The remainder.

Oh, and the rest of the evening involved a bit of writing, some sitting at Dado, and a game of Starcraft (the original).  At least I can still win at the old game, even if players in the new one kick my ass.  Carriers all the way, man!

Now, reading!

I have just made a peanut butter and Cinnamon Toast Crunch sandwich.

Don't judge me.

Creative day.

Currently sitting in Dado with my laptop and guitar.  The former in use (obviously), the latter in its case.  It's a little early for my usual daily report, but I feel like it.  So there!

I think I woke up at 11:45 or so this morning, after last night's Starcraft II excursion.  I had a dream last night that Andrew Bird's song Sovay was a cover off some recent U2 album or something.  I'm pretty sure it's not.  But in the dream, the connection was a miraculous, wonderful discovery.

Eric and I sat around and watched a bit of some movie called Liberty... something... I can't remember the other word.  It's got a bunch of people dealing with racism in, like, the 40s. From what I saw, it seemed pretty good.

I've just had an excellent bagel sandwich - sesame bagel, red pepper hummus, greens, tomato, red onion, cucumbers, and swiss.  Delightful, and well complimented with some lemon ginger tea with real, giant pieces of both in it.

I think I've reached the sit-and-be-creative portion of my day, though, truthfully, so far the whole day has been kinda like that.  After waking up, I had a bite to eat, and then dove into learning the chords and melody of West Coast Blues.  I got through the vast majority of it, which was nice.  I left home at 3:45 or so for a lesson with Dave Z over at Jordan Hall at 4:45 PM.  I got there just in time.  With coffee, so, yeah, awesome.  We talked about the soloing chord changes (more complex than the melody chord changes), and about how you might do somethin' jazzy over them.  Some day, some day, I'll be able to do that, I'm sure.  For now I'm still a bit mystified by the spidery, wandering jazz solo.  Some day.

So that's that, for now.  Might very well write another one tonight.  Woohoo!

A play about women and men. Five lessons in humility.

I think I managed to write a whole half hour of code today.  It was like a swarm of little mini tasks and problems conspired to buzz around my head all day.  I never even had a chance - the code happened in spare moments somewhere in between all the other stuff that was going on, as opposed to the other way around.

Geeze.  Marty, Hillary, and I stumbled out of the building around 6:30 PM after everyone else had gone.  Happy birthday, you two.  (Don't get to say that very often!)  I went home speedily, as we were planning to go out to Sudbury to see a play Dave FR was in (Princess Ida).  The show started at 8:00 PM.  On my way, I got a phone call from Mike.

"Hey, are you giving me a ride tonight?" he asked.

"Oh!  Uhh, yeah, sure!  I can," I responded, not having realized he was going.

"Cool," he stated.

"Do you know where we're going, cause I don't."

"Yeah."

"Okay," I said, "I was originally going to carpool with Jason and Kat, but if you know how to get there we can just go from here.  Let me give him a call and let him know, and I'll call you back."

"Okay."

So I called Jason to confirm that the play was at their old high school in Sudbury.  He said he was pretty sure it was.  I said, okay, and told him I'd just drive there with Mike to navigate."

Then I called Mike back.

"Hey, you know the way to your high school, right?"  It seemed an innocent question.

"Uhh, yeah?" he said, confused, "Aren't we going to Dave FR's house?"

"Uhh, no?"

"... What are we doing tonight?"

"We're going to see a play!" I exclaimed.

"... Oh!  I thought we were going to play Magic!"

It being that he had no other evening plans, he came with me to the play, which was great.  They had a good cast.  Dave FR as well as our friend Graham were both in it.  She was playing some maiden person.  He was playing one of the three sons of... King Gama, I think?  Good times.

After the play, Jason and I went over to the "Halfway Cafe" somewhere around Sudbury for a few bee-ahs and some nachos.  Kat and Mike went home cause they like sleep.  More good times ensued.

Following that, Jason and I drove back to his place, chatted about women and relationships on the way.  Once there, I spent an hour or two playing Starcraft II.  I lost a total of five times.  I never won.  Every time, I lost in some new, unique way.  First I died to Mutas.  Then I died to a rush of stupid cliff-jumping Terran dudes.  Then I died to Battlecruisers (that was the only even remotely close game).  Then I tried a 2v2, and we died to a dumb, combined rush.  Finally, in my last, epic battle, I died to a zergling rush in the first 5 minutes.

Laaaaaaaaaaamesauce.

And now, head hanging in shame, I'm going to go back to the drawing board and play the original Starcraft or something so that I can have a chance of not sucking by the time this game comes out or I, at least, get into the beta with my Mac.

Ooof.

ARGH.

I am so, so mad tonight.

I think it has something to do with the rain beating against my windows.  It's just annoying the fuck out of me.  Not to mention the fact that my umbrella inverted itself about thirty times on my way home.  And how I had to change out everything but my t-shirt, cause it was all wet.  And how my bag is drying on the floor.  And how Eclipse keeps fucking selecting text as I move my god damn mouse, even though I haven't clicked anywhere!  What the hell!  STOP IT.  And how I'm doing work right now, or was, before I decided to stop and write this.  And how that the damn wind keeps literally shaking the entire building.  It's already blown out the winterizing plastic crap in my windows somehow.  The lights just flickered.  Again.

Christ.  I could never live in the northwest.  I couldn't take that much wetness.

I didn't go to my lesson today so that I could get some more work done.  

Oh my god, I'm going to kill something if my lights flicker again. 

That's it.

Get me the hell out of here.  And why am I getting sick, again?  And why is it that keyboard shortcuts here in Blogger only seem to work about 50% of the time?  Half the time when I sit down to write something, I can't use any.  Other times it's fine.  I have no idea what the deal is.

And for the record: I hate, hate, hate poorly written code.  I'm going to go read a book, there's very little else worth saying today.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better, but more than likely, I'll just soak through a third pair of shoes.

Sticky

I spent most of today with roughly 18 sticky notes on my desk.

Sometimes I removed one.

Sometimes I removed several.

But, invariably, I always added a few others shortly after.

It seems that I have roughly 10 long-term tasks that I want to accomplish at work, not counting grand visions, plus an additional 10 or so short term, immediate need, must-get-done-as-soon-as-possible tasks.  I'm reminded that the human brain can only contain roughly seven things at once, and this makes me glad for the inventions of paper, adhesives, and the stroke of brilliance that combined the two.

So, anyway, things are moving along at work.  They're not absurdly busy yet.  Yet.  We'll see how tomorrow goes.  I'm expecting to remove many of those sticky notes tomorrow - it's just a matter of when, and how satisfied I am with the result.

I was at work until around 6:30 PM - Hillary and I left at the same time (I think we were basically the last ones there) and took the T back to Porter, me towards home, she towards the salon.  Upon arrival, I had some cheese, crackers, and Corona (the three C's), and proceeded to yawn like crazy until I convinced myself to pick up a guitar and do something with it.  Luckily, doing something with it involved playing it.  I love my acoustic.  It's just effin' beautiful.  It's got such a gorgeous sound.  Definitely a good purchase.

After an hour of guitaring or so, I decided to check out OmniFocus.  After downloading a trial of it, I proceeded to add stuff.  I apparently have, off the top of my head, sixty-nine things to do, not counting work.  No wonder I can't get anything done - I'm carrying all this shit around, worrying about it all.  Anyway, we'll see how this thing works as an organizational tool.  So far it seems pretty well done, though I don't know that I really need some of the more advanced features.  All I need is some text that I can shuffle around and label.  Softwaric sticky notes.

Seriously, I'm liking this task stuff.  It's all I talk about lately.  It's like I have high hopes for my own ability to make use of an organization system to improve my life.  Looking at my wall, I see something I wrote perhaps two years ago (a note affixed to the sheetrock with a push pin): This requires a systemic change in the way I manage life.  After all this time, I've some cautious hope that I might be able to say I accomplished that one.

From one end to the other

I woke up a tad late this morning, then proceeded to sit on the couch and play guitar for a bit.  I don't really know why - I just wasn't feeling rushed to get in the shower.  Eric kindly told me that my playing had improved a lot over the last year.  I can kinda see that sometimes - others, not so much.

I arrived at work at roughly 9:30 AM, and worked through until 6:30 or so, I think.  I believe that's when it was.  After work, Daniel and I went over to The Friendly Toast for dinner and a beer.  I had pancakes and a Robust Porter (Smuttynose).  He had french toast and Smuttynose's IPA.  We talked about all sorts of things - a lovely conversation.  I think next time I'll go with the french toast - it looked delicious.  They were playing Neutral Milk Hotel and Wilco.  Not bad.

After leaving The Friendly Toast (around 8:30 or so), I decided to walk over to Central rather than back to Kendall, since I was already part of the way there.

So I walked down Main St. to Central, singing Wilco songs.

Once I got to Central, I decided, heck, it's a nice enough night, why not walk over to Harvard?

So I walked to Harvard singing Animal Collective songs.

Once I got to Harvard, I attempted to stop in at the Staples there, but it was unfortunately about 9:30 PM, and they were half an hour closed.  Instead I stopped into a CVS (ugh) to look for sticky notes.  They only had big, boring, manilla ones.  I got a new toothbrush and some toothpaste instead.

 I also thought I might stop by Dado to see if Karin was still there, as she seemed to be having a rough start to her day this morning.  She didn't seem to be around (they were long since closed, but still cleaning up).  Once I ran out of things to do in Harvard, I thought to myself, well, I've walked this far, why not go all the way across Cambridge?

So I walked from Harvard to Porter singing Smashing Pumpkins B-sides.

And then I got home.  And now my legs are tired.  The end!

Pencil thin? Pssh, handlebar, all the way!

A fine enough Monday, all told.

My morning involved reading a little ways into Getting Things Done, by David Allen.  It's always a pleasure to see things that are common sense, that you always thought were sensible, recorded as such by someone who has spent a great deal of time thinking about them.  It lends credence to ideas already in your head, and makes you more likely to actually carry them out.

That said, I want to go get a white board (maybe I can get the one I left at my parents' place?) and a bunch of sticky notes and go to town organizing myself.  It'll be so wondrous!  I already do it at work.  Why not at home?

I spent a little time during lunch with Cantaloupe Island, and got something I'm happy with for at least the first eight bars.  Now for the other twenty four.  This stuff takes a long time!  Hopefully Joel doesn't get to bugged by how long it's taking me.

After work, I went over to class at NEC, which went well.  During Ear Training, we were singing various intervals and chords and things, and I actually had a moment where I just plain knew what I was hearing, completely out of the blue.  That was exciting!  (It was a fourth.)  Awesome.  If this keeps up, I might actually be decent eventually.  I'm getting really excited about classes next year.  Ear Training II and Jazz Theory II will be really cool, I think, if I can manage to keep up.  It doesn't seem to be a problem in Theory; I'm slightly concerned about Ear Training though.

After class, I tried to find a place to practice somewhere in both the St. Botolph Street building, as well as in Jordan Hall.  No luck.  Every single room I found in both was full.  But, it was extremely cool to go wandering around Jordan Hall looking for rooms.  It's like a crazy old castle.  The hallways twist and turn, there are all these tiny rooms in the basement with little pianos in them, and as you walk through the halls you can hear any number of instruments, ensembles, and vocalists playing.  It's bustling, even at 9:00 PM on a Monday.  I think maybe I need to sign up for a room if I really want to use it.  Might have to write a sticky to figure that out.

After having no luck finding a room, I decided to just go home.

I got here.  I had a Corona and my remaining calzone from last night.  And then Matt and I watched Independence Day.

That's right, boys and girls.  Eye-Dee-Four.  Oh yeah.

I've been thinking lately about how life really does seem to be coming together lately.  I really don't feel adrift, lately.  I have classes, I have hobbies, I have good friends, and I feel like I (generally) have a plan.  It's a pretty good feeling.  Many of the details are hazy, but I have a number of things I'm working towards on at least four long term fronts and several other short term ones, and that's satisfying.  Now if I can just manage to organize myself to the point where I can pull together some additional propulsion, I'll be pretty damn well off.

Woo!

That said, it's now 11:45 PM, and it's about time I got myself to sleep.  I'm tired of staying up really late, lately.  Time to turn in a tad earlier.

... And I was reading an FAQ about how to grow handlebar mustaches before writing this.  Oh, it's on.

Long Runs

I got up today around 10:50 AM, after sleeping in for an extra hour or two.  It was glorious, though I imagine I'll pay for it tomorrow night and the next night when I try to get to sleep at a reasonable time.

I started out the day by trying to come up with a melody for Cantaloupe Island, failed miserably, and checked out some of my other, old Noteflight songs.  Some aren't half bad beginnings.  I spent most of the morning and early afternoon doing laundry and kinda bumming around - Julia and I were scheduled to go for a run at 2:00 PM, but she asked that we put it off until 3:00 PM, which was cool.  It gave me time to finish my laundry, which had all my running stuff in it anyway (oops).

At 3:00 or so, (I think we actually left around 3:15), we set out from my place and ran down Mass Ave. to the river.  Once there, we started to go downriver on the Cambridge side, crossed over the footbridge to the south side, and then continued on our merry way all the way to the Mass Ave. Bridge.  All told, I think it was approximately 4.7 miles, according to gmaps pedometer.  By my estimation of time, we supposedly did it in about 35 minutes.  Which sounds pretty good to me!  That's somewhere between 7-8 minute miles.  Ish.  Even if the time is off, it's still not like 9 or 10, which I might have expected for a close-to-5-mile run after having not run all winter.  Not bad.  At the beginning my shins were killing me - I think I forgot how to stride properly.  I figured it out about two miles in, then felt pretty good.

As we were running, we started saying random, weird phrases as we passed people, just to give them something interesting to listen to.  "And last month, when I was scuba diving in the Mississippi...", "When I was hiking the Himalayas the other day...", "And then I found out she was a man!"

... Things like that.  Good times.

After getting to the Mass Ave. Bridge, we walked ourselves all the way back to Harvard, where we got some coffee at Pete's (I also got a cinnamon chip scone), and then said our goodbyes for the day.  I was freezing at this point, and was thrilled to get on the T back to Porter, though, sadly, without company.

After a shower and gathering my stuff up, I drove out to Sudbury and got there around 6:00 PM.  Dave hadn't arrived yet.  Jason and Pete were there.  We sat around until 7:30 or so when Dave got there, then got on our way.

Personally, I'm having a blast running this whole Ragnarok thing.  It's a great time tying it all in to our existing story.  Hopefully everybody's having a good time.  Next week, I think we'll have Dave, Pete, Jason, Tom (!), and a guest appearance by Julia (!!!).  Or, well, a guest sit-in by Julia (!!).  I don't think she's interested in actually participating.  We'll see!

Anyway, seriously need to sleep.  Must get up and finish Cantaloupe Island.

Social Saturday

I woke up at noon.

Hell yeah.


At 12:50 or so, Ms. Wags gave me a call to suggest we head out to JP for an Arternoon (that there being an art-afternoon for those uncomfortable with word mash-ups).  I said that sounded excellent.

After composing myself and getting on my way, I arrived at the designated meeting spot (read: Dado) in Harvard Square, got some coffee and a scone, and we were on our way.  Julia met Karin, which is like two disparate halves of my life coming together in friendly banter.  It, unfortunately, took us a long time to get out to JP.  We took the Red line out to Park, the Green line out to Symphony, and then the 39 bus out to... where we were going.  (Somewhere near Green St. on the Orange line, Boomerangs, and the Center St. Cafe.)  We got there at 3:30, which was only an hour and a half later than expected.  Oops.

Sitting around at Sarah and Ian's, we each did our thing.  I wrote for a little bit - character backgrounds - Jules and Sarah collaged, Ian seemed to be making a chart of a molecule.  Good times.  After an hour or so, I bust out the guitar and learned the chords for West Coast Blues.  Or, at least, the A section of it.  We ended up leaving JP around 5:30, and I was back at home around 6:15, I think.  We decided to try taking the Orange line home (thus the Green St. bit) and it turned out to be much faster.

At 7:30 or so, I left home again and walked to Harvard Square to meet up with Annalisa for dinner.  We decided to go to Cambridge 1, which was (as always) delicious.  I had a lovely pinot noir - two glasses of it.  It was awesome to see Annalisa - it's sad to me that she's not at Allurent anymore.  Such a spectacular person to have around.  We had a number of hours of lovely conversation.  After Cambridge 1, we went over to Shay's and had a beer or two.  I think we left around midnight, or there abouts.  I walked home from Harvard Square - it's a glorious night.

On the way in to Harvard Square, I had all these great thoughts about the story I've been writing, which I was unable to write down because of a lack of paper.  (I had a pen).  Instead, I ended up dictating them to my phone.  Such good stuff.  The whole thing makes a lot more sense now, and it all (amazingly) just sorta came to me as I was walking along.

Tomorrow I need to get some homework done, maybe get some work done, go for a run at 2:00 PM with The Wags, do laundry, and plan effin' Ragnarok.  Oh, yeah, we're back, after a week off.  I'm excited.

Little Shop! Little Shop of Haughrawwws!

Yes, the time is now 4:17 AM.

Work today went pretty well, given that I only got 5-6 hours of sleep.  I think I went to bed at around 3:00 AM after finishing Knife of Dreams; Jordan's last book.  It's kinda sad to finish out an author's entire life's work.  Now I get to see how the new guy handles the series.

At lunch, Erik and I ordered Thai - Tofu yellow curry.  Delicious.

After work, I went with Mr. Daniel off to the Cambridge Brewing Company to meet with a former coworker of his for drinks and conversation.  I had CBC's vegetarian lentil burger, which was actually quite delicious.  Daniel's friend was a cool guy - I missed his name when we sat down, unfortunately.  After leaving CBC, I wandered over to Lord Hobo, which, it turns out, is a bar a little bit up the way from Kendall on Hampshire.  Cool enough place.  There was a small line to get in - I must have waited about 15 minutes, I think.

Eric F. and Gwen were hanging out, and we had a few beers.   Eric and I each had a glass of some wicked delicious tequila.  Don Julio 1942, I think?  It was quite nice.  Smelled a bit like vanilla to me.

After leaving Lord Hobo, the three of us walked to Gwen's place up around Inman to fetch some movies.  We said "Hi!" to her husband.  Following that, we grabbed Labyrinth and Little Shop of Horrors and took the T back to Eric's place in Porter.

We then proceeded to watch Labyrinth and enjoy a bottle of wine.

We then proceeded to watch Little Shop of Horrors and enjoy said bottle of wine.  I fell asleep, kinda, through part of Labyrinth.  Eric fell asleep through parts of both.  Gwen sat enraptured by the whole experience and quoted most of the movies.  Around 3:45, our movies over, Gwen and I left, and I proceeded to temporarily leave this laptop and my bag behind, which Eric kindly reminded me of via the telephonomajig.  Thanks, dude!

Anyway, a lovely night.  Time to go to sleep.

Children, Calls, Coding, Cereal, Corona, and Catching up on sleep

Hoowah.

So my brother and the kiddos left this morning.  I spent at least 45 minutes lying in bed reading to them while Chris packed up everything and took it out to the car.  That was a lot of fun!  As a result, I got to work a bit later than I would have preferred.  But, just in time for a 10:00 AM call, luckily.

I accomplished what needed to be accomplished today, which involved sending a bunch of e-mail and actually getting some coding done.  WOO coding!  I like coding.  Coding is fun.  Coding is special.  YEAH!

Ahem.

I left work at approximately 5:00 PM so I could get home, get some practice, and remind myself what West Coast Blues is like.  Swingin' song.  Oh, and I had some cereal.  Oh, and I took an hour or so to re-arrange my furniture again.  Not that I'm making it different than it was, but rather that I'm arranging it in its old positions again.  6' by 6' tents, you know.  They take up room, and I had to move stuff all out of the way.

Following the lesson, which went okay, though I feel like we didn't have a lot to bring to the table today, I came home, had a Corona, and ate some trail mix while cleaning up my inbox.  1600 messages from last February?  ARCHIVED, biotch!

Umm.  ... yeah.  Uneventful - I'm going to go catch up on some sleep.

The next blue line train to WONDERLAND is now arriving

Children are exhausting.  A pair of four year old twins are downright comatosing.  It's a word, now - for reals.

The day began promptly at At Least An Hour Before I Usually Wake Up AM.  In laymen's terms, probably around 6:30 AM.  I don't even know if I have words for all this.  A great deal of time was spent running into and out of the tent in my room, zipping it up, unzipping it, trying to get in while it was zipped, trying to keep the Monster out (Daddy), running in and out, squealing, rolling around in blankets, and making Uncle David nervous about someone catching their hair in a zipper.

Then we got dressed and went to breakfast.

The Deluxe Town Diner was everything I recalled it being - I had pancakes and coffee, Chris had an omelet, the boys had bagels and juice.  We had to go back to the house once, prior to sitting down, to fetch the bag of kid-supplies, including emergency food-allergy medicine that we forgot at home.  Oops.  

Following breakfast, we came back to my place again and the boys immediately stripped down to their underwear and continued their earlier game.  We were planning on going to the aquarium.  

An hour or so later, after the boys and I had a parade through the apartment (Lucas, I think, ringing a bell the whole way, me playing guitar, and Nathan, I think, just dancing along), we finally got our act together, walked to the T in Porter, and took the Red, Green, and Blue lines to Aquarium.  Nathan was apprehensive about the trains, even while he loved them.  They are, after all, huge and loud.  

At the aquarium we spent a bunch of time looking at penguins, had lunch in the cafe (during which the boys ate none of their pizza), and then returned to walk around the giant ocean tank for a while.  Eventually, around 3:30, we left, and took the T back to my place.

My brother and I, upon arriving, promptly dozed on the couch while games-in-the-tent continued.

Dinner consisted of a trip to Christopher's, which turned out pretty well.  Except we forgot the supply bag again, this time just in the car.  I had some blackened cajun tofu - Chris had a veggie burger, the boys had grilled cheese and pizza.  And juice/milk.

Following that, we went home, and the boys promptly, promptly fell asleep at 7:30 PM.  Not a peep from them after that.  They were absolutely exhausted by the time we were leaving Christopher's, to the point where they could barely stand up.

And that, laddies and gentlewomen, is how you tire out some kids (and adults).

After they went to bed, Chris and I lay on the couches for 15 minutes staring at the ceiling, then watched Thank You For Smoking.  I'm not really sure what to think of that movie - the message was kinda confusing to me.  Well, at least, in my current state.  I'm not really sure what the takeaway was outside of, "Yeah, cigarettes are bad."  If that was it, the story was a very strange vehicle for it.

Little Miss Sunshine

I got four hours of sleep last night.

Somehow, this didn't really seem to have any effect on me today.  So, you know, yay!

It started snowing this morning almost immediately after I woke up.  By the time I felt even vaguely awake, there was already like an inch.  By the time I got to the office, I vaguely resembled a snowman.  Today was one of those days that involves a bunch of random scattered tasks.  I'm not sure if there was any one, overarching thing that actually defined my workday.  Guess you have those sometimes.

I left work around 5:45 PM to book home in time to meet my brother and nephews here.  Instead, they met me at Gourmet Express in Porter.  We ended up going to Jose's Mexican Restaurant for dinner, which was delicious.  I had a Burrito con Mole.  Booyah.  And an Autentica margarita.  Chris had a chimichanga.  And an Autentica margarita.  The boys had cheese quesadillas.

Upon returning to my apartment ("Boys, can you say swinging bachelor pad?" I asked.  "SWINGING BACHELOR PAD!" they responded.), we started moving furniture out of the way in my room to make room for the tent.

Yes, the tent.

There is currently a 6' by 6' or so tent in the middle of my floor.  It barely fits.  The boys are sleeping in it.  I'm not sure if Chris is going to as well, or if he's going to take my bed, pushing me out to the couch.

We just watched Little Miss Sunshine, which was an excellent movie.  It had the freaky preacher dude from There Will Be Blood as a teenager.  He was decidedly less freaky.

And now, bed.

FDGCFDGCFFBbGFGGC

I did two things today.  Well, maybe a few more than two, if you want to starts splitting hairs, or if you want to include things that happened today before I went to sleep.

I think I was reading last night until 4:00 AM.  I mention this so that you'll understand why the following statement is at least somewhat reasonable:  I woke up this morning at 11:30 AM.  After getting myself together and out the door, I walked down to Harvard Square to sit in Dado for the third day in a row.  This time, however, I spent the entire time (from approximately 1:00 PM to 6:45 PM) working on some stuff for work, trying to make sure this project doesn't accidentally get behind.  I mostly finished off one of our widgets - it just needs a bit of branding and should be done.

Randomly around 3:00 PM, I look up to see Julia waving at me on the other side of the glass.  "Hi," I wave.  "Hi," she waves back.  "Hi," waves the high school friend with her (Sean?  Shawn?  One of the two!).  The pair of them come inside and we chat over the heads of the other patrons for a few minutes.  The place was, by the way, completely packed today almost the entire time I was there.  It was really surprising.  I just barely got a seat at all when I showed up.  After our brief chat, she and her friend left, and I went back to work.

Following my time at Dado, I got on the Red line and took it down to Park, following the trip with the all too familiar wait for the Green (E) line, and the generally-packed trip out to Symphony.  We didn't have Jazz Theory tonight - just Ear Training.  All in all, the class went really well, I think.  I had a few issues hearing random chords near the end, but for the most part I was on it.  It felt pretty good.

After class, I hopped back on the Green line to head home, saw an Annalisa doppelganger get on the train at Copley, and eventually arrived home around 9:22 PM.  At least, that's what was on my clock when I walked into my room.

Since then, I've had salad with balsamic vinegar and some Wheat Thins, cheese, and hummus for dinner.    I am currently drinking a Tsingtao.  I think, now that I've been drinking it for a bit, that it's unfortunately my least favorite of the various Asiatic beers out there.  Kirin is good, 33 Vietnam was pretty tasty, and Sapporo has its days.  Tsingtao is just sorta... Hmm.  It's okay.

Anyway!  I'm now going to try to relax for the next hour and a half before I go to sleep.  Seems like a good idea.

V-Day; it's kinda like D-Day but with less guns. Kinda.

Today turned out pretty well, all told.

I woke up around 10:30 or so, got myself together, and found myself sitting in The Dado by around noon.  I had a scone.  I had some coffee, which turned out to be large even though I'm pretty sure I ordered a small.  Both of the kind girls behind the counter were wearing red shirts; presumably in honor of the day.

I made a point not to wear any, given my mood this morning.

For two hours or so, I sat in Dado and slowly wrote the beginning of a song in Noteflight.  Good job, Joe B.  It's a really cool app.  Around 1:45 Julia called me and asked if we were still on for a run at 2:00 PM.  I said "Ahh!" and asked if we could push it to 2:15 PM.  Kindly, she said, "YEP."

I hightailed it back home and got myself ready to go, and got outside to find her waiting.  We ran from my place down to Harvard Square, across the Western Ave. bridge, back across the foot bridge, and back through JFK park.  Then we took a pleasant walk back to her place, had some tea and muffins (thanks, Paul!), and chatted for a bit.  Then I took what would turn out to be the first of three trips, on my part, between Craigie and Richdale, and the only one during which I ran.  It was cold, and I was wearing shorts - I kept warm by running.  Prior to leavin, she invited me back for pizza with Paul and Marley around 7:00 PM, I happily accepted.

Upon returning home, I took a quick shower, then bummed around and read some more of Knife of Dreams.  Around 6:45, after waking Julia up with a phone call, I walked back down to Craigie - all bundled up against the cold - and we had a lovely dinner of pizza, delicious dips for the copious crust, and beer.  Awesome.  The pizza was totally delicious - cheese with squash.

Around 8:30 or so Julia and I headed out for this shin dig down on Comm. Ave.  It was at the apartment of a dude she met on the bus back from New York City one time (I know, right?).  It was his roommate's birthday (Ike), along with someone else's birthday whom I don't think I ever met.  I did, however, meet many people.  I met a Nadia, a Julia, a Stuart, an Amanda, a Sam, an Eric, an Ike, a John, a Brendan (I think), and a bunch of other folks whom, were I to meet them again, I would have to apologize to for forgetting their names.  Jessi Dub showed up after a bit, and we hung out.  It was good to see another familiar face.  Outside of talking to Jules and Jessi, I spent a good chunk of the evening talking to Nadia, who, it turns out, is from Siberia.  At midnight or so Julia and Jessi planned to leave, and I regretfully didn't allow my new Russian friend to convince me to stay longer.  It seemed like it'd be a good idea to actually catch the last T back into Boston.  Julia gave her her card, somewhat on my behalf.  It's a weird, weird world we live in.  I'm not much of a "Hey, can I get your phone number?" sorta guy.  That's way more forward than I'm capable of.

But, anyway, back to the T. Unfortunately, we missed it, as we were informed by a trolley driver dude headed in the opposite direction.

Walking from Washington St. to Harvard Ave., we considered trying to catch a bus for a good 15 minutes.  No buses were forthcoming.  Eventually we gave up and hailed a few cabs, Julia and I in one headed back towards Cambridge, Jessi in the other headed back to her place in... Brookline, I believe.

We took the cab back to Julia's place, and I had a lovely walk back to mine (the third trek of the evening).  I didn't feel like dealing with splitting the fare in some weird way after letting her off.  Besides, it was a pleasant night.

And here I am.  Not bad.  My hand still has a blue "X" on it from last night.

Other worthwhile mantras

Be a producer, not a consumer.

Be a good person.

I reminded myself today to just be a good person.

Be a good person.

It's an interesting thing to ask of myself.  Regardless of what happens in life; be a good person.  Regardless of how shitty you feel, you can take solace in the fact that you are, you're pretty sure, a good person.  But for it to be meaningful to be a good person, in mind as opposed to simply actions, doesn't that mean you have to think you'll be judged on it at some point?  I'm not entirely sure it matters.  The universe and I have an understanding, but I'm not particularly sure the universe cares.  So why the hell do I care?

I guess it's all just a matter of perception.  Of all the people doing the perceiving.  Be a good person and you'll be rewarded.  But will you?  In what way?  Subtly, the universe is going to conspire to make good things happen to you?  Is this karma?  I'd like to think that's something worth believing in, but my faith is feeling a bit hazy right now.

So... I'm supposed to be a good person.  I'm supposed to try, even if nothing notices or even knows.  I guess so.  I'm not even really sure what I would do if I didn't try.  I guess I'd just be an asshole.  That doesn't seem very rewarding.

I sat around and read Knife of Dreams today from around 11:00 AM until 5:30 PM.  I did some laundry in between.  At 5:30 or so, I left the house to go to this Hansel and Gretel Re: Imagined thing down at MassArt.  It was at 7:00 PM.  I met Julia at Dado around 6:30 (I got there a bit early, and sat and had some coffee).  We took the Red and Green (E) lines to Longwood Medical.  We wandered a bit to try to find the performance.  We accidentally bought tickets to some Night Music performance, and then got our money back.  We went to the thing, and found Jason and Katherine there, along with one of Jason's co-workers (also a Jason).  We hung out for a bit.  Jason and Kat departed, Julia's friend Alex showed up.  Eric showed up.  We hung around till the end, when the performance converted to a dance party.  Eric stayed for a bit; Julia, Alex and I got pizza and some beer.  Then I took the T home.

Now I'm here, after a long walk home in the cold.  I walked from Harvard to Porter on a whim, and listened to Digital Ash in a Digital Urn on the way.  At least I'm getting better at whims.  I think they're wonderful things.

It has been, ultimately, a pretty empty day.  Some days, I despise being a ghost.  Be a good person.

Illustrator.

Tonight Jason taught me how to use Illustrator.  This, really, I think is the most important, wonderful thing that's happened to me this year.  And it's only February.  I don't think anything in the next ten months will be able to top this.

I'm currently converting my crappy bitmap maps over to be wonderful, infinite resolution vectors.

Oh, it's on.

In other news, I was finally able to make it over to NEC to pay for this year's classes.  That, and get a new sticker on my ID.  Fiiiinally.  I feel like a real student again, with a right to be there!  Woo!  I took a few hours out of the middle of my day (1:30 PM to 3:30 PM) and got a few things done.  First, I took the Red and Green lines over to Copley to The Only TDBank Branch In Boston to deposit some checks.  Then, I attempted to get back on the T to head out to Symphony, only to realize I was trying to get on the T going the wrong direction (Inbound).  I'm so used to getting on the T on the Library side that I didn't even think about it.  After crossing the street twice, I made my way out to Symphony to pay for my classes and lessons, as mentioned.  The gentleman at the office was friendly about it (even though I'm like 6 months late).  Thanks, dude!  You're excellent.

The #1 bus got me from Symphony back to Harvard Sq., where I picked up some Veggie Planet (Vegan Peanut Curry) for a late, late lunch.  It was delicious, though a bit cold by the time I got it back to the office.  The rest of the day proceeded without too many incidents, though I've decided I hate Flex stylesheets.  Either that or I hate the component I was trying to apply a style to, because I couldn't get it to take no matter what I did.  I even employed our super special style-applying class/magic wand, and it didn't work.  Geeze.

Ultimately, dinner was salad (from the salad bar at Shaws!) and a bit of sour dough, swiss, and classic, classic hummus.  Delicious.

I've spent the last hour and a half drawing shapes in Illustrator.  This is so, so cool.  I'm super excited.  My hand hurts from mousing so much.  They'll be wonderful!  Wonderful!  Oh, yes.

Oh, lets see.  I was at work until around 7:30 or so.  Once I left, I took the T over to Harvard Sq. and sat in Dado for 30 minutes drinking some Dragon Well, listening to Kind of Blue.  It was pleasant.  After my half hour (around 8:30 PM), I walked home up Mass. Ave., stopping at Gourmet Express for some cereal, trail mix, and bread.  (Watch out, now.)  It wasn't a bad walk.  Upon arriving home, I gave my parents a call.  Sounds like Dad's job is going well - he seems to be enjoying it.  He's working at Thomson Reuters - they're apparently writing software for looking up patents and stuff.  I only got some of the details.  It sounds like a good group, though, in some old factory buildings in New Haven.  He says he likes the commute and the people are nice.

The annual Ocean Grove trip is starting to be scheduled.  I can't believe it's already time to think about that again - it's only February!  Looks like we're all likely to descend on OG in mid July.  ... Now that I think about it, I can't wait.  I love going there with everybody - it's always so pleasant.  Sitting on the beach, boarding in the waves, running along the water, eating ice cream, relaxing in the cool, pleasant evenings.  It's such an idyllic place.  It'll be spectacular.

Currently listening to Massive Attack.  Naun tells me they have a new album.  Perhaps I should do something about that.

A long fuzzy day

"Fuzzy" seems the most accurate way to describe the state of my brain today.

I was fuzzy on details, fuzzy on my ability to walk, fuzzy on what words to use, fuzzy on what I was doing at any given time, and fuzzy on what I needed to do to fix any of the above varieties of fuzziness.

But at least I had curry tofu for lunch, and people were nice.  Thanks for the scone, Mark!

I cancelled my guitar lesson today because of said fuzz.  Instead I went home and dealt with Media Temple for a while.  Ninety percent of this time consisted of meandering around an installation of Drupal, getting to know it.  The other ten percent consisted of trying to clean said install off my server once I decided I wanted to move it.  Bastages.  Ah, well, I'll fix it later.

I should really go to sleep.  My throat doesn't even really hurt that much at the moment, though I don't appreciate all the sniffing.

Grr, sniffing.

Is this making any sense?  I tried to write a bit today, didn't get too far.  I need to spend some time on character backstory so I can understand where these people are coming from.  Without that, it's pretty difficult to write about where they're going.

Umm.  I'm not really sure anything else happened.

Oh!  I went to the grocery store and picked up a few things.  Go me!  If I can remember to do that once a week or so, I might actually have things to eat in the house.  Regardless, I still ate cheese, crackers, and hummus for dinner.  Sigh.

Ah well.  Wow, sleep time.

Holy shit, I forgot Wednesday!

Holy crap!  I forgot to write on Wednesday!  God damn!  That's the first day all year.  I guess I have an excuse - I'm sick.  Did I not mention that Wednesday?  I guess not!  Gah!  That's fine, I'll backdate this.  But just for posterity, this was written at 12:04 AM on Friday, right after the previous post for Thursday.

Wednesday was a mess.  I stayed home from work and worked about a half day - the other half of it I slept, trying not to feel so messed up.  We expected it to snow all day long, and it never really did.  We got a dusting.  I ordered some vegetables (pho and curry) from Le's in the evening cause there was no way I was going to walk to the store, and silly me ran out of food.  I barely remember what I did in the evening.  It must not have been terribly interesting.  I think it involved watching the Daily Show.  I also watched the "Vice Guide to North Korea," which was incredible.  What a scary, freaky place.

I don't think I really accomplished much else on Wednesday.  It was a weird, backwards day, which is probably why I completely forgot to write.  I got back into bed at 10:00 PM or so and read Knife of Dreams until about 11:30 PM, then went to sleep.  It never even crossed my mind that I should write down how useless I was for the day!

There, how's that?  Oh, and I drank an entire liter of orange juice, I think.  Booyah.

Shiny teefs

Today was another whirlwind.

Honestly, I'm not even sure what I did today at work.  A million meetings.  Some planning.  A lot of talking (coordinating) with people.  At least I had Indian for lunch (brought from home, procured from India Castle yesterday night).

I left work at 4:50 or so, as I needed to get across Cambridge to the dentist to have a filling from when I was a kid redone.  Guess it's held up pretty well, but was starting to get old.  So now I have a new, non-metal, more-or-less invisible filling.  Basically looks like normal tooth.  Cool beans.  Yay, modern dental technology!  The receptionist at the office was cute - I was the only one there (she was, in fact, startled when I walked in), and we had a lovely little chat, brief as it was.  And she had great glasses.

I walked myself back to Harvard Square after my appointment, which was all of half an hour, to get a gift for Justin's birthday.  It being that there's a distinct possibility that he might read this at some point, if he happens to come across it, I won't mention what that was.  Unfortunately, when it came time to head over to Justin and Ali's apartment for birthday parting and LOST, I completely forgot the gift on my dresser.  Argh!  I'll just have to give it to him next week... which means I'll probably be heading back for LOST next week.  Hrm.

Oh, and I opened my new microphone today.  It's all shiny and a'sparkly.  It arrived at work yesterday, and I was in such a rush that I just left it on my desk in its Amazon box.  It amazes me the amount of technical knowledge that emerges when people in that office see musical equipment.  I opened it, and the next thing I know Mark and Mark are waxing knowledgeably on all sorts of mics and things.  I know nothing!  Nothing!  I almost felt silly.

Justin and Ali's was fun.  We had snacks and cake with strawberries and whipped cream (home made).  It was spectacular.  Ria and I had fun taking pictures of pictures of pictures, etc.  Another busy, successful day.

The rest of the world's like a little bitty spot

Listening to fuckin' Loretta Lynn.

Thank goodness.

Today has been long.  It started pretty well, I think.  I woke up promptly at 7:00 AM.  I spent some time before noon preparing some slides for a "brown bag" talk I was giving today.  I think it went well - it's difficult to tell what people think.  There weren't too many confused faces at the end, so I'll take that as a sign that I at least did a reasonable job of explaining.  I hope.  After the talk, it seemed like everything proceeded to fall apart for the rest of the day.

I don't know what the deal was, but everybody seemed bitchy today.  People were trading barbs in e-mail, which never happens.  Maybe bitchy isn't the right word, but they were at least pissed off.  I don't know - I can just hope I don't have anything to do with it.

I left work around 5:30 PM and headed over to class.  Got there a few minutes late, unfortunately, but he hadn't really started anyway.  Class, as opposed to work, seemed to go pretty well all the way through.  Theory was good, and I was able to hear properly in Ear Training, for the most part.

I got home around 9:30 PM and immediately ordered some Indian from India Castle.

It got here about 15 minutes ago, somehow.  The delivery guy actually called me to apologize and say that he was a few minutes away in Harvard Square.  Ultimately, I don't mind.  Shit happens; I'm sure he wasn't thrilled to be late either.  It doesn't do anyone any good for me to get all pissy about it.

Ahh, High On A Mountain Top.  Yay!

That's a better place than most to stop.

How much is a 2000 Dodge Stratus with 42k miles worth?

Today began at 10:30 AM when my alarm went off.

By 11:00 AM, I was outdoors, bedecked in winter running attire, awaiting the arrival of Ms. Julia for our non-regularly scheduled Sunday morning run.  We made it down to the river (via Mass. Ave.), crossed the foot bridge, and came back on JFK.  It was, all told, a pretty short run.  I felt sorta crappy, given my very late and inebriated night approximately 7-8 hours before.  Sorry for that, Jules!  I'll do better next time.

After our run, which ended with us walking up Mass. Ave. again, we stopped into Simon's Cafe (I think that's what it's called?) on the way to Porter and procured some coffee and some blueberry scones.  The coffee was, primarily, a french roast.  Except that they ran out half way through one of the cups - one of us had half house, half french, though we couldn't say which.  It might have been me.  Regardless, both scone and coffee were tasty.  We walked back up the street and hung around in my living room for a bit, sconin' it up, and she left around 12:30 or so.

Following that, I sat myself down to try to get a few things done, and mostly accomplished nothing at all.  I did manage to plan a bit for our Ars game tonight, which was good.  Otherwise, I was feeling really groggy and sleepy, so by around 2:00 PM or so I crawled back into bed (hoodie and all) and went back to sleep until around 4:00 PM.  YEAH for mid-Sunday naps!

From 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM I bummed around for a bit, before heading over to Jason's place to pick him up. We had a lovely little drive out to Sudbury in my creaking car, and a good night of gaming.  I got to play Jason's "Bicycle" Magic deck - killed two players simultaneously.  It's named "Bicycle" because it's a cycling deck, and it kills two people at once, thus the "bi".  Not bad.  It's a one trick pony, though, so we put it away after it's one win.

Now, I'm going to look up the value of my car on a blue book, because in the back of my mind I'm thinking about selling it, and then I'm going to go to sleep.

Oh, yeah, and I hear that Super Bowl stuff happened tonight.  Good on you, Saints!

I don't remember the name of the song

Today was excellent.  Disclaimer: I am very drunk.

First, I started out by waking up at 11:00 AM.  That's how a day starts good.

Then, by 1:00 PM, I was hanging out in Dado with my roommate Matt.  We chilled for a while, and eventually he went home, I switched to the "bar" and sat around and wrote for a few hours.  Awesome.  At 5:15 or so I returned home and plotted with Mr. Eric F. how the night should go.  It was his birthday!  He was planning to head to Atwood's Bar with some friends.  I wandered over to his place at 6:20 or so, we hung out, drank a beer, and then his friend Matt picked us up and we went to Atwood's.  Good food - I had a veggie burger and fries.

The evening started with this spectacular olde time band, then proceeded with a blues sorta  band.  Both were great.  I find myself staring at guitarists' and bassists' fingers while they're playing, trying to get a feel for what they're doing.  I'm feeling very meta when I listen to live music, lately.  I'm always trying to figure out what's going on.

After Atwood's, we went to the Phoenix Landing in Central.  It was a great time.  Matt (not my roommate - Eric's friend) and Gwen both had ID cards for MTV, and we skipped the line.  Matt is a total badass - awesome.  I was glad to buy him a beer, even if it was a Bud light.

We stayed at the Landing until around 1:45 dancing.  It was a great night  - wonderful people.  Eric has a great crew.

I have all sorts of reflections on social interactions in club/bar/music venue scenes.  They'll probably be lost in the ether.  Regardless, I had a really, really great time tonight.  Thanks, Eric, for inviting me out.

Getting lightninged in the teeth.

Whooah, late post.  Let's see, where to begin!

Today started a bit late, as I (unfortunately) slept in a bit and ended up getting to the shower after Eric and Matt, which usually sets me back about an hour, it seems like.  Or at least 40 minutes.  Work went smoothly enough - I got a lot done and finished up some stuff.  Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to leave the office around lunch time to go fix my registration issues at the Conservatory - I'll just have to get down there Monday.

I was pleased to hear today that Mr. Daniel will cease to be, merely, Mr. Daniel, but will indeed take on the salutation of Chief Architect Daniel.  I'm glad to see that after several years of ill defined structure, we've properly defined our development team again, and what's more, such formal definition has followed the lines of the informal organization that has emerged organically through his excessive awesomeness.  So way to go!

After work, I moseyed on over to Jason and Kat's place for a bit of Magic carding, a bit of Chinese food eating, and a bit of Trigun and Willow watching.  Pretty good.  I left there perhaps half an hour ago, which is why I find myself home so late.

(Para)phrase of the night, "George Lucas just loves to lightning people in the teeth!"  Or the popular variation, "Oh GOD no!  Don't lightni- GAH!  Don't lightning her in the teeth!"

Yeah.  That's how it is in Willow and Star Wars land(s)!

I think tomorrow I may visit Dado for some relaxation.  I've been mostly looking forward to it all day.

For Reverend Green

Random note of the day: 

Animal Collective's "For Reverend Green" is a gloriously abrasive song.  Incredible.

Dwah, dwah do-be-do-do

Going to client offices is, ultimately, exhausting.  Simply the act of going to some foreign place where you're trying to do your best to be helpful, explain things, solve problems, etc., is rough.

So, yeah, by 3:00 PM I was frickin' done.

I left the office around 5:00 PM and went home to practice and choose some songs that I want to learn to play next.  I chose West Coast Blues (Wes Montgomery), cause I like it.  At my lesson, Dave was playing Killer Joe (I forgot the name of the personage who wrote it), and we decided maybe I should learn that one too.

Uhh.  Oh!

So this morning I got up all nice and early and headed out a bit after 8:00 AM so I could meet Tara and Hillary in Porter.  I ended up at Cafe Zing in the Porter Square Book Store, hanging out, drinking coffee, eating a lemon scone.  It was crumbly and delicious.  Some woman came into the place after tying up her little puppy on a bench outside.  I watched the dog kinda wander around in a circle a bit, sit, decide it was too cold to sit, stand, try to sit again, get cold and stand, etc.  Then, she goes back outside and the dog freaks out with happiness to see her, jumping all over her.  I think it was just about the cutest thing ever.  The woman next to me turned and goes, "Oooh!  Thank goodness Mom is back!"  Exactly what he must have been thinking.

There, that's your cute moment of the day.

... And that's about all I got.  Long day, but a good one, generally.

Yawny Since Afternoon

I have indeed been yawning since around 4:00 PM.  Oof.  Today was, I think pretty productive.  Not like crazy productive or anything, but pretty good.  I spent a significant amount of time in the evening editing sample product images for work.  They're all shirts.  But now they say "Alternate 1 (Standard)" and "Alternate 2 (Zoom)" on them and stuff.

Woohoo.  So, yeah.  Anyway.

I purchased a microphone tonight, because the one on this computer isn't exactly suitable for recording anything.  I'm sorta looking forward to recording some songs and getting used to hearing my own voice played back.  I am, in general, terribly shy about things like singing, even if I love doing it.  Hell, I'd rather sing than bother to play an instrument.

Hmm, interesting that I can just say that and know that it's probably... yeah, it's true.  Maybe I'm studying the wrong thing?  Hmm!  Well, baby steps, Mr. David.  Or something.  What is brought up casually is not necessarily an easy thing to casually do.

I've discovered that if I eat lunch late, I can get a ton of stuff done during lunch.  It's kind of pleasant - gives me a longer stretch of uninterrupted time at the beginning of the day when I'm still fresh.

I've been listening to The Hazards of Love, by The Decemberists, almost non-stop for the past few days.  It just keeps getting better and better each time I listen through it.

I think I may use my remaining time this evening reading a book.  That'll be just lovely.

Lost in... An Island??

Today, for many people, is probably most notable as being LOST day.

This is, it turns out, a holiday I celebrated this season.  I am, however, not a particularly devout follower of the Initiative, as I haven't practiced in roughly four to five years.

That said, not a bad premiere.   I spent an hour and 8 minutes catching myself up on what's happened in the past few years: I feel I have a fairly good handle on it now.  Yeehah.  I'm still not particularly sure if I can afford to spend a few hours every Tuesday watching TV - I sorta sacrificed to go hang out with friends tonight.  I don't know if I can really fill up another evening with some specific activity - that doesn't leave me with many free weekdays left.

So, anyway, work today was weird.  Lots of not-sitting-at-my-desk for sudden meetings, code reviews, discussions, explanations, etc.  I'm not particularly sure how much I got done - perhaps it's a measure of my lack of LOST-faith that I was messing around working on some stuff during the episode.

I randomly ran into Julia on my way home, waiting for the light to turn so I could cross Mass. Ave. on my way back to my apartment.  She walked me home, we had a lovely conversation, and in return for the company I gave her a ride to her place on my way to Justin and Ali's for LOST day.

Our gym schedule seems to be suffering.  We agreed, perhaps, we'll try to take a run on Sunday.  I think this is an excellent idea.

The time is now12:05, and I need to get myself to sleep.

A Monday of Substance, or, How I Came Up With More Than 200 Characters of Labels

Today was another trip to our client's office.  Hillary, Tara, and I set out from Porter Sq. at 9:45 AM, and had a few hours of meetings regarding the design of the apps we're creating.  In Hillary's words, "It's so nice to start the work week with a road trip!"  I agree - it was a nice change of pace.

We got back to our office in the afternoon, and after sitting around eating lunch, I got an IM from one of the project managers on our clients' side. Turns out I was 27 minutes late for a meeting.

Now, when I say this, I want you to envision it being said by someone who hates, hates, hates to make a bad impression, and generally tries very hard to appear on to of his shit:

ARGH.


I.  Am.  Such.  A.  Moron.  I hurried into a conference room and apologized profusely (but with dignity!) on the phone after I called in.  They were all very gracious about it - apparently they had some other topics to talk about while they were waiting.  Whew.  Thanks, guys.

After work, I went over to class at the Conservatory, which went pretty well today.  Not like last week!  We got last semester's "quizzes" (read: final exams) back, and I got an "A Excellent."  Woo!  This is proof, at least, that I can seem to manage basic music theory pretty well, even if I don't have the chops to play half of what we talk about.  Even Ear Training went okay today.  I need more practice.  My ears, they remain half trained.

Mondays are always fairly devoid of interest beyond points such as those above; I go straight from work to school to exhausted.

Haha, that was funny, see, I mixed locales and states of being.  Ho ho.

Ha ha.  Hoooo.

Did I mention I was exhausted?

I think I need to start spending an hour or so in the morning practicing my musicking.  Holy crap, musicking is a word?  It didn't highlight it as incorrectly spelt.  Is spelt a word?  Seems to like that too - I would have assumed that should be spelled.  Damn English!  So complex.

Anyway.  I like Red Stripe.  Hooray, responsibility!

Chapter Ten.

Today was a good day for random science fiction/fantasy stories, though I use science fiction as a qualifier simply to differentiate the type of "fantasy" I'm referring to, so you don't get confused and worried that this blog is about to include a bit too much information.  

So I've been reading the Wheel of Time, as mentioned numerous times before, and I just reached chapter Ten of book eleven.  Excellent chapter!  I'm thrilled, though the possibility exists that someone reading this might receive a spoiler as a result of my expounding upon why I'm excited by this chapter - thus, I will dispense with further description.

Regardless, I've been waiting for it for a long, long time.  Awesome!

In other, related news (re: the first paragraph here), we had what felt like a pretty good Ars session today, which I ran for the most part.  Our characters are all embroiled in Ragnarok (Yeah, the end of the Norse mythos), so we as players keep doing all this research into what would supposedly transpire.  I, currently, seem to be playing the universe conspiring to make Ragnarok happen (or not happen!), and everybody else is trying to navigate events and figure out what's going on and why we seem to be stuck at the beginning of the process.  Three years of winter have come and gone, all of Europe is freaking out, the year is 1255, and for some reason the frickin' Jotunn and AEsir aren't gettin' their fight on.  Loki seems to be missing (what else would a trickster do than not be where he's supposed to be?), and stuff is generally messed up. 

But it went pretty well.  They figured some stuff out.  Next week should be fun!

Otherwise, I sat around today and made orange juice / Cracklin' Oat Bran pancakes, cleaned the kitchen, read a book, and planned for tonight's game.  All in all, a lovely Sunday.