Well, I’m off to visit my great, good old friend Heather in Washington D. C., and I expect that I’ll have zero time for blogging. So, you know, entertain yourselves until I return. To that end, here’s an amusing little Yahtzee-esque dice game courtesy of Kongregate with which you can kill time until I return.
Okay, a few things. 1.) I would have been blogging more in this space but I’ve been slammed with work of various kinds. Also, I recently discovered the hilarity that is Zero Punctuation, which is a weekly video game review. It’s hilarious to the point that I’m pretty sure I enjoyed the four minute review of some games more than I enjoyed the game itself. Case in point.
2.) If any rich admirers out there are wondering what to get me for Christmas, I’d like one of these in .300 Win Mag or this ludicrously nice amp or a copy of the Secret Museum of Mankind if you can find one.
3.) Well, my Washington State ballot arrived a couple of days ago. (WA ballots are all mail-in.) Which means I finally have to figure out who I’m voting for for President. I still haven’t ruled out writing in one of the Roosevelts.
Man, today was awesome. It started with a long, relaxing early drive to the Tri-Cities (that is, once I got the van started) in my long-faithful van, Rosinante. Alas, that was to be my last time driving Rosinante. He’s a good steed, but getting old (175,000 miles) and he’s starting to fail. He’s been getting hard to start, he doesn’t shift like he used to, and many of his engine parts are making increasingly concerning noises. So today, I officially put Rosinante out to stud (read: he’s getting a tune up from my two older brothers, Bruce and Darrell, and then he’s being consigned to a life as a strictly around-town cargo van for Bruce, who often needs to haul around a lot of tools.)
In his place I went and acquired a brand new (2009) Subaru Forrester:
He’s a lot of fun to drive, and after a long drive through the hills this evening, I’ve decided to call him Montag.
(Side note: yes, I name my cars. I come from a long line of mechanically inclined, blue-collar men, all of whom find it utterly bizarre to name them. For some reason, I do it compulsively. Go figure.)
After signing all the paperwork and crossing the ‘i’s and dotting the ‘t’s, I brought Montag home, gave my parents a spin around the neighborhood, then took off to my good friend Matt’s bachelor party. Matt’s recently back from Iraq and, in the many years since he and I graduated high school and the few years since we graduated college, our friends have mostly dispersed themselves to the far corners of the country. As such, the bachelor party was pretty laid back, consisting of me, Matt, and our friends Mike and Charlie, who’d made it down from Bellingham for the occasion. So after steak, a couple of beers, and a few hours of comraderie, Matt went off to other engagements and the party continued without him.
So a long drive, a new car, and a celebration in honor of my oldest friend. Days like this are truly both wonderful and rare.
Blogging’s been light. Blame work and thesis.
Also: Tropic Thunder wasn’t all that great. It had its moments, but overall it could have been better. Honestly, it would have been a LOT better without Jack Black or Tom Cruise.
So Tropic Thunder was kind of moderate fail, but here’s some epic win: You know that NanoSail-D project that was lost on board the SpaceX Falcon? There’s a spare! That’s brilliant news, since I’m just geek enough to think that alternate space propulsion systems is one of the most important projects going at the moment. And considering that projects like NanoSail are the leading edge of that project, it’s good to hear that the whole thing wasn’t lost. As Paul Gilster quotes from the movie Contact: “Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?”
So yeah, basically corporate-sector Astronautics and solar sails FTW!
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to crash: turns out the 8:30am meeting I had to go to last week is going to be a weekly thing…
Sorry that blogging’s been light (read: non-existent) at both my online stomping grounds. Work was pretty intense all last week and then I had the first weekend to myself in ages. And as is often the case with such things, I had a chance to recreate for a few days, so I recreated the HELL out of the weekend. I spent about 9 hours all told on Saturday curled up on the couch with cat, beer, pizza, and Civilization: Revolution.
I also hit up the range with the lovely Becky Paul to put a couple of boxes of Bulgarian Military Surplus ammo through my Mosin-Nagant 91/30. It’s amazing that, after 70 years, it still shoots beautifully. With the regular iron sights I was able to reliably tag a 6 inch target at 50 yards (which is pretty good for me.) Becky did well with it, too, which didn’t surprise me in the slightest, but did cause a bit of shock on the part of the range officer. (”You’re not gonna let her shoot that big ol’ thing are you?” Answer: “Of course I am. She’s more hardcore than I am. I have a bum shoulder and whinge like a little wussy about what the mean ol’ boomstick does to it; I’m surprised SHE lets ME shoot it.”)
Oh, and I suppose I should formally introduce the blog to the latest addition of the household. My excuse: she didn’t have a name until yesterday, and one can’t well make introductions when one party lacks a moniker. So, without further ado:
Asterisk, this is the blog; blog this is Asterisk. (Sorry for the camera phone picture - I’ve once again mislaid the cord to my good camera.) She was apparently abandoned when her last family moved away and left her in the empty house. The realtor found her a few days later shut up in the house and called the humane society, who arranged for her to be put up for adoption at PetSmart, where we found her. Once she settled in, she took to Kenlyn and I pretty well. She’s also taken quite a fondness to a little stuffed hedgehog that I’ve had for ages. She carries it around in her mouth, bats it around the kitchen, chases it when it’s thrown/kicked, etc.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print, for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to blog a little more reliably in near future.
The past few days have been kind of depressing, with both the passing of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the loss of the SpaceX Falcon booster. Being both a huge fan of Solzhenitsyn’s work (A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for the win!) and a huge space-flight fanboy, I was quite saddened to hear about both losses.
On the plus side, my friends Trevor and Molly got married in a beautiful ceremony in sunny Helena, Montana over the weekend. I wish them much happiness in their new life together.
I’ll be off at a wedding in Helena, Montana until some time Sunday.
While I’m gone, you can occupy yourselves eradicating the human race with a deadly virus. Or, uh, you know, whatever else it is that you folks do when not reading my blog…
I was just talking on the phone to my *ahem* venerable Aunt. (She’s my dad’s older sister and my dad is, well, not-young.) There’s something vaguely surreal about hearing an octogenarian utter the phrase “well dear, it’s been nice talking to you, but my cell phone is almost out of minutes, so I should go.”
Ever have “one of those days”? I’m definitely coming down off of “one of those weeks.” And apologies all around for dropping off the map during it. But between the car breaking, busting my ass on a long week at work, and various time-intensive projects and snafus, I’ve been pretty short on time.
Today was good, though. It’s about time I had a nice, relaxing day. My folks were in town for my great aunt’s 80th birthday, so we took the birthday girl out to lunch. It was nice to see my aunt again. I’ve never been particularly close to her, but she’s a sweet woman, and incredibly sharp. It was also good to see the folks again. I’m re-learning just how easy it can be to get wrapped up in work at the expense of neglecting important people in one’s life.
After lunch, dropped my aunt off and went out to the range. I’ve been wanting to try out the Spokane Rifle Club range for awhile, and with Dad in town and the weather a gorgeous 80 degrees, it seemed like the perfect day for it.
So Mom, Dad, Becky and I headed out there with my Sig-556 and my Mosin-Nagant, neither of which I’ve really shot for lack of a good range. The Sig’s proving to be fun, but the BUIS on it suck. The Mosin, on the other hand, is a LOT of fun. And I’m pretty decent with it, too. My first 5 shots were on paper and my second five were not only on paper but decently grouped.
Tomorrow, Mom, Dad, and I are off to breakfast before they head out of town, which will be great. Even though my parents DO get up at 4am every morning, so breakfast with them will mean me rolling my lazy but out of bed by 8am or so. Which honestly, is probably a good idea anyway, since I’m trying to be more of a morning person. (Not an easy task when my biological clock seems to think that “bed time” falls somewhere around 4am.)
And on that note, I think it’s reading and sleep-attempting time.
Well, I guess it wasn’t really an “Escapade”. And the use of initial capitals and the definite article might be a little much. But it certainly was pretty great. There will be pictures as soon as I find my camera.
We left late Friday and, after changing our destination a few times en route, we decided to hit up the Four Lakes region in Northern Idaho. It was getting pretty dark by the time we bumped and banged our way up the rocky trail to the trailhead, so we decided to set up camp there for the night. There was another group there, so we set up our tents on the far side of the road from them, accompanied by one of their dogs who was small, yappy, light-obsessed, and (Becky rightly suggested), quite possibly possessed of demons.
Once tents were pitched and food eaten, we slept. Trevor and Aaron had both brought tents and crawled into their respective temporary abodes. Becky and I, on account of it being a beautiful night, started the night out under the stars. Unfortunately an unusually cold night and an as-of-yet unidentified large animal sent convinced us to move into Trevor’s tent.
Circumstances (Trevor’s sleeping bag proved to not much of a 40 degree bag and DEFINITELY not a low-30, upper-20s bag) of the evening convinced us that spending another night would be ill-advised. This would prove to be fortuitous. The next morning we got up early and had a leisurely breakfast of camp pancakes before striking camp and heading out for Lake Estelle.
The hike up was pleasant, with only a few really steep bits. The lake itself was gorgeous. It was clear and still and still incredibly cold with mountain runoff. (We passed a few patches of snow in the upper parts of the trail.) We all took a brief swim before lounging around in the sun and enjoying the remote, pristine beauty of the place.
The hike out was pleasant and uneventful. The day was clear and warm and generally perfect for hiking. We saddled up and headed out.
The way down the mountain proved to be just as bumpy as before. Unfortunately, it looks like this trip managed to wound our faithful ride, my wonderful van Rossinante. We got to the bottom of the mountain, but we hadn’t gotten very far down 200 toward Sand Point before the van started having shifting problems and then, when I pulled over and tried to turn it off and restart it, refused to start. Coolant was very low, the engine very hot. Water and time failed to revive it. Then I noticed the oil pressure meter: zero. It was very far from zero when we’d started down the mountain. Fortunately, the resourceful Mr. Lewer has a AAA membership (despite not owning a car) and we were able to get a tow back into Spokane. So currently, the van’s dead at an auto shop on Division. I need to call them tomorrow early and let them know why they have a strange new van in their parking lot.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get Rossinante back on the road sooner, rather later (being a contractor means client meetings means a vehicle is pretty much a necessity.) As for the weekend itself: the camping and hiking were excellent, the van troubles sucked, the company throughout both was amazing. Thanks much to Becky, Trevor, and Aaron for sharing the weekend with me.