Awesome. I've been here less than half an hour and already been told that I'm useless by another employee. Merry Christmas.

This week has been kind of stressful. I'm glad it's a short one. And I wish all these people would just take some PTO and GO HOME! Why are they all here logging tickets??

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to determine the nature of these little bumps above my left hip that have been getting bigger over the past month and are now getting kind of physically uncomfortable. I'm kind of scared about that.

For purposes of illustration, here's how I feel this morning.



Giant Scary Clown Head

There is an interview right now on NPR with Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, a retired Hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America, about the commercialization of Christmas and the supposed 'war on Christmas'.

I adore this man. Just adore him. He reminds me a lot of Real Live Preacher, who is a liberal Baptist minister who also rocks hardcore.

But this Canadian monk from a monastery in British Columbia has been expounding on how Christmas has always had a secular element dating back to Charles Dickens' time and that that's ok. He's also said that fundamentalism is a birth defect and has talked about it tying in to an overdeveloped instinctive fear response. He described it as Taliban Christianity. He was a particle and quantum physicist before he became a monk. I love him.

People like these two folks remind me of what I've always felt like a priest ought to be. He's tearing down the idea that the nuclear family is the classic family (it arose during the industrial revolution) and even the idea of marriage being limited to one man and one woman, which comes down to secular law that arose much later than Christianity. He's talking about prostitution, and that our first responsibility should be to the health and well being of the women involved, and that they shouldn't be criminalized. That the Western idea of hell is completely off base. Anyway, in short, he's wonderfully informed, articulate, and refreshing. He almost makes me feel good about organized religion, and that's quite a feat. If you get a chance, you might enjoy listening to tonight's program. It should be available for download. Here, here; go check it out.

We really need more people in the world like this.

I need to get to bed. I'm going to take the train from Waukegan tomorrow morning, and then go from there to Posicat's place after work for car fixin'. Whee!

Does anyone want:

An old Terrayon cable modem?

A Timex Sinclair 1000?

A Rollermouse Pro? (On second thought, I may keep this. I dunno. I kind of forgot I had it, and I think I might have a use for it.)

About 100 or 150 foot run of phone line?

Some sets of KVM cables?

Some (about four or five?) old flat panel touchscreens (max res 800x600 with a serial interface touchscreen)?

Four or five small-footprint keyboards that were scavanged from wall mount computers?

A very old desktop calculator (an APF Mark 1) with a neon tube display? Probably from the mid 1970s. (Needs some cleaning of contacts to work well I think.)

Another, smaller, desktop calculator from around 1975, a Calfax 895M. I don't know if it works.

1 110GB/220GB SDLT tape drive?

A ginormous AAC-9000MD hardware RAID quad-channel SCSI controller? (I think this works, but I remember having issues with one so I don't know.)

An Adaptec 29160 SCSI controller?

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Let me know soon!! Most of this will go away with a Freecycler on Wednesday. Maybe not the flat panels quite yet.

I was out doing a little last-minute Christmas shopping and found this shirt at GapKids on sale. It was the only Wonder Woman shirt on the rack, marked down to $5.98, then marked down an additional 20 percent. Score! I brought it home and showed it to Em, who liked it.

It was only at this point that I noticed the punctuation, or lack thereof. "Girls World" has no apostrophe. Who's doing the quality checking at Junk Food Clothing?

Because it was on clearance, there are no returns. I guess now I know why it was so cheap. Sigh.

(Terraform Hat seamed at the back for a nice pointed top.)
oday is the last day to buy the hat patterns at a discounted price on Midnightsky Fibers. The hat patterns are yummy and delightful...but being rewritten! You will get the current copies of the patterns now, and the spiffy verion in a little bit once they are...well. Spiffy. But only available for a few more hours! Patterns available here.

Hats are designed to be used with a bulky or super bulky weight handspun yarn.

( more of the patterns included: )

Would anybody local like a visit from a dog tomorrow evening after work? I can't get to my car in Kenosha until about 6:30, but after that, I'm looking for something to do for three or four hours. Or maybe I'll get some pictures of Kenosha at Christmas if I bring my camera with me. That could be fun.

I would like either this bed or this bed. I think more the 2nd one with the headboard. Considering the price, neither of these will happen. But I love them so much. And I can't decide on what to do as far as bedding in my room.

See, Moira and I have decided that, in our 2 bedroom apartment, we're each going to get our own room. We'll likely be sleeping in the same one ninety-five percent of the time anyway (Most likely hers since she'll have the bigger room with the walk in closet. I don't have a need for closet space, though the big room would be nice.), but each of us having our own space is really appealing to me. Plus, if we have someone over who stays the night, we have minimal disruption to routine. I'm really very excited about this move. I'm happily giving away and trashing lots of crap that's been sitting around forever. Simplifying is lightening to the heart and mind.

I'm looking forward to decorating and designing. I'm leaning toward tapestries on the walls and fairly minimalist furniture, but I don't know. Part of me very much likes the idea of a traditional Japanese futon that I can fold up and put in the closet during the day. Even those are a bit pricy, but doable. And I'd have the whole room to work in when I'm not sleeping. I wish I really had a good sense of how comfortable those are and how workable they are for people with any back problems. I don't want to be inhospitable now....

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I was sleeping so deeply on the train this morning on the way in that the conductor had to wake me up and tell me to get off the train! Oops! At least I missed the rush. The little shops in the concourse are all alive and well these days and the bustle is invigorating and exciting. The weather has been fairly mild most of the time I've had to be down here (with a few exceptions) and I'm grateful.

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jimcyl and I drove out to the portion of Bensenville that's been bought out and shuttered by the city of Chicago to make room for an O'Hare airport expansion. We only got about twenty minutes to walk around and photograph before a police officer drove up and told us we had to leave. I wish I knew whether the area was still public property. I suppose not anymore, but I don't really know.

We drove from there out to Gary, Indiana for more abandoned buildings. It turns out that a number of things we used to go to have been locked up tight since last we were there. But no biggie; eventually, they will be open again. These things are cyclical, and as I wrote about my photography in Washington, if you are patient and calm, the world will arrange itself around you. We visited the Palace Theatre and got a few shots of the sad, crumbling interior, then went back to his place for a little snack before I drove on to Kenosha and home.

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I'll be posting a bunch of Kiddieland pictures to Flickr. All the descriptions have been written, and all the pictures cropped and touched up since my trip home on Amtrak; I just haven't posted them yet. Now that I am, they'll go quickly. This is one of my favorites; that little steam locomotive in action, whistle a-blowin', coming around a bend.

\
The Kiddieland Limited Rounds a Curve

The list as it stands:

1) IL (going out today)
2) Cumbria, UK (going out today)

3) MD
4) UK
5) Sweden
6) ON, Canada
7) VA
8) UK
9) CA
10) WI
11) CA
12) MO
13) OH
14) NC
15) Sweden
16) FL
17) KS
18) OH
19) GA

Just to let folks know where they stand for the holidays. Best wishes!

I finally made it over to the interior of the John Eberson-designed Palace Theatre in Gary Indiana with my wide-angle lens today. This shot could be a lot better; the sides and bottom are too plain and uninteresting I think. I didn't have a great deal of time to stay and experiment; jimcyl and I went here as a second choice after the police chased us out of Bensenville. Next time!

It was fantastic even to just be there and get a taste of the results I can get with my new equipment.



Palace Theatre Auditorium, Gary Indiana


This theatre makes me so sad.

it's freezing in here again. I turned the furnace on. ron built a fire but it takes a while. he's cooking french toast and bacon right now. I made the coffee but haven't had any yet.

kelse went to nutcracker last night because brigitte was in it. then jake took her to sleep over at kellens. I have to pick her up at 1030. I also have to finish the basket I started last night for mrs. G. got to have it all stained and everything. I bought strapping material at the hardware store and have to sew the straps too.

still have to bring kelse shopping for her friends gifts and she has to finish the quilt for mitchell. there is just not enough time.

I don't really know what I've even got for gifts. I have to figure that out. And get the two boxes shipped out tomorrow that I need to ship. they are actually very late birthday gifts but I was hoping I could have sent them out in time for friday. but now. I am a loser that way.

Logan texted me again yesterday. he saw on FB that I was going to avatar and told me how lucky I was and I invited him to come with us. which then made me panic because he wanted to come and I had to say no, kelse would be pissed. so then I felt bad. then I got up the nerve to tell her I invited him and she actually wasn't pissed. I just can't figure her out. she said 'what would I have told mitchell?' and 'that would have been really awkward.' but no, not pissed.

then half hour later or so she says, where would logan have sat? because I wouldn't sit in the back seat with him, I would have been driving. I never really answered her. Then when we were there and in the bathroom she said, awwww, I feel bad, we should have let logan come.

I didn't say anything to that either. I didn't know what to say.

Logan texted me again last night about getting her a Christmas present. I finally told him I didn't think it was a good idea, especially since they don't even talk to each other at all. He said, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, only one way to find out.

As far as I know everything is still going good with mitchell. they went sliding on friday nite and then he came back here and they watched the Lion King. their thing seems to be watching cartoon movies together.

The movie avatar was fantastic. I want to go again and I may go again tomorrow night with Katherine who I have never met before. (A mutualy aquaintance of ours gave her my email to see if I would critique a novel she's working on.) I critiqued one book, which was fantastic and way better than anything I've written, and now I'm starting on her sequel. I like her cuz she casts her characters just like I do!

I think the bacon is burning.

"Lord of the Rings"--pick one of the three, they're all amazing.

Em's school held their health and sex ed classes last week. I can't believe this is already happening, but must admit that this is the right age to be addressing this. Em doesn't have a whole lot of questions for us about health and reproduction, since we've answered some of those already. However, that's not to say she's not interested. Specifically, she's interested in deodorant although she doesn't need it yet. Nonetheless, she's decided to start using it every day. Fine by me. We happen to have a stick of Tom's of Maine that I had tried but decided wasn't my bag. It's not that strong, so I figure it's not hurting anything for her to use it. I showed her how to turn the base to make the stick rise when needed.

Em: Deodorant is kind of like a glue stick!

I hadn't thought about it, but she's right. And it also shows that she's still a child, although things are changing. I am not ready to deal with puberty, but it's coming, ready or not. Time to gear up for the next phase of parenthood.

On a Goodwill trip today, I picked up a few Playstation games: among them, a couple of Gran Turismos, and Twisted Metal 3. GT is a little more in depth than I really care to be, though for a couple bucks a piece I figured why not. But the Twisted Metal series is one I spent hours and hours playing with my brothers. I had to grab that one!

Tonight, after hauling a few things out of the basement for a freecycle guy who'll pick them up on Monday (The Intellistation server, my Athlon XP with hand-cut windowed and modded case *sigh*, and a couple of wall mount touch screen systems running Windows NT that I scored from work) and taking a shower, I gave it a try.

It took a few plays to resemble decent at it, but it came back to me and it's a fun mindless distraction. But what really has me is the music. This version actually had some mainstream music in it. The first level's background sound is Rob Zombie's Superbeast. The second though, makes me chuckle every time I get to it. I have no idea what song it is, but there's a repeated part that I can only interpret as "Because we're gay! Gay! Microwave!!!" So of course, I'd loudly join in every time the music got to that part. Unfortunately a Google search for 'we're gay gay microwave' did not turn up anything related, though are are some interesting results.

(And of course, now that I've written this, I had to look the music up. It is microwave! The track is Microwave by Pitchshifter. The lyrics in question are "because we're cut, dried, microwaved".)

So, who wants to play some Twisted Metal with me?

Check this out: Nightcrawler and Wolverine are fans of This American Life. I've always thought that Nightcrawler had good taste!

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I'm listening to a piece on NPR right now, as I work on uploading pictures and catching up on money and doing a little Christmas shopping, about sewer systems nation wide, and in New York City in particular. This is fascinating stuff. I love sewer systems and storm drains.

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And speaking of uploading pictures, I'm finally working on the set from the last day of Kiddieland, a small independent amusement park in Melrose Park, Illinois, that Moira and I visited just before it shut down forever.



The Kiddieland Limited Engineer


One of the locomotives that pulled the small gauge passenger train around the grounds of Kiddieland was an honest-to-goodness steam engine. I'm so glad I visited and got to see this beautiful piece of machinery in action. Look at the beautiful enameled metal! Look at the shiny chrome! Look at the streamlined, Art Deco-esque styling! I have so much love for this locomotive. I hope she found a good home.

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We went and visited a couple apartment complexes in Kenosha today that we've been eyeing. Our preference for one over the other was reinforced. I like Westchester a lot.

I'm pretty sure that the start of vacation can't be defined any better than by curling up on the couch on an unexpected half snow-day with fuzzy slippers, hot cider, and Scooby Road on the big teevee. Daily life just doesn't have room for 43-minute fan vids often enough.

Comment here or on the original Dreamwidth post using OpenID. comments on Dreamwidth.

Oh, and for vandringar:

I listened to Wind and Wuthering by Genesis. I have to admit, I didn't like it all that much. Not bad, but nothing that really grabbed me. I may try it again later.

I listened to some of The Moon Revisted too. I was a little bit disappointed with it. It's neat stuff, and I always like hearing another take on Pink Floyd, but it was so similar to the original. It was more like they were trying really hard to match the original recording and were a little bit off than like they were doing anything new and exciting with the material, if that makes sense.

Now, I've been listing to Trä by Hedningarna, and I love it. It's really awesome stuff and I'll probably be listening to it off and on as background music. Moira came into the room while I had it going and declared it to be great belly-dance music too. *smiles* I tend to really like folk and folk influenced stuff, so I guess it's not a surprise that I like Trä. (I also tend to like listening to music in a language I don't understand. I'm not really sure why that is, but it's definitely true. Maybe because I can just listen to the human voice as an instrument. Sometimes I've thought it's an expression of all the communication problems I've had in my life too.) But yeah, really really like it!

Thanks again for the chance to listen to these!

The last of the "Oh, you'll definitely have a Jayne hat by Christmas" orders are out the door, so now I'm free to work on the "well, maybe" orders. I'm trying to get as many done as possible - everyone should have a Jayne hat under the tree.
( Getting gauge on gifts. )

I haven't caught up here in a while. Somehow I've gotten a little bit out of the habit of writing. Probably a combination of all the stress at work and all the excitement of an approaching move, approaching major holiday, and being busy doing things with people. That's alright.

This past Sunday I drove out to Richmond to see my grandparents. I spent a few hours looking at pictures and talking about Washington and my friends, savant_da_rat and ankhorite, who I stayed with and miss. We also talked about the president and other political type folks. My grandfather asked me what I thought of Obama. I said that I like him a lot and he seems like a pretty good guy who's doing the best he can, though I wish he could push harder for health care reform. Grandpa was happy to hear that, and lamented that there are a lot of people his age who would be just as happy to see him get lynched. He and Grandma and I then all talked about how horrifically scary Sarah Palin is, and how it's kind of amazing that she's written a book, seeing as how she spent her time in Alaska trying to get them banned. I like my grandparents so much!

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Monday and Tuesday I was back at work in Chicago. The cold along the river on the way to work is pretty vicious at times. I'll have to make sure to bring my gloves next week. Tuesday was a fantastic time though. After work, I met moiracoon in The Loop outside of where I work. Together, the two of us made our way through the chill toward Michigan Avenue, intent on seeing all the Christmas decor in the storefronts. First, though, I got to show her where I work and snag some free baklava in the break room!

While in the area, we went into Nordstrom's to check out Legoland. I really had no idea there was so much Lego merchandise these days. My last personal experience with Legos was when I was a little kid and just had a big bin of parts of castle and space sets and I built random spaceships and submarines and other unidentifiable collections of bricks. It's a whole different world now! It made me think a little bit about how toy culture has changed for kids between the eighties and now. Toys seem to become more and more complex, rigidly defined, and flashy, without improving on the basic concept. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, honestly. Maybe neither. But I did spend some time at one of the little play tables laying a few courses of Flemish bond out of Legos. I've been really interested in masonry and brickwork since visiting the National Building Museum in Washington, and I think Flemish bond is really pretty.

Err, anyway. Sorry. From there we walked north along Michigan Avenue toward the water tower (the 2nd oldest building to survive the Chicago fire, despite popular opinion) and looked at pretty shiny things. Moira took me into a mall with the most awesome-cool fountain along the middle of the escalators. As she noted in her journal, I couldn't keep my paws out of it. We also, at the advice of another mall patron, turned around and mutually threw a nickel into the fountain backward while we made wishes. I think we almost beaned somebody with the nickel. *giggles* Usually things in malls these days are too expensive to get nickled and dimed!

We walked to where we were meeting the horse and carriage that I'd bought a ride for Moira and I in. I'd been trying to find a good time to get Moira on a horse and carriage ride for a while. There's a group in Lake Geneva that does it, but it never quite worked out while we were there. So we finally got to do it in Chicago and it was entirely worth it.

The coach was enclosed, but the driver left the windows down a bit for us so we could be a little more connected to the passing scenery (though in retrospect, it might have been better to put them up; brr!). The seats were classic upholstery, dotted with buttons in diamond shapes. A few blankets were waiting for us to snuggle up under as the coach rolled along through the city. Moira leaned against me and I put an arm around her and we talked and cuddled and looked at the Christmas lights while the rhythmic sound of hooves on stone carried us away from the everyday parts of the city. It was lovely.

After our ride, we went to Star of Siam for some Thai food. I had some curry, which was pretty yummy, though not hot enough. The chill river wind knifed through us on the way back to Ogilvie station. I felt like my face would have shattered with a sharp blow. We finally made it to the station just in time to get the 9:30 train back to Waukegan, where Moira had left the car that afternoon to come meet up with me. It was a wonderful day and it makes me really happy to think about.

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Wednesday night I was over at serinthia and todd_riverden's place to watch anime. We're almost done with the Kitsune series, which is kind of too bad 'cause I'm enjoying it so much. We might even have been able to get to the end, but I started crashing near eight-thirty. I guess I was worm out.

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Yesterday was pretty great too! Moira and I went to the live Rifftrax event at Tinseltown in Kenosha. Apart from some unfortunate trans-phobic stuff at the end, it was a pretty good time. I'm still kind of amused about the most homo-erotic animated Christmas short I've ever seen. I was just waiting for all the reindeer to end up in an orgy. Weird Al was a guest, true, but he didn't really have a whole lot to say. Still, he made an impression. I mean, when did Weird Al go from this goofy looking guy with big hair and nerd-glasses (which, admittedly, aren't bad things in themselves) to this drop-dead gorgeous long-haired pretty-boy? He's strikingly attractive these days; I really had no idea.

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So. Today I'm going down to Chicago after work to visit cranberrynomiko and her partner. There was talk of Rock Band, but we're going to hold off on that. Maybe I'll bring some anime again. And Saturday, Moira and I are going to go look at the apartments here in town. I spent a little bit of this morning with her extrapolating room dimensions from a floor plan by assuming thirty inch wide doors. And on Sunday, I may be going on a photo trip with jimcyl. I just have to get through the rest of work first!

=============

And my picture of the moment. Taken in the Laumeier Sculpture Garden in St. Louis, Missouri, this is a work called La Libellule. (Can anybody tell me what that means?) Something about it really intrigues me. I love the juxtaposition of the mechanical forms of what look like propeller blades with the human form that's been split and altered. I think it appeals to the same part of me that really loves Art Deco nudes holding geometrical shapes, but this throws surrealism on top of that.



La Libellule - Arman, 1996

feeling very discouraged and tired and stressed.

got home from costcos late last nite and the stuff is strewn all over.

all jakes college stuff is strewn everywhere and the bathroom is over flowing with his laundry.

he refused to go to the doctors appt I made him yesterday and is defensive and angry. tom thinks he has a drug problem. it is either that or his depression.

I just don't know what to do or say or think. it makes me feel numb.

it's been freezing and I hate that. 10 below zero this morning.

realized yesterday I havent bought a thing for brayden and there are packages I still need to send out.

the sink is over flowing with dishes.

I told ron that it would be nice to at least do stocking for each other this year. I remember how disappointed I was last year because we agreed to do nothing. He said, 'okay but get me a list.'

that's making me bummed too. I don't want to make a list. I want him to go buy me stuff because he knows me and loves me, not because I give him a list.

what's the point of getting me anything then?

I guess I am just depressed about it all.

I don't want to celebrate Christmas at all. I just want it to come and go and not even know it came or went.

bleh bleh bleh.