Take order back to Taco Cabana. Get it fixed.
Traffic light controlling the one left turn I have to make to get back to the office is now out. It was working ten minutes ago, but now it's stuck on red. Eventually run the red to get back to work. |
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| Cheap Counters - Further Refinements |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|08:29 pm] |
Because I'm one of those lazy bums who's always trying to come up with a way to make something easier/more efficient.
Today, since I was in the city, I went shopping for more of the 1" disks I'm using to make counters. Unfortunately, Hobby Lobby was out, and Michael's only had a rather overpriced seven for $1.50, and only one package of those.
However, Michael's did have something else: Lara's Crafts' Alphabet Circles. One inch wooden disks with a letter of the alphabet painted/printed on one side. Best of all, a bag of 52 is only $1.99. The best part, however is that the unpainted side has a heavy-duty adhesive backing. Which means I only have to stick the cardstock on the disks, then seal them with the decoupage. One could also paint the backs of the disks if one is opposed to the alphabet on aesthetic grounds. I haven't decided if I'm going to do that or not. |
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| Austinites, Point Me To The Good Stuff! |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|09:54 am] |
This coming weekend, Jane and I are driving up for a long weekend to celebrate our anniversary. As is typical for us, we've got a few nebulous plans and objectives, and a good deal of time to fill.
The main plan is to stay near 6th Street and go listen to music in the evenings. This is Jane's part of the plan and I am happy with it. I've never done the 6th St thing in all my years of hanging around Austin and while I know it's not the same scene it was, there's still things to do. Or so I'm told. The hotel is already booked, and it sounds nice.
I know we'll hit the usual shopping spots (Book People, Dragon's Lair, Whole Foods, Waterloo, and Toy Joy).
I've got a couple of food destinations on tap (Mother's, the Clay Pit, Curra's, Chuey's, Kerbey Lane).
We've got dinner plans lined up with one old friend, but if any of the other Austin area folks reading this wants to grab a bite, let me know.
But I know there's got to be other stuff to do that we've never bothered with. Like the French Legation Museum, and watching the bats fly, but other than that, I'm not sure what else we we're going to do to fill the time.
So feel free to suggest away. We're driving up Friday morning and heading back after lunch on Sunday. If it's a food suggestion, remember they need to have vegetarian options beyond the dinner salad. If it's an outdoor activity, remember that it's July and Austin is freakin' hot. |
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| Dr. Horrible (Probable Heresy, Relatively Spoiler-Free) |
[Jul. 21st, 2008|09:28 am] |
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I thought it was OK. It had it's moments. It also had a few too many not so great moments for my tastes. I also saw that ending coming from space. Mr. Whedon has some very definite gifts as a writer. Using the same basic gut-punch isn't one of them anymore. Tara, Wash, Kitty...it's predictable now, and the whole point of a gut-punch is that it comes out of nowhere. When, "Holy shit! NO!" is replaced by "Aw shit...I knew that was going to happen," it's time to get a new bag of tricks. |
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[Jul. 20th, 2008|09:13 pm] |
I had to get up early and drive in to the office this morning. I'd forgotten some server maintenance I'd said I'd take care of on Thursday night. It's just as well, since when I did it last night, the remote server didn't come back up from the restart I imposed on it. At least it was only down for a few hours overnight on Saturday rather than being down when we opened on Friday. Anyway, I drove it, took care of it and the rest of the maintenance, and was back home before 9 AM.
Most of today was spent generating artwork to make more counters. I turned out some pretty cool stuff, I daresay, given the limitations of the Heromatic.
Went over to the in-laws' to swim. C-Monster has been taking lessons at the Y, and they've not gone all that well, to tell you the truth. For some reason, Jane and her mom had this notion that I could make some progress with him where the trained professionals could not, so I gave it a shot.
Apparently, I did good. I had him swimming underwater, and "Alligator kicking" around pretty well after an hour or so. Jane told me that after I left (I gave myself a bit of a headache), he swam some more in the deep end under his uncle's supervision. He's NOT a strong swimmer yet, but he's finally at a point where he might be able to get himself out of trouble, should it arise.
Came home, printed out my earlier work and produced some more counters. The cardstock + sealant approach is definitely the way to go. No smudges at all, though the cardboard is a tiny bit harder to work with. Not enough to go back to normal paper.
Not bad as long weekends go. Not bad at all. |
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| Doin's and Not Doin's |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|11:38 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
I'm off today (my annual birthday holiday). Here's the agenda of things done and to be done:
Get the car's oil changed.
Pick up prescription.
Go to craft stores.
Get crafty. (Subject of later post if it goes to plan.)
Hopefully go out for dinner this evening. (Depends on C-Monster. He's been a cranky homebody lately.)
Watch "Spiderwick Chronicles" with C-Monster.
Thing not to be done:
Go see the new Batman flick.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll eventually go see it in the theater and I'll probably like it, but it's really hard to get me fired up about cinematic Batman efforts. As far as I'm concerned, the definitive version was done over the course of several years by WB Animation, and the live action versions (even the most recent) are just trying too hard and missing the essence of the character. I'm sure the new one will be a fine film about people with the same names as characters in the Bat franchise, but I doubt they'll have any more heart than their predecessors. |
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| Jane vs. the HOA in the Battle of the Fence |
[Jul. 18th, 2008|10:59 am] |
OK, that's a tad overdramatic, really. But I'm off today, so I can afford some flamboyance.
You might recall that we've been asked by the Homeowners' Association to replace our privacy fence on one side of the house. Initially, we were asked to fix it, but my fixes proved insufficient to their wishes, and so we were asked to replace it entirely. Given that the fence is in pretty rotten shape, it's an understandable request in many respect.
The thing is, there are some additional things to take into consideration. First, they would not be asking us to replace the fence if not for the fact that we're at the end of a row of houses and that side of Casa de Bretzes faces a community-owned park. A park which has been vandalized a number of times in the past. Vandalism that has occasionally extended to the boards of our fence.
Second, for the past few months, we've watched the HOA replace the entirety of the privacy fencing backing homes on the outer perimeter of our subdivision. A few innocent-sounding questions revealed that this was done entirely at the HOA's expense, not the homeowners.
Thirdly, according to the guidelines handed down by the HOA, replacing fencing between two properties should be worked out between the respective neighbors. Since the HOA owns the land adjoining ours, and given their willingness to re-fence the perimeter of the neighborhood, it seemed reasonable to ask them to foot at least part of the bill.
I expected we'd get a "Hell no," from them, but Jane wanted to give it a shot. We got bids and she submitted a request through the management company, who forwarded it all to the board.
Yesterday, we got a response. The good news is, it wasn't a "Hell no." The bad news is it was still a "No." But, we did end up with some concessions we can live with.
1. We have a six month extension to replace the fence. No further complaint/reminder letters will be sent to us.
2. The HOA sent their fence contractor to bid on the job. His bid fell in between the two we'd already gotten, but Jane saw something she liked in it.
3. Once the fence is replaced, any further vandalism is to be reported to the Management Company and the HOA will foot the repair bills.
All of the above was accompanied with the HOA's apologies. It came down to funding and they hadn't considered what effect the perimeter re-fencing would have in conjunction with picking this year to request new fences from folks in the neighborhood. Apparently, they were bombed with requests for them to pay for the entire thing. By asking for half and explaining our position so well, we at least got a "We're really sorry but," instead of the "No. Get it done," everyone else ended up with.
So, it's not a perfect solution, but I'd expected we'd have to pay for the whole thing in the first place. We've got more time, and we've effectively got a warranty and the apparent goodwill of the HOA board at the moment. So, that's something. |
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[Jul. 16th, 2008|07:49 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | good | ] |
As birthdays where I had to work go, it's been a pretty good one. I was running a little late this morning, which sucks since Wednesdays are team meeting first thing in the AM. I got there to see a bunch of pastries on the conference table, in honor of my b'day. Coolness.
Today is also the fifth anniversary of my taking over the running of the network at the office. It's interesting to look back at how things have changed, and how now I actually HAVE a department to have weekly team meetings with. It still takes some getting used to, once in a while, but I like it.
The rest of the day consisted of fairly ordinary work issues, a comics run, Buffalo wings, and cake. The last bit was rather cool. I had to go over to our administrative offices to set up a computer for a new hire. One of our staff over there has the same birthday, and at her insistence, their cake fest included me. Since I used to work quite closely with a lot of the folks over there (I don't anymore), it was nice to take a breath and visit for a bit.
Tonight was TACOS. And more cake. I'm bloated. I also have the three Indy Jones films on DVD now, and the 40 Years of X-Men DVD.
Good day. |
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| Images for Today |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|07:32 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | self-indulgent | ] |
( Cut For Space ) |
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| Only The Soccer Fans Will Get This |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|03:17 pm] |
I need this shirt design:
I'll settle for it as a userpic, though. :-) |
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| Words of Wisdom From A Gaming Elder States...well, an old fart with good ideas about gaming |
[Jul. 15th, 2008|02:51 pm] |
In my LATEST phase, I feel that character background should be 25 words or less, and the GM's world background should be 500 words or less. The GM may have more information, but all the PLAYERS get is 500 words or less.
After all, George Lucas only needed 83 words to introduce players to HIS universe.
93 words if you include
"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
-- Mike Mornard, AKA "Old Geezer", who played in the original Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns
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[Jul. 13th, 2008|07:47 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  lazy | ] |
It's a quiet one today. Read some more on 4e (I'm almost through Fighter powers), and played around with the new Mutants & Masterminds add-on for Hero Lab. At first look, it's pretty spiffy. Am also reading the Inuyasha manga, having acquired the first 24 volumes for cheap.
I suspect it'll be an early night; I don't know if I'll even stay up to watch "Venture Bros." |
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| A Bit of A Catch-Up Post |
[Jul. 12th, 2008|02:47 pm] |
I had my annual review on Wednesday. It was OK. Not great, not bad, right in the center of the "Meets Expectations" zone. Which I basically expected. I feel like I had some moments of glory, but I still haven't taken the MCSA tests and a lot of my time this year was spent keeping things running rather than moving us forward in any significant way. So yeah, I expected it to be very average. I've got some attainable goals for the next twelve months, so I don't feel bad about it.
Inspired by a post from bobmungovan, I decided to try and get in touch with an old friend. B was my best friend in high school and for a couple of years after, until he moved to Arizona in 83 or so. Even after that, we managed to stay in touch for the next decade or so and he was Best Man at our wedding. He came through Houston to visit a few years ago, and after that, we kind of lost touch in that way that adults with busy lives who have other things going on tend to do. Still, with our 15th anniversary coming up, he's been on my mind lately, so I decided to see if I could find him online. Turns out his online footprint is almost as trackable as mine, so it wasn't too hard. We've traded a few short emails with a long catch-up promised. So, yay for that.
Last night, Jane and I saw the new Hellboy flick. Damn. That was freakin' amazing. It hit all of my sweet spots and gave Jane the Willies something fierce. I really can't say enough positive about this film. It kicked the first one's ass (and I love the first one). It was one of the best sequel films I've seen in that it wasted no time getting the viewer up to speed. You either knew the premise of the film and the basics of the characters or you didn't and you'd better catch up fast.
I think that for me, some of the joy in the Hellboy franchise is my near-total lack of familiarity with the comics. I've read a handful of stories, and I know there are tons of graphic novels and collected trades out there, but I can never get a straight answer on what I should read or in what order I should read them. So almost all of my exposure to it has been through word of mouth, the two live action films and the two animated films. As a result, each film is a revelation and that sense of discovery, coupled with Del Toro's amazing gift for visualizing the unimaginable makes this one a treat.
And Nuada and Nuala are the best cinematic elfs I have ever seen. Damn, they were terrible to behold.
When we got home, I finished Stephen Brust's newest Vlad Taltos novel, Jhegaala. It's a flashback story, from earlier in Vlad's flight from the Jhereg than Athyra, and is interesting in that it features no on-screen Dragaerans. It's set entirely in the East and pits Vlad against a human population he understands far less than he expects. It's convoluted and noir-ish as usual, but it felt more substantial than Dzur (which I liked a great deal all the same). Ultimately, I read Brust for the journey, not the destination, and I got my money's worth on that front as usual.
Finally, I'm in the process of reading D&D 4th edition from cover to cover. While I'm still not sold on it, I want to be as fair as possible, and I realized that a couple of playtests, a general scan, and reading enough information to get a character built probably doesn't constitute an entirely fair shake. I still don't like the lack of the toolkit approach to character building, which leaves things a bit generic and cookie-cutter for my tastes, but I'm also trying to find interesting things I CAN do with the system.
And that's about it as updates go. |
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accomplished
geeky