Random Access

Thursday – 03 June 2010
Good NBN Comics Thursday to all.

Despite every intention to do so, I didn’t get a nap yesterday afternoon. That worked out alright, as I managed to make it to bed at a decent (for me) hour… and slept pretty much until the alarm went off at 0630. Of course, this means that I didn’t make it to the gym this morning. S’okay, I needed the rest.

Workout
Yesterday’s step count: 6104 steps

Stray Toasters

• I just bought and downloaded the two new Rush songs, Caravan and BU2B.  I like.
• Craig Ferguson’s Twitter feed amuses me.
• By way of Nyx: BPGlobalPR Billboards
• By way of everydave: Model Train Stuff
• 
• United States’ First Megaplex Closing Before End of Year
• Five things you don’t know about your airline ticket
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Imperfect Umpire Blows Pitcher’s Perfect Game
• 
• Jobless claims decline
• Agent of S.T.Y.L.E.: The Fashionable World of Krypton
• She’s got electric boots a mohair suit
  You know I read it in a magazine oh oh
  B-B-B-Bennie and the Jets…
• Vermont allows monkeys to be service animals
  (Apparently, no one in Vermont saw Monkey Shines.)

Namaste.

Wednesday – 02 June 2010
Midweek and all’s well.
Today is NOT Comics and Sushi Wednesday, however. There may be sushi, but comics will not arrive in stores until tomorning. Of course, that just means that NBN Thursday will be that much better.

Last night, I spent some time at the local B&N, doing some drawing. I’m not sure how soon it will be done, but I am rather happy with the direction this piece is taking. While at the store, I indulged in a Mocha Frappuchino…

…which may have contributed to my staying up later than planned — I was up until 0100 this morning. Granted, I wound up watching my first Doctor Who episode in more than fifteen years, but still… I hadn’t planned on being up quite so late. Serendipitously, I managed to catch “The Eleventh Hour,” the first episode of the newest Doctor’s incarnation, Matt Smith. It was… fun. My friend Dana has been telling me that I should watch the show for months now. I might just have to add it to the DVR’s queue.

After getting to bed somewhere around 0120 or 0130, I woke up this morning at 0543. *sigh* When I woke up around that time yesterday morning, I told myself that if I was up again that early this morning, I would go to the gym. The decision to actually get out of bed and do something was much harder to make this morning, though. But, I persevered and went to the gym.

Workout

• Elliptical: 5 min, avg speed 5.5 MPH
• Sit-ups (incline): 3 sets/20 reps
• Bench Press (decline): 3 sets/10 reps, 135 lbs
• Compound Row: 3 sets/10 reps, 125 lbs
• Curls (dumbbell, with shoulder press): 3 sets/10 reps, 25 lbs

For the second trip to the gym in a row, I couldn’t get on the fly machine that I like… and I didn’t feel like trying dumbbell/bench flies. Maybe next time…

Yesterday’s step count: 3250 steps.
I already have nearly 2000 steps logged today.

Stray Toasters

• I assembled my new desk/drawing table (except it’s the birch finish) last night. Now, I need to decide where I want it to go…
• Honey-Nut Cheerios.  Win!
• I still covet this… but I really don’t feel like paying what people are asking for them on eBay.
• Bill Nye Reviews Ideas for Solving Gulf Coast Oil Spill
• By way of Nyx: Premakes – The Empire Strikes Back
• LEGO Printer: I Made This!
• The iPad and Dolphins (for real)
• At NYC science fest, physicists ask ‘What if we’re holograms?’
  My opinion: That would be Truly Outrageous.  (Yeah, I went there.  Deal with it.)
• For Ms. Melodywise:  Shingles!

  

• As part of the marketing for Issue 17: Dark Mirror, City of Heroes opened a “Declare Your Loyalty” contest. The winning entries can be viewed here.
• 0543… what was I thinking?!
• LEGO ship in a bottle!

Namaste.

01 June 2010
Welcome, June.
May is now in the rearview mirror.
Let’s hope that it takes the wintry weather with it…

Yesterday, while relaxing was also productive: The lawn was mowed. The garden was worked on. The trim in the sitting room was cleaned up (No more red paint!). And, my office was painted. Not only that, our excursion to The Garden of Sweden netted me a new desk/drawing table.

We also had dinner with the in-laws yesterday. Grilled steaks with sweet potatoes and yams, salad and fresh corn-on-the-cob. Dessert was brownies with ice cream.

All-in-all, it was a good day.

Workout
Yesterday’s step count: 2948 steps
Of course, I neglected to wear the pedometer while I was mowing the lawn yesterday.  *sigh*

Stray Toasters

• Official Synopsis Revealed for Green Lantern movie
• Now that my office is coming along, I’m looking forward to finishing the rest of the basement… and finding room for a model railroad layout! I want to do O-Scale, but I believe that it will probably include some HO-Scale as well. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll put the LEGO train and/or the Rokenbok monorail, though.
• 44 million stolen gaming credentials discovered
• 
• ‘How Sweet It Was’: The Cultural Impact of Gospel
• Massive sinkhole swallows building in Guatemala City in wake of Tropical Storm Agatha
• The Theme from S.W.A.T., which I contend is still one of TV’s coolest TV theme songs. Ever.
• A Love Craft: Art Inspired by Monsters, Madness and Mythos
• Adventure Comics #12 preview
• I restarted  American Psycho again last night. I got distracted from it by… well, a lot of things. This time, I should be able to plow through it.
• US sculptor Louise Bourgeois dies aged 98
  • No Doubt: Spiderwebs
    
• From Elvis to Lady Gaga: Playing with Shock Value in Music
• Why Science Needs to Step Up Its PR Game

Attack the day
Like birds of prey…

Namaste.

Saturday – 29 May 2010
It’s a grey and overcast morning. It’s also supposed to be a bit cooler today, on the order of 10-15F cooler. (And, naturally, as I type that, the sun decides to put in an appearance…)

iHurt. That is my explanation/definition for how I feel after yesterday’s workout. It’s aftermath of that whole “take a month or two off before going back to the gym” thing. I believe that a pair of ibuprofen caplets are in my future.

Yesterday’s excursion to Hobby Lobby was decent. I bought a couple of things, but nothing major. However, the store was a-flurry with associates adding merchandise to the shelves and reworking items according to new planograms. To be honest, it was nice to see “more stuff” on the shelves, as the store looked a little… threadbare… in some spots when it opened.

After the HL excursion, I also went to The Train Shoppe. It seems as though it is becoming a traditional 9/80 day off stop. I picked up a couple of books, two pieces of track to display the old C&O steam engine and tender I bought a few months back, and I ordered a new toy: Chessie System Merger Special. It should arrive in late-July.  Hopefully, I’ll have figured out a place for it to go by then…

Clitorati was good last night. I got to the bookstore a little early, so I could do a bit of drawing — I had an idea for a new song lyric-to-drawing and wanted to get started on it. Marci (a coworker) joined us for the first time in many moons; and we even had a newcomer, Monica. Hopefully, we didn’t scare either of them away permanently or scar them too deeply.

Today, I’m not sure what’s on the docket. I may head over to Dr. Volt’s and see if anyone’s up for a pick-up game of HeroClix this afternoon. This evening, SaraRules and I are going to the symphony for the final concert of the season; tonight’s program includes Mahler and Mozart.

Stray Toasters

• I fired up City of Heroes and downloaded the new patches yesterday. I may spend a little time in Paragon City this afternoon or tomorrow.
• ‘Human remains’ found as police probe ‘Crossbow Cannibal’ case
• “I ain’t no hiya back girl…”
• You Built What?! A Real Iron Man Suit
  (Technically, it’s a War Machine suit… but why quibble?)
• BrikThulhu Rising (from BrikWars), by Mike Rayhawk



• Terps beat Orange, will play for title
  • Maryland’s Official State Team Sport: Lacrosse
  • Maryland’s Official State Sport: Jousting
• A Century of Aviation, from the Wright Brothers to Stealth

Breakfast is just about ready.  I should clear off the table.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 26 May 2010
From snow to sun to… drab and overcast… in 48 hours.
Welcome to the Land Behind the Zion Curtain!

But at least it’s (Sushi and) Comics Wednesday.
Comics are guaranteed; sushi, not so much… but we shall see what the day brings.

Getting back into the swing of things yesterday was slow. After work, SaraRules and I met at her folks’ place – they were kind enough to check on the house and get our mail while we were out of town. Next, home for dinner and some post-vacation relaxing. We finished watching Disc 1 of Mad Men, which we had started watching on the plane ride from IAH to SLC.  Good show. Other discs will be added to the Netflix queue, I believe.

I woke up with my internal radio set to “Random Play.” A lot of odd things filtered through, but the most unusual – and by far the most random – thing was the theme from Dr. Shrinker, a show I used to watch when I was a kid. As Dr. Rosenblatt would say, “It’s so bizarre…”

Stray Toasters

• By way of Nyx: How to Get Your Camera Back When You Lose It
• Things to thinks about on the long wait to Fringe Season 3
• Salt Lake County to get its first openly gay councilman?
• Igor Stravinsky, arrested for “tampering” with The Star Spangled Banner, 1940
• I have been amused by some of the offerings on ROFLrazzi:
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 20 Worst Drinks in America 2010
• What anime can teach you about ending a story
• Little Women and Werewolves
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
• 19 fictional islands you can visit now that LOST is over

Namaste.

Saturday – 22 May 2010
Greetings from the Right Coast.

After spending eight-plus hours in airports and planes, SaraRules and I made it into RDU.  Kris (Sib-2) picked us up and brought us to my parents’ house. Everyone is doing well. Hanging out with the family was quiet and relatively low-key, which was nice.

This morning involved sleeping in, relatively speaking. Granted, there was a two-hour offset, but sleeping in is sleeping in. It’s a little grey/overcast, but that’s okay — there’s a lot of green around. That’s one of the things that I miss out west. (Yes, there are trees, but the “green” part of the (very short) Spring season soon gives way to more brown tones as the heat of Summer sets in.)

I’m not sure what the afternoon and evening hold.  I’m going to try and get hold of a couple of the usual suspects and see about getting together for lunch or dinner… or something.

Stray Toasters

• After Explaining a Provocative Remark, Paul Makes Another
• Play Pac-Man on Google Homepage
  • Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating
• Street pianos come to NYC
• Vatican calls synthetic cell creation ‘interesting’
• AT&T to increase early termination fees to $325
• The 22-megapixel MacBook Pro

And that’s a wrap.
Time to find some trouble to get into…

Namaste.

Thursday – 20 May 2010
This week’s NBN Thursday has kicked off with a mixture of clouds and sun… although the sun seems to be winning out.

Last night, SaraRules and I opted to take the easy way out for dinner and let someone else do the cooking. We settled on Pawit’s Royale Thai. Good call on our parts. The food was very good and quite satisfying. The later evening was spent relaxing — quilting for SaraRules, reading this week’s rather good four-color haul for me.

Workout
Yesterday’s step total: 3189 steps.

Stray Toasters

• I just signed up for a subscription to Model Railroader Magazine.
• Danger, Will Robinson!  Danger! Danger!
• Can Health Care Save Detroit?
• Precious artworks stolen in Paris heist
• 10 Amazing Classic Electronic Toys and Their Modern Equivalents
• 
• By way of and the “Men in Black” file: Ninjas rescue student from muggers
• …and, with that in mind:
• My former classmate, Miranda, pointed out What the Fuck Should I Make for Dinner
• Military robot presentations seen as potential life savers
• 20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Robots, courtesy of Spydr
• 
• Sorry, but I’m just not a fan of John Romita, Jr.’s artwork. I wasn’t a fan during his run on Uncanny X-Men; I’m not a fan of his current work on The Avengers.
• Crews stumble on 2,000-year-old clay coffins in Cyprus
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Wedinator
• …which reminds me: Cake Wrecks

Just have to get through the workday grind and by this time tomorrow, we’ll be on our way to the Right Coast. Selah.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 19 May 2010
It’s Comics and Sushi Wednesday.
This means that…

…hits shelves today. Finally.

Last night, Chris came over and we played more HALO 3: ODST. And it was good… unless you were a Covenant warrior. In that case, life was neither good nor long. We also talked ‘Clix and a few other games, too.

Workout
Yesterday was a slow day for walking: 3201 steps.

Stray Toasters

• Who has had a homemade blueberry muffin for breakfast this morning?  I did.
• Turning 70, with Stars and Strobes
• By way of MarknTyme: No Ordinary Family
• Ladies’ Choice: To Be a ‘Doll on Wheels’
  …or as Jim Croce put it: Roller Derby Queen
• Oldest Mesoamerican pyramid tomb found in Mexico
• From the “Big Brother Is Watching You” file: UC Berkeley Asking Incoming Students for DNA
• The Dark Sun campaign setting
• Crazy and Unique Case Mods
• 

• Germany Asks Google to Surrender Private Data

And that’s a wrap.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 18 May 2010
Not many of the leaves are brown, but the sky is grey.

Today is my cousin, Ryan’s, birthday:

Last night, SaraRules fixed Sloppy Joes for dinner. Very tasty!  After dinner, we went for a walk around the neighborhood; we covered roughly 1.67 miles in about 40 minutes. While out, we checked out some of our neighbors’ lawns and landscapes for ideas that we might like to employ in our own yard.

Upon returning home, SaraRules put in some time quilting, while I set about wiring a wall plate in the family room for coax and Ethernet. I noticed something just before I started running the wires: The Ethernet cable I was using was the 568a configuration… a variation which I had never made. Once I figured out which of the strands were different, wiring the plate was pretty easy. I apparently did it right, as the 360 found Xbox Live without too much ado. We wrapped up the evening with an episode of Human Target and some ice cream.

Chew on This: Food for Thought
There are many wonderful things to be done, and only you can do them.

Workout
Last night’s walk helped keep up the step total: 6,318 steps.

I’m going to try to get back into the gym next week, after we get back from the Right Coast.  We’ll see how that goes.

Stray Toasters

• Improv Everywhere: Who You Gonna Call?
• Enrico Caruso, and Confessions of an Operaholic
• 
• A couple of items from SaraRules:
  • Downey vs. Rourke: A Tale of Two Comebacks
  • Sir Ian McKellen mistaken for a tramp as he rehearses for new play
• LEGO + science(!) = Stop-motion LEGO documentary about early microbiologists
• Legendary Jazz Pianist Hank Jones Dies at 91
• Periodic Table of Superpowers
• “Recruited.”
  I’ll elaborate on this later.
• Awesome Star Wars Wedding Cake
• Daft Punk: Da Funk (original audio remix):
• Law & Order (TOS) is going off the air.
  At least we still have Law & Order: The Next Generation and Law & Order: Voyager…
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Blowgun woman: “I like to hear people say ‘ouch’ “
• After taking on The Covenant and The Flood, UNSC ODSTs and Spartans seem like they can take on just about anything… but are they ready for this?

Namaste.

Monday – 17 May 2010
It was 60F and sunny when I left home this morning.
The projected high is 80F.
This has to be a dream…

Yesterday, the lawn was mowed and we finished putting primer on the walls in my office. There has to be at least a 40% increase to the room’s overall brightness. I wish I had taken before/after pictures to show just how great a difference it is.

Last night, SaraRules and I went to the in-laws’ for dinner and a movie. The dinner fare was grilled burgers and salad and fixin’s and whatnot. For dessert, we had homemade brownies, with mocha rum sauce and ice cream. Everything was very good.

Our movie fare was Daybreakers. This was not-so-great. In fact, I had to dig find these visual aids:

That’s right: Lawn darts.
It wasn’t entirely painful, but having seen this movie, I don’t need to see it again. This movie was apparently written and directed by the same duo who directed Undead, another film I’d like to forget. SaraRules kept this fact from me until after the movie was over, in the hopes that this would be a better experience and that I’d possibly be willing to give the directors a fair shake, without the mental taint of Undead shading my opinion. (Unfortunately, it didn’t quite pan out that way.)

Workout
I’ve been trying to keep track of my walking over the past few days:

• Friday: 4100-something steps (written down at home, but I forgot to transpose it)
• Saturday: 8132 steps
• Sunday : 5140 steps

Stray Toasters

• Homemade Blueberry muffins.
  I have them for breakfast.
  Win.
• 7-year-old girl killed in Detroit police raid
• Simple Techniques Can Make You a Great Teacher
  I find it ironic and amusing that I stumble across this item as my mother is preparing to retire from teaching after… nearly 40 years, if my math is correct.
• The Geek Alphabet



• Heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio: 1942 – 2010
• Hot exhibits make science accessible, and lots of fun
• With Restored Footage, Metropolis Finally Makes Sense
• Marion Jones hits ground running, starts fresh in WNBA
• These Golden Books Are Not for Children

  

• What Did the Original Script for The Empire Strikes Back Look Like?

Namaste.

Sunday – 16 May 2010
Midway through the weekend and all’s well.

Yesterday, SaraRules and I got up and headed over to Rich’s Bagels for breakfast. I must admit, having a neighborhood bagel shop within walking distance is rather nice. After breakfast, SaraRules went to work in the garden, as I got ready for another HeroClix tournament at Dr. Volt’s.

The tourney was good. There were (orginally) ten players; one had to leave after the second round, so I got to put together a team and play a “bye” in the third round. Since WizKids gave Checkmate a nice boost with The Brave and the Bold (and as I’ve had a fondness for Checkmate since the late 80s), I put together… dun dun dunnnn… a Checkmate team. Oh, come on… like you didn’t see that coming. I played against Pete, who had also assembled a Checkmate team, but we took slightly different tacks with our teams. After forty minutes, we danced around the board, as our teams were fairly evenly matched. I had taken out a couple of  Pete’s figures, but since it was a bye, he got the TKO.

Next, back home for dinner and to get ready for the evening’s entertainment: The opera. We saw a couple of one-act operas by Puccini: Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicci. While both operas were good, both SaraRules and I agreed that Suor Angelica was the superior – and far more moving – of the two. If you’re in the SLC Metro area and looking for a good evening’s entertainment, I’d advise seeing these operas.

After the opera, we stopped at The Point After. We met up with Jenny and Julie and a few other friends who were having an anniversary celebration of Jess’ life. We didn’t stay very long, but it was nice to see everyone.

This morning, it was nice to be able to sleep in and not have to worry about rushing around to get something done.

Stray Toasters

• I was able to get my DIY Network fix this morning.
• How to Observe Better Sleep Month
• 50 Years of Real-Life Ray Guns
• 
• Truckloads of Strippers, Freaks, Art and Noodles Drive NYC’s Lost Horizon Night Market
• Star Wars, the Baroque version
• Bootsy Collins launches world’s first online “University of Funk”
• Thanks to Nyx for pointing out this cake:



• The Short List: 5 Advantages to Being Diminutive
• Tourist hospitalized by venomous spider bite on penis
• By way of : So, How Would YOU Dress for Atlantis’ Last Scheduled Launch?
• Art and doodles left by prisoners at Wisconsin jail
• Avatar: The Last Airbender + LEGO = This
• Ask a Flowchart: Where Should I Chat Online?
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Former TV chef held in alleged murder-for-hire plot

Time for some caffeination and to see what the day holds.

Namaste.

Wednesday – 12 May 2010
Midweek and all’s (relatively speaking) well.
It’s Comics and Sushi Wednesday.

Today also marks one year since I lost my friend, Jessica, to a battle with pulmonary hypertension.

It doesn’t have to be dark for you to reach for the stars — they are always out there waiting to be touched

…and sometimes, if we’re lucky, a star reaches out for us, too.

My thoughts and prayers go out to her and her family – my adopted family – today. She was a great person; I still miss having her around, but I’m glad for the time that we had to spend together.

Stray Toasters

• Here is the latest chapter in The Great Comcast Saga:
  

  Yesterday, I got home from work and saw a Comcast technician, John, working around the corner from the house.  I asked if he was working on our seemingly never-ending quest for service. He said that he wasn’t… but he then asked if I had just moved into the neighborhood. I told him that I had and that I was waiting for service to be restored to the house. He said that he had done service work for [our] house for the past few years.

  And then he hit me with a bombshell: The service node in which he was working – NOT the one in our front yard – was the one that contained the line that goes to our house.

  *blink blink*

  Yeah. Not only does that mean that Steve, the first Comcast tech to attempt reconnection, went to the wrong box, but that NO OTHER Comcast representative figured out that Box A != Box B…. which means that we could should have had service two weeks ago.

  *grblsnrkx*

  As it stands, John, cancelled the dig/burial work order and put us in for reconnection. Our new reconnection appointment is scheduled for “early Friday morning.”  (Good thing it’s my Friday off…)

• U.S. to Split Up Agency Policing the Oil Industry
• Get ready to pay: 18 NFL teams raising ticket prices for 2010
• 
• Strange Signs from Abroad
• …said the Bishop to the Actress
• A Simple Photo of a Plane Taking Off…. From Head-on
• Novel-Ts – I have (at least) two new items for The Covet List:
  1. Poe (Raven)
  2. Poe (Heart)
• High-Tech Underwear for Adventurous Geeks
• Home prices could sink without tax credit
• Keep holding on so long
  ‘Cause there’s a chance
  that we might not be so wrong
  We could be down and gone
  But we hold on
• Trigger Green Traffic Lights

Meetings and things and stuff.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 11 May 2010
It’s another rainy day in the Valley. And, it’s cold. Okay, maybe not “cold,” but it’s definitely cooler than I would have hoped for in mid-May.

Post-work yesterday, I headed home to see if there had been any sign of activity on Comcast’s part. Nope. I called the local office – again – to attempt to get more clarification. Stephanie, the CSR with whom I spoke, is the first person – in two weeks – to actually inform me of the following:

1. The date they give for line burials is a tentative date. The actual service date could be anywhere from a few days before the date to a week or so after the date.
2. The people who come out to do the digging are not Comcast employees; they are contractors.

I was “a little” stunned by this information… and wished that I had known it a week-and-a-half ago. It would have saved me a lot of time and aggravation.

I also found something that pretty much sums up how I feel about Comcast and their “service” at this point:

Jules: Oh, man, I will never forgive your ass for this shit. This is some fucked-up repugnant shit.
Vincent: Jules, did you ever hear the philosophy that once a man admits that he’s wrong that he is immediately forgiven for all wrongdoings? Have you ever heard that?
Jules: Get the fuck out my face with that shit! The motherfucker that said that shit never had to pick up itty-bitty pieces of skull on account of your dumb ass.
Vincent: I got a threshold, Jules. I got a threshold for the abuse that I will take. Now, right now, I’m a fuckin’ race car, right, and you got me the red. And I’m just sayin’, I’m just sayin’ that it’s fuckin’ dangerous to have a race car in the fuckin’ red. That’s all. I could blow.
Jules: Oh! Oh! You ready to blow?
Vincent: Yeah, I’m ready to blow.
Jules: Well, I’m a mushroom-cloud-layin’ motherfucker, motherfucker! Every time my fingers touch brain, I’m Superfly T.N.T., I’m the Guns of the Navarone! IN FACT, WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOIN’ IN THE BACK? YOU’RE THE MOTHERFUCKER WHO SHOULD BE ON BRAIN DETAIL!

Yep. That’s it, in a nutshell.

After the Comcast conversation, I headed down to visit Kate, Perry and the kids. They were doing well. Then, Perry, his oldest son and I snuck off to the new Hobby Lobby. Their model railroading section wasn’t as robust as the South Jordan store – which isn’t too beefy itself – but I think they just need a little time to get all their ducks in a row.

The rest of the evening was rather laid-back and uneventful.

Stray Toasters

• Top 10 Motivation Boosters and Procrastination Killers
• I have two new icons

• and

• The Most Erotic Rendition of the Spider-Man Theme Ever Performed
• Students dive into mystery of Civil War submarine Hunley
• Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi
• 
• Funny history of programming languages
• Style is not something that comes in a bottle
  Style is more like Jackie O. when she was doin’ Aristotle
  Style is not a logo that sticks 2 the roof of one’s ass
  Style is like a second cousin 2 class
• A sorceror’s farewell: RIP, Frank Frazetta, master of fantasy illustration
• Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…?!” file: Oil Leak Could Be Stopped with a Nuke

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers…

Namaste.

Sunday – 09 May 2010
Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mothers – and surrogate mothers – out there.

I was up this morning at 0745… for reasons I have yet to understand. I lazed around the sitting room, trying to decide what to do. About an hour-and-a-half later, I decided to start primering my office walls. Shortly thereafter, SaraRules woke up. She started breakfast, I worked on the office door trim. All too soon, it was time to eat. This morning’s fare: Omelettes.

After breakfast and the morning hygiene rituals, we were off for some errand-running. First stop: Lowe’s. I think that we’ve found a chair rail that we like for the living room. Next, grocery shopping. And when that was done… home.

I didn’t want to change clothes to start painting again, so I hung medicine cabinets in the master bathroom:

• Old and busted (as it was under the former owners)
• New hotness

Not only did it change the look of the room, it gave us some much-needed storage space. Selah.

Tonight, SaraRules’ mom is coming over for dinner, dessert and a movie. Sounds like a good way to cap off the weekend to me.

Stray Toasters

• I called the mother and sister units, to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day.  The ones I managed to speak with were doing well.
• Yesterday’s tournament went well. There were nine players… a little smaller than it has been, but I’m just glad to see people coming out – and happy to come out – to play.
• Homemade chocolate cream pie. ‘Nuff said.
• Tool (Not the band.)
• After the tournament, SaraRules and I went shopping. We found and bought a set of furniture for the sitting room. (Imagine that… people actually able to sit down in there.  What a concept!) Delivery date: 08 June 2010.
• In theory, Comcast will be coming out tomorrow to (FINALLY) install the new line. It would be great if they got there early, as I’d like to not have to use a full day’s PTO waiting for the cable guy/guys. We’ll see how that goes…

That’s good for now.

Namaste.

Saturday – 08 May 2010
Today is my brother and step-mother’s birthday.

This morning, SaraRules and I went to Wasatch Community Gardens‘ Plant Sale – SaraRules wanted to get some plants for her new garden. We then headed up to Millcreek Cafe and Eggworks for breakfast. Then back home for a bit until…

…I headed to Dr. Volt’s for today’s tournament: 300-point, sealed event. I picked up a couple of boxes, so that I could play the bye round. I drew another Kal-L Black Lantern figure… which I wound up trading to Jeremiah for a Black Hand figure. Leaving me two chases to track down.

Stray Toasters

• I owe Ms. Galadriel a huge debt of gratitude for her suggestion of taking 800mg of Ibuprofen to help with the pain and swelling of last night’s sore throat. She gets my vote for Human of the Day.

This evening, I’m not sure what manner of trouble we’ll be getting into, but I believe that it involves a trip to the local Home Depot or Lowe’s.

And with that…

Namaste.