Rantings of a Nice Guy

For my family, holiday celebrations begin in a few hours.
I am terribly excited! Christmastime has always been one of my favorite holidays- full of mystery and magic and chocolate and nighttime and family and gifts and warm firelight (which may not be happening this year because people in CA are RIDICULOUS!!!).

There have been a lot of health scares this year on my side of the family, which is why I am so happy to get to spend the holidays here this year where I can be near to everyone and appreciate them while I have them in my life.  It is just indescribably difficult to live so far away, especially when my heart is torn between two places- two VERY different places- that I call "home."
But today and tomorrow things will be like there were when I was a child- my family getting together and love all around. These Christmases will soon be a thing of the past as we will be both losing people and gaining people (I'd like to have kids at some point in the near future!) and tradition will alter to integrate these changes. And I will lose something very precious to me- a Christmas like I always had growing up.
But I will get something new and wonderful in exchange- I'll have the Christmas my children will always have had growing up and that's pretty awesome. Not saying this is going to happen next year, but maybe the year after or the year after that- who knows.

Today, we're deviating from the standard schedule- my uncle has recently has surgery for something life-threatening. He's okay now but not fit to come over and celebrate tonight or tomorrow so we are going to see him and bring the Merry-Making along with us! One year we had the holidays over there because my Va was not well enough to host it at her house. This year, the tables are turned and she's leading the charge to bring Christmas to him- this year she's the well one.

I have all my maternal aunts in town- usually Chriss, my Aunt Nina's partner, goes to see her mother in Delaware, but since Chriss has been in the hospital as well she isn't able to travel so far- so we're having her over too.
We are all hoping that everyone has gotten their illnesses and issues out of the way here at the close of 2009 and everyone can begin 2010 with a clean slate health-wise. My mother has come through a round of surgeries to remove some quasi-cancerous breast tissue and she is doing well. My father's recent bike-related injury is slowly healing up and his unexplained dizzy-spells have ceased (for the time being, anyway). 

It's been a bad year for everyone's health! But right now, everyone is well enough for some holiday cheer and to enjoy being together as a family, these bumps in the road proving to remind us how precious is this time of year when the world can stop long enough to allow us all some treasured time together.
For me, this is the true meaning of Christmas.  Whatever the "reason for the season," we have all agreed as a society to hit the pause button on the world at large and come together. I can remember plenty a stressful Christmas, but somehow the fact that everyone was able to coordinate their lives and schedules to all be in the same room at the same time eating the same meal and sharing gifts is the part I remember. And something I really could not understand myself until I moved away and have missed every intervening Easter, Thanksgiving, and Mother's Day since.
But Christmas is different, Christmas is special. And here it is. And here we are, all of us. Whole and intact and ready to celebrate- not the disputed birthdate of a man who lived thousands of year ago, but the thing that it symbolizes: love, hope, togetherness, FAMILY.
And whoever and wherever and whatever your family is- make sure you tell them you love them and see if you can't carve out a little time to share the love. That's the true meaning of the holiday season.

And I believe it is my turn for the shower, so off I go. Don't want to be late for the party, y'know!

The one day dash of holiday shopping went off without a hitch...well one meltdown by me as I was trying to get around a bunch of people standing in the middle of an aisle at Broadway mall. I snarled they jumped and moved and I didn't feel too bad. After all the day of us spending it dashing in an orderly fashion I did my homework! We got dinner out plus our glass of eggnog!

Now I am boxing stuff so it can be wrapped and per usual I carry on my tradition of not being able to find one or two presents. I know they are in the back room...just wanted to get the stuff boxed and wrapped for stocking....boxed yes wrapped no.

Got a few more insanties like making the fish stuff oh and the octopus boiling thing...eeeewwww1


Happy holidays to everyone....may you find a bit of peace in all the madness of the holidays and may all of us have a safe and healthy 2010 (the year of the....(fill in the blank!)

"There comes a time in every science writer’s career when one must write about glass duck vaginas and explosive duck penises."

So I went to bed right after making that post and woke this morning in time to enjoy the sunrise with Matt. This was because 1) Sunrise wasn't til 7:30am and 2) I am still on Nashville time so I thought it was 9:30am. I am feeling better and thanks for all the well wishes, I am positive all those good thoughts helped! Throat still feels dry and a little prickly but I am feeling more myself. Thinking of taking it easy and just hanging out with my parents for the day, I don't feel like I have the stamina to do much else, especially since I want to be able to be social tomorrow. So there is an all-holiday-music station on and my mom is wrapping her holiday cakes for delivery to the neighbors on Christmas eve and to a few friends and relations before then. Also, Matt has never heard of "Christmas in Killarney"! A favorite tune of mine because it is fun and silly and gets jammed into the brain like you wouldn't believe. We want to make a compilation of the holiday songs that mention places like that because it's fun. I also heard something I never get to hear in Nashville, "Christmas in San Francisco." But they don't play Amy Grant's "Tender Tennessee Christmas" here so I guess we're even. So, here it is noon. I think we might go for a little outing then come on back home and continue to relax. It has been nice. I miss the dogs but it is great not to be worried about them or have to look after them for a few days. So, enjoy some geographic holiday treats! Enjoy!

It is smaller...about 5 feet tall and about 3 feet around but the aroma walking into the living room this morning with coffee in hand was...so wonderful.

Got all hubby's presents for him am not going crazy and he is (I hope!) doing the same for me. I still want to spoil him...it is a habit of mine, but when he says I have spoiled him it is his turn...I half heartedly agree.

So here is the plan..he is shopping for me tonight and tomorrow we have about 6 places to go including the fish stuff...Thursday am wrapping and cooking, Thursday afternoon relaxing.

I hope.

I really want this NOT to turn into me being the spendthrift and him wanting to break the bank again.

I will nap on the train on the way home tonight...again. My sleep cycle is so screwed up! I want to find a couple of movies for him omg the movie I can't remember the name of it...rats!

Stay tuned gentle readers this could be dicey.

That headline will be massively funny to those who were up ’til all hours Sunday night at World Fantasy. For the rest of you:

Have you seen the video where the store employees show that the Face Tracking software on HP’s computers don’t track black faces? If you haven’t, go look now, it is really funny. When I saw that I wanted to test if it was true for other HP webcams, so I pulled a system from our testing lab and tried it out. The Face Tracker easily tracked me, but it also tracked a darker-skinned co-worker. I then turned the backlight correction off (which made the picture darker and more like the video linked above). The Face Tracker could no longer track my co-worker, but could still track me.

So forget the pencil test, the brown bag test, and the one-drop rule. Technology has given us a far better way to determine who is black in these times, and it is the Face Tracking algorithm in HP MediaCenters!

Aren’t you glad we live in the future? I am.

*facepalm*

Click here to see the video evidence of my shame.

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And *thud*. I feel awful and I have been asleep for hours. I think it is just this whole month catching up with me as a finally crossed a lot of things off my list and relaxed, but dang, do I feel bad. I have contacted the hosts of the Solstice party I was to attend tonight and made regrets for Matt and myself. I am going to eat something and probably head back to bed- no other symptoms besides a dry, scratchy throat and being incredibly tired and the aches that come along with that. Thinking a good dose of rest will do my very well and I should be on my feet again tomorrow. Definitely for Wednesday fun- there is a meet-up in Santa Cruz, y'all! (At least I think it's Santa Cruz. No real clue, really.) This is not the way I wanted to enjoy Solstice, but hey, the Longest Night means I can sleep for a very long while. ^_~

As it turns out, Santa's sleigh is pulled by female reindeer. ^_^

Back when I was a freelancer I spent a large portion of my time trying to find good cafes and coffee shops with free wi-fi so that I could get work done while I was out. Being stuck in the apartment all day while dealing with clients quickly became untenable, so the instant I had a new laptop that could handle the programs I used I went off in search of good food and free wi-fi.

New York City is the kind of place you’d expect to find plenty of cafes and coffee shops with free wi-fi and that’s true, for the most part. Apparently it pales in comparison to Seattle — not surprising. There are plenty of issues, though. Like entire neighborhoods bereft of free wi-fi and even some places without anything resembling a cafe. There are places you’d think had free wi-fi, but no! They charge you, instead. Exorbitant prices. There’s a Starbucks every 5 feet below 135th, but is their wi-fi free? Not exactly. And the well-known spots are, of course, well-known, and thus are packed full of people who show up at 9am and don’t leave until the places closes at the ridiculously early hour of… 10pm.

Cafes that close before 1am should be banned in this city.

Anyway, this is all an extremely rambly way to get to the reason I’m making this post. Last week McDonald’s announced that in January they would be offering free wi-fi at the locations where they currently offer non-free wi-fi. This comes just a little while after Barnes & Noble started offering free wi-fi and Borders followed suit in order to keep up. Just thinking about the numbers of B&N’s plus Borders plus McDonald’s in this city my heart starts to go pitter patter because, well, there’s barely a foot of space below 125th street that isn’t covered by free wi-fi.

It’s like some kind of beautiful dream.

Except. Most of that wi-fi is from McDonald’s. And, well, I don’t really want to spend any time in McDonald’s, much less a whole day. Then again, in my neighborhood free wi-fi is sparse, and the cafe around the corner from me is wonderful but has horrendous, horrendous seating. Even more horrendous than McDonald’s. So if I want to get out of the house and get some work done, where am I better off?

This is, of course, just a gimmick to get more people into McD’s and it will most likely work. I’m not the only freelancing writer in need of outside wi-fi. Here’s the thing I wonder: how long will it be before every McDonald’s in the city looks like a Starbucks? A sea of laptops, nary a seat to be found, and obnoxious people complaining about the quality of their latte.

Oh yeah, this is a glorious new era.

I’m about to sign a two-year lease on my apartment, finally admitting to myself that I’m here for good and no longer a roaming bohemian. It only took me four years, I feel very proud. :/ Anyway, my apartment still feels very apartmenty because I haven’t decorated — due to my thinking that I might vacate at any second! — and I’d like to change that. I can’t paint, which would be my first choice. I can drape fabric around, but I can’t afford to do so right now.

Side Rant: how is it every year I swear I’m not doing this Christmas overspending crap and then somehow I do? Stupid cookies.

Side Rant Correction: I didn’t actually spend that much on gifts as I didn’t have that much to spend, but I did overspend on lunch at work, a problem I’m still working on.

Anyway! The thing I’ve always done when wanting to make my house feel more like a home is put up art. When I left Texas in 2005 I left behind a LOT of art, so I hope to have enough money in January to get that shipped to me. That won’t be enough for the whole apartment, though. So here’s my wish for 2010:

I would like to cover my walls in awesome postcards and inexpensive, medium-sized art prints. I’m going to need help with the postcard bit, though! If you happen to have a cool postcard lying around with some beautiful art or funny message or something else awesome, and you don’t plan to put it on your wall, will you send it to me? And if you come across one at a museum or cafe or something between now and mid-February, please send me those, too! Make postcards of your own art or projects or events? Send ‘em! Funny notes on the back are encouraged.

The address to send is below. This P.O. Box only lasts until February, so send everything ya got before the 15th.

K. Bradford
P.O. Box 66
New York, NY 10018-9998

When all of the cards are in, I’ll take a picture of the result.

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Matt and I are of for adventure in CA!
We'll be there this afternoon through next Sunday morning!

So I was in another car accident tonight.
And it wasn't even because of the blizzard.

I had just left qotcpcf and was driving another guest home on Queens Blvd. I was stopped at a red light, when an Access-A-Ride van tried to pass me in the parking lane while going 40mph. There wasn't enough room, so he smashed off the left sideview mirror.

No one seems to be hurt, and the damage is minor, and it's not my fault at all, and I have witnesses. But I'm still pissed off. I've consoled myself with the idea that I was only due one accident a year until now - but this is the second one this year!

I really think I've had enough of them for this lifetime.

While I was away in Boston, another squirrel moved into the attic. I discovered it late last night when I went by to put some stuff away.

This one is pretty big, and possibly a bit smarter then the rest. While the others ran around and banged their heads against the sides, this one had found where the opening was and was constantly pushing it's head into it, trying to angle it back open. But metal is stronger then squirrel skulls, and it held.
This one also made noise. It sounded like a cat's purr, but I'm sure it wasn't a sign of contentment - I'm guessing it was the squirrely equivalent of a growl.

This morning, I went to release it. I found it asleep, curled up into a ball with it's fluffy tail wrapped around it in a way that almost entirely hid it's body. It woke up when we went outside, and I drove it to a different end of the woods at Cunningham Park then the last one. It seemed hungry - it kept licking at the part of the trap where the peanut butter was. When I opened it up, it ran out and directly to and then behind the biggest tree in the vicinity, and vanished. When I followed, I found a big hole in the trunk. Hopefully this will be somewhere warm and safe for it to spend the winter that's not my room.


If I had known I'd be capturing so many, I would have started saving them. I could have had enough pelts for a squirrel fur scarf by now.

It's delightfully cold and dreary here in Nashville and I really do not want to venture out, but I have a sewing project that really needs the large drafting tables over at school to accomplish successfully. Lucky for me, my schoolwork is done and sent in. I am not happy about having some students repeating Fashion Design 2, but ahh well such is life. I wrote a bit yesterday, which was nice.  And today is such banshee weather. But today is my sewing day. Phooey. Perhaps later in the day when patterning is done. I have taken several pairs of silk pants apart and have cut a bunch of them into strips.  I will be arranging these strips in a diagonal manner across the pattern piece then sewing them together into a single piece of fabric with a bunch of diagonal seams. The idea is a little bit Art Deco and a little bit mummy wrappings- this coat will have an Egyptian theme and I am hope it is runway-worthy this year. I am very excited about it! I have a few videos to leave you, I'll put one up detailing my process and one about the crazy huge nasturtiums form my front yard (before the frost killed em). Enjoy! I am off to go work, but I am sure I'll be back online for the usual writing, Dollhouse watching, and general silliness with #LOFNOTC (Losers On Friday Night On The Computer).

From Discovery.com "Massive Simultaneous Sex Event Documented"

I must be channeling all of hubby's exhaustion. I don't know why I am so tired when he has been running on about 3 hours sleep a night. Something tells me he will come home tomorrow after presentation and fall over. We got prezzies to wrap and overnight bag to pack.

Why is this year so down...the school work is taking a toll on both of us...support staff is supposed to be easy.

The contract needs to be renegotiated.

Last week, there was another car accident on the corner of my street. This makes the 5th one this year. (That I know about.) I can only remember one from last year or the year before that. Weird.

Also last week, I caught another squirrel in the attic, making the 5th this year. I really wish my dad would fix that hole already! This was on the coldest day last week, and when I first checked the trap it wasn't moving, and I thought it had frozen to death. After a little while downstairs in the warmth, it started moving around again. I felt bad about kicking it outside on a day when the temps were barely in the double digits, but keeping it locked inside the trap would be even worse. I released this one in the forest in Cunningham Park. Hopefully the huge number of trees there will increase it's odds of survival.
This one was smaller and greyer then the last one. (It also didn't poop all over the place.) Unlike the last one, as soon as I opened the trap, it zoomed out, speed up small tree, and proceed to freak out for a bit. I wish it all the best, as long as it doesn't try to move into my old room again.

After hearing about the MTA's latest service cuts, I'm now completely convinced the only way to fix the problem is to kill every single one of them and then waste every politician in the state. We need to start fresh and nothing screams, "Do over!" like a massacre.

As a receiver of a couple of tip-top reviews on Amazon (insert sarcasm here) I can relate, to a point. One would want nothing more than to run in and defend one's work, guns blazing.
But one does not do that.
One especially does not do that for twenty-three pages of comments, each comment being an essay of 300-500 words a piece!
Also, one especially does not CALL THE FBI when teh intarwebs don't play nice.

Review and fiasco here.
Snark, here.

By contast, my terrible review that was indeed actually quasi personal (and I do know this person in a friend of a friend way) but notice the utter LACK OF COMMENTARY on my part or anyone else's. You may notice that people have thought the review is not helpful which is basically the only way to really disagree with what an Amazon review says. (You may also vote your view on hers or any one else's over there)

And please people, if I start to go down this terrible road of insanity, come to my house and handcuff my wrists behind my back so I can't reach the keyboard and make me stay that way until the desire for idiotic and ill-founded "vengeance" has passed. And don't anyone let me call the FBI!!! I beg of you!

This is the last haul for the week with schoolstuff. Tonight's fun while celebrating our wedding anniversary is making the labels for the drawings...hopefully the 4 that are done will turn into the final 12, 8 drawings 24 by 36 with curves on the rest he is now doing. Then the photos and the final model in 1/8inch scale. All by Friday.

This weekend will be occupied with him studying and me doing the fill in for the Tiny taking tons of movies when he is holed away studying. I hate to tell people we will be somewhere when he won't be available often.

I know architecture history is not his good spot but considering we now have two As out of the 5 grades for the fall classes I am somewhat happy...for all the work the damned design class I do appreciate the full range of knowledge that he has...but I always toss in my two cents.

I still said that a bow reaching out into the pond for the bird blind in Central park made a point. Get it made a point! Sometimes I do laugh at my jokes even when others don't.

I will eventually make sure that my favorite glass block will be in one of his designs...the research department will be involved...even if you don't know it.

Today is the 8th anniversary of us as a married couple, sometimes it feels like forever....and other times it is like it just happened.

Does this mean I am aging backwards again?