The Gray Slate
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| Monday, January 14th, 2008 | | 11:38 pm |
Today is the birthday of someone who was once very close to me. We haven't spoken in 28 years so I am not sure how it matters. But I thought I would honor this moment in a small way by taking the time to make note. I hope your day was filled with yummy goodness and peace as I would with any stranger or father. | | Monday, October 15th, 2007 | | 9:26 am |
its a new day
Today its back to work. Its a new day and I am trying to cope with the loss of my beloved kitty. He was a part of me for 13 years since my ex wife took him in, a starving kitten, out of the bushes in front of our apartment in Pennsylvania. He was fur and bones then and I reluctantly accepted him. It took 2 years to get him healthy and since then he has been my companion. The tough acting, scardy cat of an orange tabby I called Mr Wooo. After the divorce we split the two cats. Her cat died earlier this year. Mr Wooo was my baby and something to come home too. He was always there for me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/15092798@N05/tags/mrwooo/You spent last week in the vet and I took you home every night and cared for you. You didn't understand the tubes and Funnel collar. I did everything I could. I tried so hard to bring you back to me. I didn't let you give up even in the times you wanted to. In our last goodbye you were calm and you looked at me like, hey its ok. You died in surgery an hour later. I cant believe your gone Thanks for all you have done In loving memory  Current Music: In Loving Memory - Depeche Mode | | Monday, July 30th, 2007 | | 12:00 am |
its been so long
I got so overwhelmed with everything going on in life that I just left lj behind. I think I was sort of afraid to log in after so long. Well I logged into an old yehoo email account the other day and found that they wipe everything out after 4 months of inactivity. I thought that was kind of cruel but I guess thats one of the problems with having your life tied to big companies, they can erase your a** and you cant do anything about it. Speaking of data, I killed another thumbdrive yesterday. Dropped it and its DOA. Thats 2 this year. Of couse I dont think I had anything not backed up on it, but now I will never know. Anybody else find thumbdrives to not be nearly as reliable as we tend to believe? Its going to be a hectic week, my job moved to a new building so it will be pressing to get back up and running and I need to take friday off for my grandmothers funeral service. | | Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 | | 9:47 pm |
None of the above
Oh, horrid lace of length too great what bequest you to plague my fate? That once smooth appearance and tight end now tattered and dull beneath my shin. For your length- too great, catches beneath my sole among the many great treks which I encountered and will again. How are you not just wicked sin? As you get ripped and pulled and untied again. And as for your brethren to the left, even worse still. A frayed out mess he is, could your makers not feel? And after these long months and the years of those before you, I now seek redemption! Through careful measurement, and zig-zag translation, I challenge you, motivate you, purge your sensation. And with brief snip of red handled steel, your bitter betrayal of over-exuberance is judged and jured and now lays corrected. Your place determined... and your fit--- as it should be. Next for your kin, just seconds after begin, The inch worm humps through its last hole. 'Snip' Now I am free, no longer fearing shallow mud nor escalator gearing nor my own stead. The amputated ends of you tied and pocketed as due remembrance of those small bitter burdens once ignored as tiny splinters but ever festering upon my gait. Until now: this new walk, I just cant wait! | | Wednesday, November 15th, 2006 | | 8:11 pm |
Yesterday I got my first flu shot. Also had to take a random screening drug test at work. I think this is kind of stupid. Not so much that they do it, but that they then send you back to your desk. Now for that guy/girl who just did a line of coke the night before, he/she now knows (and management doesn't) that he/she is going to be fired in a few days. And he/she is wondering 'how am I going to pay for my coke addition' Well, he/she probably then procedes to take all the paper clips and trade secrets he/she can find right out the door. Thank you very much. As for me, I will be fine to the accuracy of the test, else the company will pay for a more accurate test, else they will loose a lot of paper clips. I voted on Nov 7. I have to admit though, I didnt know much about the candidates and other than a few. I mainly went to vote down the 7 propositions that would raise our taxes and cost us all at least $50 to $100 or more a year increases to pay for such things as $670mill for road repair and $30mill rebuilding Zach Scott Theatre, $90mill for a new library downtown (why cant they build a library somewhere it doesn't cost me $6 to park?) http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/bonds/ will tell you what you bought Well fine if thats what Austin wants then good, but my question is if we are so anxious to pay more taxes for services then why did we need to contract a for profit company to toll us to use our own roads? How much taxation is enough? | | Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 | | 6:47 pm |
My washing machine sprung a leak. Of course it's the downstairs neighbor that always notices these things first. So I had an unexpected flurry of activity with the bailing and scooping and wet-vacing and hand washing and all. The very next day I go off and leave my wallet at home, remembering about 1/3 of the way into work. I decide I don't really need it as long as I dont get a speeding ticket or something. I ride break much to the dislike of the car behind me. I squirm as the officer around the next bend points his radar at me. Such odd luck I must say. He appears to have recently added a stock on the back of it so he holds it like a rifle now instead of like a pistol. Something rather odd happens in the back of your brain as you come around a corner and spot a guy standing there pointing a rifle looking thing at you, speeding or not. These 50 hour work weeks are starting to drag. Come Christmas time if I am still having to work through my vacation then I will print up lots of scrooge pictures from "A Christmas Carrol" and post them on my walls. I am totally stoaked about it being Halloween, I am trying to get all my costumes ready and set for upcoming parties. Anyone know of anything going on Halloween night or the Friday after Halloween? I only have one scheduled party to crash. | | Thursday, September 28th, 2006 | | 2:24 pm |
J & I are going to see Live at LaZonaRosa on Sunday. Yea for 80s rock. | | Monday, September 25th, 2006 | | 10:02 am |
With my parents in this weekend and ACL fest last and my trip to the burningman festival before that and two weeks of intense burningman preparation its been an exceedingly busy two months. Here is the BM report: My first trip to the Burning Man festival in Nevada was a success. The 35 hour drive was grueling and even worse on the way back being so tired, but overall it was a great vacation. There were many things to see and do and the seven days in the desert went by all to quickly. When my friend and I arrived on opening day the 2 mile wide city of tents, domes, pyramids, scaffolds, RV's and shade structures was already well under construction. The chaos began immediately. It was very difficult to find anything or anyone. We spent 2.5 hours wondering in the hot sun looking for our group. No one seemed to know where anything was at that point or care. I got angry and sat in my car. This was the symptom I had been told about as being dehydration in the desert. I drank some water, I felt better. I ended up setting up my tent near the first friends that I ran into and that was a sweet spot to be. Thanks to Ryan and Clovis for the hospitality. Being formed out of California there were a lot of people from that region, but I was amazed at how many people I met from New Zeland, Scotland, France, Belgium, and every other corner of the world. Over the seven precious days I did manage to find most of the friends whom I knew were there, but many of the people I chatted with on the street were never to be seen again in a crowd of (someone said) over 40000 people. The art cars were amazing and the costumes were fantastic. You really couldn't tell anything about a person by the way they were dressed, cross-dressed, costumed, or not dressed at all. I am only aware of one of my friends having serious injuries. I am hoping that he will have a speedy recovery without burn complications to his vision or skin. The sun was bright and the evenings cold. I found myself riding my bike all day long looking at the new artwork that arrived every day and walking all night, sometimes until the sun came up, or touring on an art bus. Then crashing for a few hours until the tent got hot, drinking water and pedialite until my hands stopped shaking from the altitude and dehydration and then starting out again. As long as you had a dust mask, goggles, food and water and baby wipes, then survivability wasn't too difficult (in my opinion). We only had a few hours of white-out where the fine mist of blowing dust was too thick to see or go anywhere. I was always cold in the evenings because the temperature would drop and the tent was too far away to want to go put on another layer, but it was never bitter cold this year. I have washed my car inside and out twice and two more times should have it back to normal. I want to thank the BM community for the art, the 3000 people light saber battle, snow cones, elvis cooked peanut-butter-banana or something sandwich, that crunchy pickle in the dust storm, juicy watermelon, the hair wash, the dust, the blowtorch roasted marshmallow, a week without commercial advertisements, that rare and delightful *cold* beer, the people I know for their hugs and hospitality. Overall, I hope to go back again some day. Its funny how going to ACL Music Festival provided such a contrast. A big crowd of people out in the sun wearing entirely too much clothing and being subjected to a plethora of commercialism. AMD, AT&T buy buy buy. Not that I didn't have fun at ACL, it just was a contrast. | | Thursday, September 14th, 2006 | | 9:54 am |
| | Wednesday, August 23rd, 2006 | | 12:43 am |
fast times again
Well its been a crazy few weeks. I changed to a different position at work and there is work to do now but no real pressure. I have been spending a lot of time looking for a house, but have realized that I am happy renting where I am at or buying if I find the right place. Either way is cool, and you cant convince me that buying is a better investment. I have punched the numbers and I know the truth, or at least a pretty close approximation of most of the variables. But house hunting is a lot of work and I decided to slack off this month. I started on this crazy programming contest a week before it was due and was making progress. Then last Saturday as the inevitable calendar pages rolled around to the mark BUY TICKETS FOR BURNING-MAN that I had written in it a year ago I sat there and said why the He11 not? So I did and then abandoned the contest in exchange for a week of panic and now I am getting ready. 3 evenings more to get ready for my ultimate adventure. I hope to see some of you there. I hope to see some of you when I get back. love -g | | Monday, July 31st, 2006 | | 3:19 pm |
The last two weekends have been very full by the time they were half over. The second half spent snoozing it off. Sometimes I feel bad about that, but really some downtime to reflect is probably necessary. I just wish I could get a few more things done instead of blahing out sometimes. Maybe I need to work on my diet for that. It could be partially related to self induced sugar comas. Anyway, I had a great time at Gfire and Dorian's birthday party. The baby oil twister was especially zaney and watching the amazing blindfolded lapdancing. It was nice to see/meet Holly, M7, Paige, Adam, Demitri and all those other cool cats while lounging in pillow-oasis. This weekend I saw Scanner Darkly and went to Dub&Mec's leopaluza party. A good time as always. Got to see Flash and some other friends there. Had some great dinner with blueyedmaiden &D &H at Bombey Bistro on 183 & Braker. | | Monday, July 10th, 2006 | | 12:09 pm |
Saw Drawing Restraint at the dobie. It was a most unusual flick. It felt weird having that tuesday off. I was glad to get to see ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) nosugarsadded Went to the Fiona Apple concert with chgmyf8 and had a blast. If you go to a concert at the Backyard now, be prepared for a hike. They built a strip mall behind it and pushed the parking back behind that. Saturday I went with H. to Enchanted Rock. It was my first time. We climbed and hiked the day away. Sunday was quiet, I wanted to see my grandparents but couldnt reach them. They just moved to Austin but sounds like they wont stay here. It was nice though to have some down time. I had been worried that I wouldnt get that in but it all worked out wonderfully. This afternoon the sodas had been delivered to our work and as the usual good citizen I was loading them into the fridge so we can have chilled drinks. As I was shoveling them in one of the 6 packs caught the edge of the fridge bracket. Being freshly delivered and rather shaken up from that, one of the cans decided to split open like a seagull on alkiselser and empty its entire 12ounces of sticky liquid in 0.12 seconds. It was a fountainous spew! Although my clothing was unscathed, the floor and all parts of the fridge became a bloodbath of cola. Kind of reminded me of what happened to the tea room in Drawing Restraint. | | Monday, July 3rd, 2006 | | 11:29 am |
Home ownership or vacation?
I am trying to decide what to do with my 2 weeks of vacation this year. My choices so far involve going to BurningMan or buying a house and moving in. Granted, these are two very different life altering events so a bit of contrast is in store. BurningMan Pro's - Con's p:a vacation more adventurous than any such cruise or wally world. c:potential to get hurt or sick c:a long drive. I dont know if I can do it. p:beautiful art c:survival mode Buying a house Pro's - Con's p:my own space c:having a yard to deal with p:a fresh start, cleaning 7 hears of dust and rearranging everything to my current taste. c:the pain of moving p:an investment that can grow my net worth c:the risk of loosing money in the investment p:being able to paint c:having to paint c:going from a year of money in the bank to 20 years of debt, having to worry about loosing my job p:having more space and a workshop c:having to spend more time keeping up my place and yard and less time working on projects p:being able to have friends&family stay in a guest room. c:kicking out friends&family onto the street when they have outstayed their welcome p:not having to worry about noisy neighbors moving into my building c:having a neighborhood association gripe at me whenever the grass is too long c:not have close enough neighbors to hear if I was getting robbed p:tax break for buying a home c:more (unused) property=higher taxes than an apartment p:pride of ownership, not connected to another unit. c:having to pay someone and miss work when the A/C goes out p:thinking about the value of my property going up c:worrying about the value of my property when terrorist attack downs the economy or the baby boomers start dying/selling. p:buy before the market goes up too much, before AMD comes to town, etc. So a vacation seems kind of trivial in comparison to buying a house, I know. But there are a lot of worries and burdons to consider there. My last fortune cookie said: "Adventure awaits you this weekend. re awaits you this weekend." At first I thought it may be a cut and pase typo, but then I realized that it was a fortune and therefore not subject to a typo. A glitch in the matrix? But I still havent figured out who this re or how they will or have affected my life. | | Friday, June 9th, 2006 | | 12:07 pm |
chalk up another 2 seconds of fame
Made it on news8 last night. I was with some friends at a techie gathering called "dorkbot" The whole segment was about 30sec and you could distinctly see the back side of my face and a closeup of my hand operating the keypad on my LED gizmo! | | Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 | | 12:33 pm |
Flipside journey
Flipside was a large blur of my reality. I am finally starting to feel re-cooperated. It took one no-sleep night for the last minute preparation to my art projects and costumes. Everything came together to an acceptable degree and I headed out to the campsite on Thursday evening. I set up tent next to yertle42 and comodulate who were extremely helpful with my enjoyment of the entire trip. This time I decided to abandon my car entirely and live out of my tent. I set up my art projects and roamed the galaxy of art and theme camps, dance parties, and bars. I bought a cheap digital camera and it didnt work well and I was upset with myself for buying junk just because I was afraid of loosing or breaking it or something. Later that day I lost it and still haven't come across it. I am not sure what the moral of that story is. Anyway I hope I can find someone elses photos out there since I didn't take any. I had a disposable camera with no flash but ended up not using that. I spent a lot of time at the spa giving away massages. I so love to do that and I can massage people for hours and hours without any need for reciprocation. Thanks to Deborah, Roman Candle, Monique, and everyone else who allowed me that. I participated in the human carcass wash in which we hand washed people in a group after asking their boundaries. There was lots of nudity everywhere and anything goes costumes and outfits. My friends, thats just the highlight of my reality. I didnt do any drawing, maybe I can do some retrospect drawing. Duby and Meca ran a sweet open bar (my favorite one) and those poor outcasts down at the end of the property had dancing going on till the sun came up. The giant chalice glass burned to the ground as insane persons launched arrays of bottlerockets from their metal headpieces. I hung out with a girl named Monica and we stumbled around with our whiskey drinks for hours. I put her to bed when she could take no more excitement and then scurried off into the night. To finish up I danced until sunrise monday morning and watched the daylight grow from the top of the dallas pyramid tower. I had tons of comments on my costumes and only had a days worth of sunburn pain. When I got home (i.e. camp reality) I felt all the rush of emotions caused by hundreds of wonderfully (un)dressed giving people, very little sleep, the barrage of non-stop music/noise, endlessly changing art and structures, mindful and mindless energy releases, friends-acquaintances-and-strangers, and a zillion blinky glowy hippie toys. Yeah! | | Wednesday, May 17th, 2006 | | 10:14 am |
Flippin out
Getting ready for our local burning man event. Its only a week away. I am working non stop on projects as soon as I can get out of work. As usual, too many projects, too little time. I am still attending to the basics, bills paid, clothes to wear, clean dishes. But thats about it, otherwise I neglect most else. My apartment is a workshop. The carpet covered with wood shavings tools and junk. I would like to get all 6 of my projects done, but its seeming unlikely. | | Monday, May 1st, 2006 | | 6:08 pm |
Weekend update
My weekend was full. I had a wonderful Friday evening with J She made dinner and I built a box out of pallets to lift her couch up because it was so low to the ground. The dark clouds rolled in and I slept through the rain and the bad stuff passed us to the north. Saturday I threw together pieces of other costumes and headed off to Eeyores birthday. A huge city run once a year Austin party, beer bash, drumming circle, freak parade. Yeah! I helped run the funnel cake booth for our non-profit hobbyist group and ran off on occasion to find friends and see the sights. It seemed a little less conservative than last year and I was happy to see more painted flesh. Friends meeting other friends and realizing that they went to high school together. Degrees of connection run high there. Did some dancing at the burner after party and that was nice; it's been weeks since I did dancing. Sunday it was off to PiRaTe RaMpAgE! That was a whole lot of fun. At times I just sat back and admired the chaos we were emanating. I mean anyone could do that but our group has some special connection and momentum that can actually pull off something like that. There was lots of huddling with sexy pirates on secret islands. I got annoyed last week at spending 3 days trying to get my phone enabled at my desk. I had been loaned to a different project/office and when the money ran out I moved back to my old office but the formal paperwork didn't get handled so it was a big mess and I asked my manager to handle it and it still didn't get resolved. Anyway, today I unplugged the damn phone and turned it upside down and stacked my food cans on it. Arrrr! | | Friday, April 14th, 2006 | | 12:42 pm |
Week in review
I made a list of things to get done. Mostly art projects, but I also want terribly to clean my home and car. I should fit some quick stuff in tomorrow after flipside work day and then get more done on sunday. Last weekend I went to PolyBigFun and it was nice to leave austin for a short while. The trees in bastrop park with the pine cones and all, it felt good. I really didnt connect with anyone new or be in any of the discussions. I ended up leaving for most of saturday to do the bare buns run. This was my first official 5k run, and yep, I was completely in the buff ('cept shoes) I think a lot of people think they cant run without adequate support. Well, I dont know, but I think if you haven't found out for sure, you should definitely try it sometime just to see. So it was fun and my time was 29:11 but I was just getting over an allergy induced lung thing so it was a bit hard to breathe. Wednesday I drug out my old $99 bicycle and did 9 miles at the veloway near Mopac and Slaughter. It was a new discovery for me and I plan to do it more. Then I went UT to walk around. I enjoyed as always the student art in the halls of the art building and then up the stairs to the top of RLM where the observatory was open to the public for Yuri day (first cosmonaut). Most importantly I solved a problem at work yesterday that had me stumped for 4 weeks. I so rock! ToDo: Build Motor Controller Build Sinewave Led Circuit Led Tube Experiment and circuit prototype PDA programming howto and bluetooth work LED saber pole hardware work circuit and codeing costuming bug noise project Build vebot build CaN2 robot download pictures custom tshirt design clean house catch up on LJ (yeah, did that one) Current Mood: accomplished | | Thursday, February 23rd, 2006 | | 11:53 am |
Upcoming events
Looks like my X-wifes younger sister will be in a play at UT. "Aisle 7" February 24 - March 5 , 2006 B. Iden Payne Theatre So I am planning to meet up with the x-family on opening night tomorrow. chgmyf8 is having a birthday soon. We will be going to the Kid Beyond concert on Firday March 3. Possibly at the EFF party on Mar 13 Considering the SOUP gathering at RecPlant on the 31st to get me through the daylight savings time shift. There is Poly Big Fun on April 7th Working at eeyores on April 29th | | Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006 | | 3:00 pm |
My dental cleaning/checkup went well. I got to draw at the monthly Kinky Drawers thing I discovered. I started thinking about the love word and how I cant use it because it holds a meaning of marriage and happy ever after kind of scarry nonsence and I think I want to redefine the term to be something I can use to fill in the gap between its previous meaning and 'I like you'. So my goal is to use it on occasion when I feel like it and without any obligation to use it or not nor obligation to mean anything beyond the moment within which I feel it. On a lighter note: The revolving door was patented by Theophilus von Kannel (1841-1919) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 7, 1888. |
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