Also, the LiveJournal feed from this site, new site, has been redirected to mirror the new site. (LJ was incredibly fast in making that change when I requested it.)
From here on out, unless something goes dreadfully wrong, all new updates will be over there.
]]>set your bookmarks to my new site.
Hope to see you all over there.
A quick remark about the Notify list: I tried installing a Notify plugin, but it didn't work. I'll look for others, but in the meantime, you know what? I update just about every day, except weekends. If you check me daily, you'll generally see something new.
]]>The other two sound like adults who want the car for themselves, so that's good. One is a woman several states away, who couldn't find one an MR-2 closer. At last report she was researching shipping options; I haven't heard from her in a couple of days, so either she's still researching or she decided it was too expensive. The other is a man in another part of this state who just called last night; he's supposed to call back to let me know when we can meet.
I have no idea how to handle tax, title, and license, I suppose I should probably call the DMV. But hopefully one of these will come through and buy the car.
In other news I have an actual contract, printed on real paper, sitting on my table back home. I just need to check with Rudder that his side is solid enough for me to go ahead and sign it. And then we'll be committed. (Er, to the contract.) The other paperwork complication is getting hold of my birth certificate and our marriage license. Oregon was quite efficient in sending Rudder's, but Pennsylvania appears to be much more disorganized. I was able to order the birth certificate online but the receipt points out that it can take up to ten days to get it sent to me. Because apparently printing and sending a record is way too difficult and it takes nine days to nerve yourself to do it. It kind of makes me glad I moved away.
Oh well, maybe I can wear the lace shawl if I ever go out for the evening. Or it can be a present sometime. (Not, however, for my great-aunt who is turning 90 later this month. This is a woman who worked in a high-fashion store into her 80s for the employee discount - I'm afraid she'd think a lace shawl was too old-ladyish for her.)
No further calls on the car today, though one person seems to be seriously interested. She's asked a lot of questions, anyhow. I do hope this isn't the sort of thing where you get a bunch of calls immediately and then nothing. I'm just anxious to get things started and moving.
In other frustrations, I'm trying again to get our marriage license. We were married in Montgomery County, just outside Philadelphia, but for some reason the first time I called to ask about getting a license I was told to mail a request to Philadelphia City Hall. Last Friday, I got a letter back saying they hadn't found our license. So I called Montgomery county and this time they'll all, "oh, yes, send us the request - here, want us to make sure it's on file here first?" It was, so now I have a little more assurance, but it's still annoying to have to send not one but two actual letters, on paper, with SASE and all that. I don't understand why it's such a hassle. Birth certificates, in contrast, are handled by the state rather than the county, and you can order an official copy online. Then again, we've recieved Rudder's from Oregon but not mine from PA, and we ordered them the same day, so I won't laud that system just yet. Then when I do get them I get to mail them right back to the capitols of the respective states for an apostille stamp, which is a legalization saying, "Yes, these official documents are really our official documents and we'll stand behind them. I can only conclude these systems were designed for people who never actually left the state in which they were born or married, which is ironic given that almost the only time you'd need an apostille is in the case of moving to another country.
Also, I really would like a nap now.
I am finally not sore, at least not much. On Sunday walking was painful. Saturday involved two hours of weeding, 25 km erging, and a massage. I don't think the erging was the problem, amusingly enough. After the weeding, I was fairly exhausted, but I wanted to get the long erg piece in before the scheduled massage. I told him I'd lie to not be sore the next day (well, that didn't work!) and he did do a lot of stretching of my hip joints. So I'm not sure if the problem was the weeding or the sstretching, but I'm inclined to blame the weeding.
I think normal people consider weeding the garden to be routine and erging over 15 miles to be outlandish. Apparently I'm a little backward.
The next challenge is what ti do about tomorrow. I've done such pitiful distances on the erg since I was sore yesterday and allergy-ish today that I really need to get some distance in. However, I'd need to be up by 4 to do the distance and shower before a 6AM telecon. That would be fine, but tonight is knitting, and since it's almost the only socializing I do lately I don't want to miss it. it doesn't start until 7, so one possibility is to erg after work today. I could erg this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon and then go to the gym Thursday morning, if I want to be relly virtuous. (Yeah, I wouldn't bet on it either.)
You know what annoys me? Well, OK, that. And yes, that too. And that other thing. But what I'm thinking about at this moment is those people who say things like, "You should just make exercise a part of your daily routine. You wouldn't skip brushing your teeth, would you?" Well, no, but brushing my teeth doesn't take an hour and leave me tired and sweaty. I do work out a lot, and it's true that works better if you do it as a matter of routine without thinking about it too much. But to get the amount of exercise I need to reach my goals, I need to spend a nontrivial amount of time on it, and sometimes I do have to make real sacrifices. It's not just a matter of spending less time planted on the couch, it's a matter of having to get to bed early, to get less sleep in the mornings than I'd like, to eat food that won't upset my workout instead of what I want to eat (this is nontrivial if I'm going out on the actual water, where there are no restroom breaks), and sometimes to give up things I'd like to do. I think the "exercise is like toothbrushing" people are either just doing the minimum to maintain health or are trying to persuade themselves.
Maybe that's the way to figure how much I want to go out tonight - if I want to go badly enough, I will bite the bullet and erg first.
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Up next: this is mostly her fault. We'll see how well it goes when it starts being hundreds of stitches across!
Also, my dining room has a tile floor, and it's open to the living room, which has likewise tile on the floor, a cathedral ceiling and no soft furnishings (just bookshelves and my library table). So when I sing along to the music in the book my uneven and untrained voice resonates like the Merlin's own.
]]>This just all seems so complicated. On the other hand my asking price is midrange for the similar cars posted, about Blue Book value, and it's $4K above what the dealer would give me, so I gues it's worth it.
]]>I wanted to upgrade because updating this site takes forever these days and I get error messages more often than not, even though the update generally does work. Presumably the problem has to do with rebuilding a site with 2100-some entries on it. I was hoping the new rev of the software would deal better with blogs on the verbose side, but I may never find out. One option is to just deal with things as they are, though it is a bit annoying. Another is to switch over to Wordpress; we use it on the Outlaws website and updateds are imediate but then again the archives are way smaller. My hosting company makes installing WP extremely easy but I have a feeling that connecting it to said 2100+ entries would not be trivial. A third option would be to start a brand new WP site, just with a llink back to my archives here, and there's some appeal to doing that as I make major changes in my life. (A fourth is either paying for MT support or paying them to actually do the installation but I doubt I'll do that.) I don't know, but don't be surprised if there are changes here one of these days.
I generally watch the morning news while getting dressed for work. The channel I watch focuses a lot on local news. Yesterday they had a piece about a student-run math tutoring program at a local high school. The kids being interviewed had an equation written out on a white board to be reduced - something like 14a^2b / 42ab^3. (I'm using the ^ for powers, so a^2 is a squared). So OK, divide by 7, divide by a and b, realize the numeric part comes to 2/6 and divide by 2 to reduce farther. How hard is that? I had it solved in my head in about thirty seconds, and despite working in engineering, I very rarely do any math harder than balancing a checkbook.
The news anchors were all "Oh, that's too hard, I wouldn't have any idea how to solve that." Grr. People like that explain how the "Math is hard" Barbie made it to market. I wouldn't have a problem if they were talking about solving a differential equation, which is probably not required in J-school, but an adult ought to know 7th-grade algebra, or at least refrain from suggesting that it's perfectly peachy not to know it.
The only redeeming facotr is that I suspect not too many kids watch the morning news and the ones being interviewed already do now how to reduce a simple equation.
I think I was right about the feline issues. Yesterday I was home all evening, having been out the previous two evenings, and the cat was not only much more relaxed, he didn't start miauling until about two minutes before the alarm.
]]>He's been very needy lately, which wouldn't be a problem except for two things. First, he's very vocal and has the whiniest voice I've ever heard on a cat. It sounds like he's trying to tell me something's wrong, but damned if I can figure out what it is. That still wouldn't be a problem, except that he keeps deciding to speak up in the middle of the night. I've been in sleep deficit all week, at least partly thanks to him. The other problem is that the neediness translates into wanting to be petted whenever I'm sitting or laying still, which wouldn't be a problem except he won't stay still lately. I don't mind too much having him on my lap while I use the computer, over even when he sita on the edge of the mousepad, but I do mind when he either parades back and forth in front of the keyboard or around my ankles, headbutting them whenever I'm not petting him enough. I don't even mind trying to get to sleep with him suggled up to me and one hand on him, but instead he keeps pacing back and forth and butting my hand for more petting. I'm really hoping that having me around a bit more calms him down at least during the night - we've always found that the more time we're with them, the better socialized both cats became, so I think having Rudder gone for so long and me busy - and away for three days last weekend - is the cause of the problem.
I hope so, anyway. I need more sleep. Damn cat.
]]>Maybe this weekend I can see if the dealer will offer enough for my little car or if I'll have to sell it independently (I suspect the latter) and make an appointment to get the cat the checkups he needs.
Later this afternoon I made an appointment for a massage Saturday, and this evening I went out to eat with the Cubemate (her guy is out of town too). To celebrate, we went to the fancy steak place instead of the midrange one I'd originally proposed. There was wine and there was dessert. Not sure this will all be much good for tomorrow erg piece, but some things take precendence.
]]>Am not patient. In fact I went to the extent of calling him in his hotel room, which required calling my cell-phone service provider first to get the capability to make international calls. Reached him but he had just gotten back fromt he gym and was in the middle of dinner or something. He promised to call back, though. I don't mind waiting 20 minutes or an hour as long as I don't have to wait until tomorrow.
Waiting...
He called and the news is good! I may wait until tomorrow to talk to my boss; I've got some interesting ideas to propose *cough*layoff*cough* and it would help if I weren't grinning like a fool.
(I do apologize about all the vagueness. I should be able to post with detail and dates here within the next few days.)
OK. On other topics. And in pursuit of not grinning like a fool....
So I think last night I accidentally mastered dressing for the coffeeshop. My local knitting group meets there on Tuesdays, and last night was my third or fourth time. For work, I'd warn, starting from the bottom, my faaabulous black not-too-high-but-spike-heel pointy-toed D'orsay pumps, black tights, a Black Watch mini-kilt, a blue fitted Oxford, glasses instead of contacts and a haircomb with sparkly blue crystals. For the knit-in, I removed the tights and the shirt, subsitituting for the latter a black cami with "New Orleans Mardi Gras" on it in honor of the anniversary, and deciding to omit upper underpinnings because I get tired of the way bra straps always seem to be set wider than camisole-shirt straps. I don't go without often any more, but I still can without discomfort or being really, really obvious. (That is, you can tell, but you have to look carefully.) The reason I'm guessing this was the correct attire was that the (female) barista was suddenly much chattier than usual, even complimenting my shoes. (And no, I don't think she was hitting on me.)
Will have to experiment and see. In the next month because I'll be gone after that!
]]>I helped fix the problem by doing a 15km piece this morning before work (ouch). Still, I've done only 26 km in the past 7 days, compared with over 52 km in the 7 days prior. However, that latter is end-loaded, so closer to this week - I did 41 km in the last 3 DAYS of it. I'm not too far behind, but ideally I should do 20 km or so in the rest of this workweek and then another half-marathon on the weekend.
The reason for all this obsessing over numbers is just that, while I've been saying I'll probably do a half rather than a whole marathon at Rudder's annual ergathon which is now (ulp!) less than a month away, I'm going to feel like a weenie if I do. On the other hand, even if I do it, it's certainly going to take longer than last year's four hours and thirteen minutes, and that was painful enough.
On a different topic, I need to recount a conversation from yesterday - a classic example of how the brain reparses information. A coworker and I left the building at the same time, and he said something about the weather (temps are still getting to over 100F here), adding, "I talked to my sister in Colorado yesterday, and the high is about 50 there."
I said, "Yeah, I was in LA over the weekend and I was cold the whole time, though that was more of a problem indoors than out."
Pause. He's obviously thinking it over. Then he asks, "So where in southern California did you go?"
Fortunately, by then we'd reached his car, so I was spared further conversation.
]]>Program events: Somehow I only made it to three panels, I'm not sure why. Two were OK, but not terribly exciting, even the one with the big names on it. The third (Shakespeare and his influence on your writing) was the best by a long shot. It was more about Shakespeare, his own writing, and his experiences in fiction than about the title topic; I htink I enjoyed it most because all of the panelists engage with WS or think about him in their daily lives, either as writers, actors or teachers, so they were all passionate about the topic. (Especially in the case of Sheila Finch, who as a teenager got to see Richard Burton as Hamlet some 13 times at the Old Vic. Yum.) (Participants: Amy Sterling Casil (moderator), Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Mary A. Turzillo, Sheila Finch.)
High points: I really enjoyed the kaffeeklatches, where you get to sit aroung a table with an author or editor and 9-10 other people and just talk. Great access to interesting people - some of the other participant's comments would have been worth it all by themselves. The readings turned out to be similarly intimate, which I hadn't expected.
Disappointments: See panels, above. Also, there was so much stuff going on that every decision to see one thing involved missing others. I think the worst was the raffle: I'd expect that it wouldn't take long and I could go sing sea shanties, but isntead it took well over an hour and I eventually gave my tickets to someone and left so I could start driving home. (A good decision, as it happened.) I didn't win anything and I missed the singing.
Surprises: I sort of wandered into a talk by Tim Powers that I hadn't really planned to attend, and it was wonderful. I went to the Hugos more or less from a feeling that it was a must-see (giving up a trip to trip to Disneyland with Anghara and Deck to do so, one of the more painful trade-offs) to do so, but I quite enjoyed the Hugos. Scalzi didn't look as I'd expected from pictures I'd seen, incidentally.
Shopping: Incredible. Resulting in many more things I am not supposed to be buying because I already have too many of them (books, dichroic earrings) plus an incredibly detailed ojime bead of a dragon and cat. (But can you ever really have too many books or earrings?)
High points: The dichroic glass was much cheaper than I'd expect. And it took me forever to decide among the nutsuke and ojime on one table, because it was incredible stuff (and not terribly expensive).
Disappointments: None, really. Though it was surprisingly hard to find a copy of Jo Walton's Farthing. (The table where I finally found it was right in front but I'd started from the back.)
Surprises: How very much of it there was. And reasonably priced, too.
People-watching: Oh, yes. There is no getting around the fact that there were loads of funny-looking people at Worldcon. However, there were also loads of people you might expect to be funny looking, but weren't - some of the most outlandishly costumed people gave me the feeling that this was their preferred dress, with mundane clothes being something they were forced into the rest of the time. Lots and lots of people in wheelchairs or with canes; I think there are several reasons for it, and that the noted acceptance of all sorts of disabilities in in the community is only a part of it. For one, like rowing it's a lifetime interest, not something you're likely to only do at a certain age. Of course, unlike regattas, SF and fandom are things you can engage in despite disabilities (there is adaptive rowing, but only a few regattas have events). Also, I think maybe WorldCon is a big enough deal that some people who might find it difficult to get out much otherwise spend their energy on this.
High points: The swash and the swagger and the fun of the costumes.
Disappointments: I missed the masquerade, though for good reason. (I was enjoying myself talking to people at dinner.)
Surprises: I realized that there is really nothing in current fashion that flatters larger people as much as the sorts of costuming people wear to Renfaires and cons. A cloak hides a multitude of sins. A bodice that's fitted, supportive and revealing doesn't hide anything but goes one better by turning generous curves into decided (and enticing) assets. The male version can take someone who looks like Wally from the Dilbert strip and turn him into a swashbuckling gallant. Also, the number of men in Utilikilts didn't surprise me at all - but the number who looked damn good in them did.
People-meeting: Famous people and friend-people and LJ people.
High points: Talking to some other first-timers, dinner on Friday with two other Lioness fans. Meeting James P. Hogan and Mary Kay Kare at the Information desk. Kaffeeklatches with Alma Alexander and Elizabeth Bear.
Disappointments: I saw my friend D for about two seconds Friday, while I was being shown the ropes at the Information desk, and never did find him again. Also, mush as I liked the Kaffeeklatches, the venue for them sucked - right next to a filk stage. One wired for sound. Not to mention assorted other noise from the rest of the Lounge area right outside the curtained area. I have excellent hearing (very few rock concerts in my past!) and I had trouble hearing occasionally, so it must have been terrible for people with hearing impairments. (T-shirt spotted: "Going deaf faster gives you more time for reading")
Surprises: One of the people I ate with Friday turned out to be a (very quiet!) member of the piffle list, which I've been a moderator of since its inception. Also, later that night I met someone from work - took her an amusing amount of time to refocus and realize who I was. Did not get hit on at all, which surprised me only because of some of the stuff I'd read about WorldCons of the past. One guy did compliment my dress (and smile) but he also called me "perky", which does not constitute hitting on someone in a bright scarlet dress with low neck, clingy top half and swirly skirt. (Or if he thought it did, he needs serious practice.)
Other events: Stuff not on the schedule.
High points: Watching Elise make a necklace crown.
Disappointments: The parties were less fun (smaller, quieter, soberer) than I expected, though since I got to be by midnight both nights I may have just missed the good parts. They weren't horrible, just not as expected. Also, of course, even the parts of them I was at would be much more fun for someone plugged in to fandom who was meeting old friends everywhere.
Surprises: Except for a little of the LA driving, I actually found the whole thing fairly relaxing, not tiring at all. I was on my feet the whole time, and constantly walking between the Convention Center, the Hilton which also hosted a lot of the events, and the Marriott where my room was, but I probably still ended up walking much less than at an average regatta. (And no exertion much beyond a walk, which of course makes a difference.) I had no trouble getting plenty of sleep and enough food. Of course, a lot of it probably comes right back to not knowing many people. I had no command performances, no juggling to fit everyone in my schedule, no getting waylaid wherever I walked. And I suspect the invite-only parties were the best ones, not surprisingly. (I did consider crashing the Tor party, but though Teresa Nielsen-Hayden stated that "regulars" of Making Light were welcome, I'm only a regular reader, not a regular part of the discussion, and I suspect she meant the latter.)
Packing: Stuff I brought or didn't.
Glad I brought: Bananas, a water bottle, and something to carry the latter, plus purchases and knitting. The knitting itself was also a good thing to bring, especially the Claptis shawl, because I was freezing most of the time and could spread it on my lap even while I wasn't knitting. Also, the shockingly red dress was good to wear to the parties.
Shouldn't have brought: My laptop, which I didn't use at all. The hotel charged $9.99 for Internet access, and while the con had it for free, for the same walk and the same wait I could use their computer without having to carry mine. Also, I should have brought fewer shorts and more long pants. Brrr.
Wish I'd brought: If I'd left the laptop home, I could have brought the long wide skirt that goes with the bellydancing top. I did bring the top but decided it looked stupid with jeans. I'd have fit right in.
The trip:
High points: Rudder was right: the Origins of Life lecture is pretty good. Also, the satellite radio had perfect reception all the way across the desert.
Sucky parts: Halfway to Quartzite I realized I'd forgotten to leave extra food for the cat. Fortunately our excellent catsitter has a key, so I called and threw myself on her mercy, adn fortunatley her schedule permitted a quick visit Saturday night. Then there was the LA traffic and construction on the way there. I was beginning to panic a bit that I'd be caught in traffic to the point of extreme bladder discomfort, but fortunately once I got past the construction on 215 it eased up. On the way back, there was no traffic in LA but then I-10 was closed at Quartzite. When I-10 is closed away from the big towns, a l-o-o-o-n-g detour is necessitated, so I got home an hour later than I'd been hoping.
Surprises: I was a good girl and erged 6K last night so I could sleep a little later this morning. (I think the workout helped me get to sleep, too.)
Oh, and...