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Retreat (and NaNoWriMo 2009) coming sooner than you thought
I got Mailman and the Andromedary mailing lists back up and running on the new colo host, and reminded of the retreat this evening. If you're not on pre-retreat but want to be, well, go to http://retreat.andromedary.org/ and check out the details and the link to the list.

Four months from tomorrow is the retreat. Wow. That means 3 1/2 months till Nano again, and I gotta drag

kimmalat along with me of course.

Paid my last partial-month of rent on the Mountain View apartment. Pre-move inspection is Thursday morning. Whee.

I'm packing up the stuff in the living room tonight, moving some boxes around in the dining room, and deciding what to take over Friday when I get my keys to the new place.

Survived the dentist, had my two root canal sites filled and a casting taken for a new crown that will be anchored on both sides, as opposed to the post-and-crown that has been coming out monthly. If the new crown is done next Wednesday I go back for my installation. It was the dentist's day off but he had me come in anyway, and we talked about all sorts of things. I explained it to Kim as "like Silence Of The Lambs but in a good way"... you know, having a good conversation with someone who's drilling holes into your skull and filling them with cement.

I haven't yet scheduled the movers, but I'm still thinking next week sometime. Wanna see how the packing goes, and how work and dentist go, and get an actual feel for the space before I decide on furniture locations and so forth.

I'm also pondering the whole housewarming thing, which I didn't have here in northern Mountain View. Hoping not to need any help with moving, although I will probably have some furniture to assemble and populate, a grill to warm up, and some wine to consume.

More later.

Been a month since I posted, pretty long month too. Those of you in touch with me on Facebook know some of this, if not all.

Highlights, other than lots and lots of time with

kimmalat, would include:

my second (and her first) Jimmy Buffett concert, SummerZcool at Concord Pavilion, last week
gave notice on my current apartment (7 month lease ending in 3 1/2 weeks)
signed and had approved an application on a 25% larger, 25% cheaper apartment within 802.11n range of Kim's place. I get the keys a week from Friday.
used my gas grill this afternoon for the first time in a year or so, some raspberry chipotle pork loins and potatoes and salad
got started packing this weekend. Kim put a couple of hours of cable sorting time in while I excavated the vats of cables and made some other room and sorted papers and stuff.

Coming this week:

lots of clothes to sort, repack, donate, and/or dispose of.
Start repacking the kitchen.
dental visit to get my crowns recast.
probably hit the Maker Faire next weekend and of course more packing

That's about it for now.

80 degrees in and out, Fahrenheit for those of you worried that I'll boil.

Just turned over my old FreeBSD jail at Johncompanies, having moved to the new one finally. I had the original one, with an occasional disk upgrade, since May 16, 2003.

May 19, 2009, is the Summerzcool show at Sleep Train. And somehow, the "Careers" link on the Margaritaville.com pages makes me laugh.

Windows are open, and I think its back under 80 now, two hours after I started this message. Off to bed. I'm still alive. :)

DSL is on early
TUrns out the Motorola thingie is a router (one port router that is).

But it had a DSL light on this morning so I connected and set up the AT&T DSL.

Now gotta figure out how/if to use it in bridge mode. And/or change over to static IP/routed service from them.

So I had an old Western Digital 300GB IDE hard drive die on me last fall, probably October. I reinstalled the system with Vista Business on a new drive and filed for a warranty replacement.

Turned out to be the most expensive hard drive I've bought in a while, on a value basis--forgot to send the old one back and they charged me $120 for the drive.

However, after 3 months of idling, I decided to plug in the drive with one of those $30 USB-to-IDE/SATA adapters and see if it spun up without the spin-click of death. It did.

I'm pulling the data off now.

Yay. So far.

Folks, back up your primary desktop regularly. Do as I say, not as I do all too often. :) Even test the backups with a restore to another drive if you can. :)

We made it back
I'll write more a bit later. New userpic though. :)

Guess I've been quiet lately. Many of you see me on Facebook or elsewhere.

Packed the lightest i can remember ever packing for a weekend...

kimmalat and I are headed for LAX in just under 12 hours to take in the Gallifrey One convention (Doctor Who, of course) for Valentine's Day and 3-month anniversary and the whole Doctor Who/Torchwood thing.

I got us an Xbox 360 (refurb deal from a web shop) and I have the HD-DVD/remote pack (clearance at Fry's) and a total of one game (Pocket Bike Racer from Burger King). One V-day surprise for Kim will be at my desk at work on Monday so she'll have to wait for that.

Feels weird to have a carryon-able suitcase and a small half-empty laptop bag. And someone wonderful to travel with, commercialized holiday or British media hullaballoo or not.

Back on Sunday. Don't wait up.

kimmalat and I went to our first English language movie together Saturday night. Beetlejuice, at the Mountain View cinema's cult night.

Someday we'll see a current release English language movie, I'm pretty kinda mostly sorta sure of it.

And for those of you who haven't read enough about men's equipment this week, here's a Craigslist best-of post about Showers and Growers. May not be worksafe, you decide.

Got my car maintained today.

Previous (12k/15k) maintenance was 5/8/08 at 18505 miles.
Current (25k/30k) maintenance was 1/8/09 at 30275 miles.

I only ran about 400 miles beyond the car computer's analysis... so yeah, 12k on one oil change, and the dealer wasn't too surprised.

The new sticker is 5 months/5k miles, as opposed to the previous two that were 3 months/3k. Depending on my spring driving, I might go in earlier. We'll see. It's all prepaid anyway, may as well get fresh oil more often. :)

Let me make it fast, with one more thing...
Several false starts this year, one way or another. It's a scary number but I can keep my socks on.

One true and mutual love, to wrap the year up with and begin a new one with.

The rest is icing.

Next year will be different. Hope you'll all be along for the ride.

Blu-Ray update
Blu-Ray update since my previous request for suggestions.

* Blue Man Group as mentioned before.

* Got Wall-E 2-Disc Set for Christmas from

kimmalat

* Fry's had Stargate (Kurt Russell/James Spader) for $13 so we got it.

There were a few others we were considering, but with these three to watch (and a lot of standard def), we held off.

The tree is up. 270 lights are ostensibly distributed on the tree. Several boxes of ornaments are ready to go on, and there are three gifts under the tree (or adjacent to it). The midget's gift goes in the mail tomorrow or Tuesday, hopefully tomorrow.

What's worth Blu-Ray?
I'm pondering some Blu-Ray disc purchases in the next month... won a Sylvania player at a vendor party this month and I plan to get it hooked up eventually.

What's really worth Blu-Ray? I'm pondering Torchwood season 1, and am not inclined toward horror (not even SATC). Open to just about anything else, especially music. Oh, and I have a 24" display at the moment with 2.0 sound, although I am hoping to get 5.1 working before the end of January.

kimmalat, is this too geeky, or too Tim Taylor?

It's kinda sad that I had to go to my digital camera to see if there was a heater in the dining room.

It's kinda happy that I'm putting some thought into holiday presents this year. Even if my first attempt was somewhat rebuffed by the midget's family, I've been finding some little things for Kim, and have more stuff to find for Sarah too with commitments from her maternal side not to interfere with my purchases. Bleh.

This is shaping up to be my first not-alone holiday season in a long time. And even if my holidays with my biological family will be delayed a bit, for the first time in a long time I'll be "home" for the holidays. And I will enjoy every moment of it.

Current Mood: loved

Got my deposit back from my old apartment, no withholding for trash removal or for the three days I stayed over, just almost two months of water/sewer bill.

Plans changed tonight and I got to meet some of

kimmalat's relatives rather than building and populating bookshelves. Maybe tomorrow night. I have to get to bed soon so I can be at a dentist appointment in the City tomorrow at 10. Have to return my niece's gift since her grandma got her the same thing already.

Reason to believe...
The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that its all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California...I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And its been a long December, and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean..I guess I should.

In 2009,

gallifreyan resolves to...

Cut down to ten sfnanos a day.
Spend less time on freebsd.
Be nicer to

redefined.
Drink four glasses of nutella every day.
Volunteer to spend time with rsts.
Cut down on my coupling.

And... this one is cute but concerning in some ways.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,

gallifreyan sent to me...

Twelve

kimmalats drumming

Eleven cats piping

Ten rabbits a-leaping

Nine sbnanos dancing

Eight sfnanos a-milking

Seven bunnies a-swimming

Six rsts a-coupling

Five bru-u-u-unettes

Four model railroads

Three douglas adams

Two manageable breasts

...and a cinderella in a coffee.

One

kimmalat (who happens to be a brunette with two manageable breasts) is exactly the right number for me. But the thought is nice.

And they're a bit late on

kimmalat's resolutions.

In 2008,

kimmalat resolves to...

Admit my true feelings to

gallifreyan.
Go to the movies every month.
Connect with my inner literature.
Tell my family about

faerywolfs.
Eat more

blue_estros.
Overcome my secret fear of

madmarie23s.