Our anniversary next year is our fifth. We have always done vacations for our anniversaries - Cambria, DisneyWorld, San Diego and Seattle so far. I don't want to change that, but I want this one in May to be a bit more special since it's the big Oh-Five. =)
Now the traditional gift for the fifth anniversary is wood, so I figured I should work that into this somehow. Maybe a cabin in the woods somewhere? We're not too big into camping and whatnot... Washington for the Cherry Trees? Nope - wrong time of year for that. California Redwoods? I dunno. I figure I'd shoot something out to you all and see if you had any brilliant ideas, or tell me if I'm just crazy for thinking this way...
Spent most of the day yesterday incapacitated with a headache. It was always too bright, so I tried keeping my eyes closed while staying awake. Failed miserably on that last part. Pretty much was sleeping on and off from 11 am to 6:30 pm.Surprisingly, the headache lifted a bit to just a dull pain, and I was able to read the paper and watch TV in the evening. Even more surprising was that I was able to fall asleep at my regular time.
Alas, this morning I woke up early and am fairly grumpy. There's not nearly enough coffee in this building to pep me up. Mind you, I work in a 50-story buliding, with a cafeteria and a Strabucks in it. Nope, not nearly enough coffee. But I'm not like this guy.
I feel like I'm playing stupid. And I'm winning.
Jen finished Harry Potter. Big surprise there.
Got most of our CDs ripped. Using FLAC file format, there were 6,173 individual tracks on 397 CDs, totalling 118 GB of drive space. I still have a stack of CDs that are in Jen's car, and four in mine.
WSoPC was fun again. Pat Kiernan could be the next Alex Trebek. I could give less than a care about who is going to host TPiR, though having this drag out is just an embarrassment.
Microsoft Windows 7 in three years? Not holding my breath. They were saying the same thing for Longhorn, of which the server side *STILL* hasn't been released and isn't expected until early next year.
First, thanks for all of you who sent along thoughts and wishes in the last post.
So Jen was sitting at a red light. A Benz stopped behind her, also waiting for the red light. Jen hears tires screeching, a crunch, and then is thrown forward herself. After it registered that she was hit, the light turned green, and Jen pulled off the major street to the side street, and the Benz followed. The Ford Focus, which hit the Benz, did not appear to do the same. However, someone saw everything happen and told Jen and the Benz driver that the Focus was in the parking lot on the other side of the street. The witness drove off without anyone getting their info (grr), but by then the Benz driver had already called 911 thinking this was a hit and run.
Anyway, long story short, the Focus owner had just bought the car, but his friend was driving. Friend claimed that he tried to stop the car a long tiem back, but it just wouldn't. Eveyone had insurance, but the Focus insurance is one of those "Oh you bought a car and didn't already plan for insurance so buy this coverage so you can take your car off the lot" type of insurance. Uh-oh. The owner of the Focus stated he felt very dizzy, though calmed down a bit later. The Benz driver said the impact was great enough for her to hit the steering wheel. She felt soreness in her teeth (probably from clenching) and neck. Jen had a splitting headache, soreness in teeth, and minor soreness in her back.
As for the damage to vehicles, it's a mixed bag. Jen's bumper had a noticable impact from the Benz's front plate -- especially the bolts that hold the plate in. The front of the Benz didn't appear to be bad. The bumper, however, was fairly well scraped up. It looked like there was a gap of about an inch between the bumper and the rest of the vehicle. The front of the Focus wasn't *that* bad from what I could tell. Mind you, it was pretty dark outside so I couldn't get a great look. Basically, from what I could tell, the Focus hit and slid under the bumper of the Benz, but with enough force to have the Benz hit Jen's car straight on.
We opened an insurance claim last night, mainly to make sure that this was documented in case Jen had any medical issues as a result. When I talked to her this morning , she did say that her back was a bit sore. =( She is going to a body shop today to have an "official" look at the damage and get an idea of the price. If we choose to get this fixed, we could either use our policy (with deductable) or try to get the Focus' policy to cover it (without deductable). Won't know more until Jen gets back from the body shop...
Jen was rear-ended tonight. Someone hit a Mercedes that was stopped at a red light behind her, and that Mercedes hit her. She's okay, and everyone had insurance. More later.
Thank you all for your thoughts regarding my grandmother. She is still in the hospital and on Plavix, which is a blood thinner. She is expected to be released from the hospital tomorrow.
We're also finding out my batty old grandmother has had symptoms for some time now, especially with the slurring of her words. She has just chosen to ignore them and not mention them to anyone, including her doctors. So help me, my father has the same kind of mentality. Grr.
Finally watched the first episode of "The Nine", and that will be all I see. The only compelling character to me was the guy who tried to take his own life.
There was a forty-something woman on the train Thursday night, who was trying to act late twenty-something in dress and attitude -- and failing miserably at it. The only reason I bring this up is that she was reading a book on the train in public that was pretty amazing... I'm including this lilnk to the book, and while the link goes to amazon.com and is, in and of itself, okay, the book title and content is what had me amazed.
I talked to one of my friends today, and he mentioned that Jen's ex-husband has a MySpace page. I won't link to it, but it's really quite sad. Jen's out scrapbooking tonight, and playing with her new toy which is her Christmas present given to her early -- a Cricut personal cutting system. Happy wife, happy life.
Clearly I don't follow basketball very much, since I thought the Hornets were still in Charlotte. I bring this up because apparently I'm not following geography either. Since when can a basketball team be shared between two cities, such as New Orleans and Oklahoma City, that are separated by about 724 miles and one time zone? I assume that the Hornets moved to New Orleans, then got hit by Katrina and had to find another "home"? Is this a permanent thing, or are they waiting for a place to be (re)built in New Orleans?
On the TV front, "Ugly Betty" got it's full season pickup.
We got Jen a new cell phone yesterday. She was overdue for one, and her old one was starting to have charging problems. We walked in to see if we were eligible, and told we were "very eligible"... then there was this pause. The clerk looked, and asked for assistance. See, he hadn't seen the plan we were on before. It's at this point in the story that I should mention that Jen only uses her cell phone for emergencies or to let me know she's late or something. It's not a primary phone in any sense. So the telephone dude was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to see a 20 minute peak time plan. And it was listed for $19.99. Of course, he didn't see further down the screen where we get a $10 discount because it's going through my work as a personal plan. Yup -- $10 a month for a cell phone, and she rarely goes over her minutes. Needless to say, everyone at the store had to come over to see this mysterious plan, and to look at the weirdos that would have such a plan. =)
Because of @$#%#$ Verizon, I need to get my wife her own domain stat. I need to be able to register the domain for multiple years, and someone needs to host it with a decent email service. Because this is for her, a decent mailbox size is good, with one mailbox needed. Spam filtering is a plus. I will be forwarding one email address from my domain to the new domain for a while, and she'll be replying as if she's on my domain for a while, so it needs to support that. (Therein why Verizon is on my list right now...)
Having a web site is a plus at this point. Oh, and because I'm cheap, I want this cheap. I will prepay for a lengthy service term for a discount.
Suggestions? If I need to separate out services (domain registration, web hosting, email), fine, but this needs to be done today.
Oh and dreamhost.com won't register the domain, saying it's taken though it isn't. So scratch them off the list for that.
Went after dinner last night to pick up the new Billy Joel "12 Gardens LIVE" from Best Buy, who matches Target's price of $13.98. Jen was with, and she stuck the first CD in the player as soon as we got in the car. Prelude/Angry Young Man started, and I made a comment along the line of "You know, I feel like driving now." "Go ahead."
To save your web pages, I'll put the map behind a cut. The colors mentioned below relate to the map... ( Here be a map (95.36 kb) )
So we started at Central Ave in Montclair (white star), and took I-10 West (Red) to CA-57 South (Blue) to CA-91 West (light green) to I-110 North (lavendar). I swung by the old apartment in Pasadena (AKA the Ewok Village), at which point we changed CDs. Then, back on the freeways, with a long stretch on I-210 East (brown) to I-15 South (orange) to CA-60 West (light blue) to CA-83 AKA Euclid Ave North (drak green) to Route 66 AKA Foothill Blvd West to Central Ave South (pink), past where started, and then home.
Got it timed perfectly to park in our driveway just as the last song finished playing.
Yesterday, while (literally) running across the street to get to the train, I stepped into a pothole and spranged my ankle. Pain, agony, etc.
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Jen had a fairly bad day yesterday. Her students were asking stupid all day, and her standardized testing starts tomorrow. Since everything she does is based on these tests, she's incredibly stressed out. There is also a teacher friend of hers who is having some real issues right now with family issues, and Jen is just ... stressed.
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I've had Semagic up all day, and expected to have more to say, but ... nope. All this for one day. Pretty sad, no?
Despite the best efforts of msmcfeeley, creativedv8tion and the mysterious Mr Bauer, I was able to keep my cell phone the whole time whilst in Vegas. Score one point of victory!
The Billy Joel concert in Vegas was every bit as good as the one at Staples Center. The set was basically the same excep that he played "Stiletto" in Vegas, and didn't go to the far two synthesizers. And I have to admit that it's very strange to go to a Billy Joel concert and have a person come out and sing "Highway to Hell", but it works... somehow.
More on Jen... for those that didn't listen to the voice post, Jen had a bit of a medical issue while there. She woke up at 5 am on Saturday with an bit of pain in her right eye. Irritated, she went back to sleep. At 8 am, the pain was pretty intense and the eye was fairly red, though there was no discharge. She woke me up and I said we're going to get medical help. While she got ready, I called Kaiser to figure out what my options were. Kaiser covers urgent care and emergency out of area, so we went to a "Quick Service" clinic, which billed Kaiser directly. Basically, something got in Jen's eye and she rubbed, causing a minor scratch on her cornea. It was well on it's way to healing, but the doc gave her some ointment anyway. As of last night, she's fine.
Traffic was a bear coming home. I really hate Vegas on the weekends. It's difficult to get there, it's too crowded once you are there, and then it's painful to get home. We much prefer to go up there mid-week, when it's less crowded -- and significantly cheaper to boot! Matter of fact, we'll probably go up in May to gamble and whatnot, since we have comp rooms available at one of the hotels. Probably take in a bigger show. Maybe Avenue Q before it leaves Wynn.
Meanwhile, back at the Batcave... watched West Wing last night. I understand why Leo's death was glossed over for the bigger picture of the election, and that next week will be all-Leo, all the time, but still.
“..b/c we've established that twillitts doesn't do those. No, instead, he writes pseudo-witty writeups that are geared to make you want to click and listen! So just do it, otherwise twillitts will write something about how Rialtus goes on a tirade about how Jen hurt herself while engaging in weird sexual antics with three prostitutes while he filmed it all.
And we don't want that, do we?
(He's in Vegas, and other than Jen getting injured, all is well. No, he didn't lose his cell phone, so nyah nyah to msmcfeely or however you spell it.)”
I don't know why I've turned into a bullet toting poster, but here's a few more.
Michael Dorn does a heck of a lot of voice work, doesn't he? It's always weird to me, because all of his voices sound like him, regardless of who he is voicing.
Jen saw a different doctor, and this one was much more ... reasonable. She's going to be taking some different medication, and hopefully this will be crisis averted, at least for the time being.
Finsihed the first four The Authority and entire Squadron Supreme graphic novels during the past week. Both were very interesting in their own ways. Shortly, I will be going back to read my copies of Supreme Power for my own compare/contrast.
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renaissancegeek and 
