Category: LiveJournal

Malaise

Very unsteady energy today. Aside from 2 nights without enough sleep — last night I stayed up finishing Julie E. Czerneda’s A Thousand Words for Stranger — I seem to have come down with something cold-like. I could feel the beginnings of a cough yesterday, then woke up with a nasty sore throat this morning. Copious amounts of water and juice helped, but I’ve only had energy in 1-to-2-hour segments of the day.

It didn’t help that alenxa and I had planned a full-afternoon shopping trip. It started out with me just wanting to pick up the 2 sequels to the book I finished last night, and her wanting to stop by Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory to try their sugar-free offerings, but we both kept remembering other things we needed to look for, including groceries.

And I woke up sick.

I really wanted to get those books, though, and since the sore throat settled down, we went. I just washed my hands a lot and tried not to cough on anything.

In the end, I had to go to 3 different stores to find the books. The Borders near Whole Foods had full sets of 2 other trilogies (one of which I zoomed through last October), and about 4 copies of the book I’d just finished, but neither of its sequels. So instead of starting book 2 while Katie picked up groceries (I figured I’d keep my germs to myself instead of wandering around a ton of other people’s food), I browsed the sci-fi and graphic novel areas as my energy level dropped.

We dropped by Barnes & Noble on the way home, but they had even less selection — just the most recent series (again, the one I’d already read) and a stand-alone novel. I’ve decided that when I start the remaining series, I’m going to just pick up all 3 at once, since I know I’m going to want to read them all.

While I found myself hard-pressed to focus on just driving the rest of the way home, Katie had the practical suggestion of just calling stores in the area. I figured I’d do that, then pick the books up tomorrow. Fortunately, a little rest, some more water, and the satisfaction of actually finding a store that had the books got me going enough to drive down to South Coast…to the Borders where I remember looking at the books back in October, trying to decide which series to pick up.

So now I’m lying on the couch, half-ready to sleep, half-ready to read, trying to decide which I’d rather do.

There and back again… and again… and again

I drove the same ~8-mile stretch of freeway between home and work 6 times yesterday. Morning & evening commute. Met alenxa for lunch. Went back late at night to deal with a tech problem that couldn’t be resolved remotely. Which sucked, because I had to get up early for an allergist appointment. Yay coffee!

Fun fact: It took longer to drive the ~1 mile back from the restaurant to home after lunch than to drive the 8 miles back from work at midnight. Yay freeway!

Double-booked?

alenxa’s sister is coming down from the Soggy North to visit this weekend. Exact plans are yet undetermined, though since she couldn’t come down for Christmas, there will definitely be a family gathering at some point.

My brother is also coming down from slightly less North this weekend–with his fiancee, whom we’re all meeting for the first time. Again, exact plans are still undetermined.

It’s going to be a busy weekend…

3 Malls, 1 Day

Finally got out to do serious Christmas shopping today. Hit a couple of individual stores at the beginning & end of the day, but the bulk of it was taken up by a 3-mall tour:

The Village (formerly known as the Mall of Orange). Not too bad. Parked quickly, though not terribly near the mall. Crowds weren’t too bad, even in the food court where alenxa and I had lunch. Full circuit, found stuff. Stopped at Jamba Juice & Coffee Bean on the way out.

Main Place. Total nightmare. Took 10 minutes to get into the parking lot because it’s behind the mall. They had cops directing traffic, but weren’t making it clear just who they were gesturing to. And then there was turning left into the parking structure at a blind curve with oncoming traffic. Much more crowded — seemed like it was also a hangout mall, in addition to people shopping. Even after doing a full circuit, neither of us found anything suitable for presents. Though we did find a good gelato place. Incidentally, there are some Nirvana songs that are just not appropriate for a store called “Simply Kids,” even if it is primarily an anime/manga store.

The Block. Much nicer. Again, easy to get into the parking lot. At least seemed less crowded. Disappointed to find that Earthbound Trading Company is gone, but managed to actually find stuff for people. Dinner at Tu Tu Tango. Sitting down was a nice change.

Aftermath. Got home, got ready to start wrapping presents for people we’re going to see tomorrow. Remembered we were out of Scotch tape. So I got back in the car & took a trip to the grocery store. They were out of regular ½” Scotch tape. Fortunately, they had 5,000 displays of 3-packs of ¾” tape scattered around the store.

Current Mood: 🙁exhausted

Music, Christmas, and Deadlines

Ended up missing my company’s Christmas party this year because we had tickets to see Tori Amos at the Grove on Saturday. Good concert, but our feet were pretty much dead by the end of the standing show. Sometime I’ll have to post the experience of trying to eat at El Torito Grill beforehand.

Meanwhile, everyone at my office hopped on a bus last Friday at noon to go out to Las Vegas. Apparently they did a murder mystery dinner for the actual party. It was a bit eerie afterward.

Still scrambling to finish a website at work. Also trying to finish some articles that I’m contributing to a book about the Flash. And Christmas shopping? Hah!

5 days before Christmas is a bad time to find out that you’re almost out of scotch tape, but I suppose it’s better than finding out at 8pm on December 24.

Current Mood: busy

Thanksgiving Weekend

Wednesday: Scrambling to finish a section of this big web project for work so that the client could test things over the weekend, and still get out early enough to pick up alenxa when her office closed at 3. Planned to leave at 2 & hit the comic store first, but got out at 2:50. So I went straight to pick her up, and we got stuck wading through pre-TG traffic and grocery store madness. (Gripe: The express lane clearly says cash only. Why do some people insist on paying with a check anyway? (Answer: because the store doesn’t want to lose that sale, so they call over a manager to take it, and thereby inconvenience all 12 people waiting for the process — which takes 10 minutes instead of 1 for some reason — instead of inconveniencing the one person who really should have been in another line in the first place. Thus do we reward people being either clueless or inconsiderate.)) Helped Katie a bit w/ baking.

Thursday: Thanksgiving lunch w/ Katie’s family. Worked out pretty well, since it meant neither of us needed to eat dinner.

Friday: Holed up in the apartment, venturing forth only to run by the pharmacy. Re-read first 3 volumes of Scott Pilgrim & read the new one. Still holding up.

Saturday: Drove out in the Tustin Foothills/Lemon Heights area to take advantage of the really clear air and see what I could see. Got to see Catalina Island from about 10 miles inland. Also between this and a similar drive early in October, I have some interesting before & after pics of some of the hills touched by the Santiago fire. It got a lot farther north than I thought. Edit: Forgot to mention, got a kick out of driving around the wealthy enclave with “Sinister Ducks” playing on the iPod. Gotta love random.

Then afternoon & evening for a secondary Thanksgiving dinner w/ my parents & brother, who’s out visiting from Florida (but moving to San Fransisco next month). Haven’t seen BSG: Razor yet. Will probably watch it tonight.

Sunday: Ran errands, went to see Beowulf in 3D. Sushi & tempura for dinner (Maki Maki has a teriyaki chicken roll, plus everyone has veggie rolls), then minor shopping.

Monday: I think we may have finished off the leftovers, except for a turkey leg.

Somewhere in all this I took a few hours to pare down my inbox from ~650 messages to ~250, mostly by filing and deleting things I’d already dealt with or didn’t need to (though I replied to a couple of things). Probably around 40 of the remaining items are to do/to read items I sent myself. At some point I’ll need to do this with my work mailbox.

Current Mood: 😴sleepy

Crazy Drive Home

Encountered the aftermath of a fairly major accident on the way to pick up alenxa after work. Someone had hit a traffic signal at Jamboree and Michelson and knocked it over. Police were investigating the shattered bits of one of those little equipment covers, as well as the pole, while what remained of the car sat halfway into the intersection. I hesitate to think how fast they must have been driving when they hit. Or, for that matter, what happened to whoever was in the car.

After I picked her up, I decided to take MacArthur to avoid all the spillover traffic. Driving over the freeway, we saw flames climbing up the wall of a sports club building from its sign, occasionally dropping to the ground to join another blaze at the base of the building.

A few minutes later, a fire engine zoomed by on the opposite side of the street. I pulled the car over to the side, and some numbskull decided instead of pulling over behind me and waiting for me to start moving again, they’d creep around me. As if I had pulled over to make a right turn, rather than pulling over because of the big red firetruck with flashing lights and a siren. WTF?

Current Mood: 😡frustrated

Musical Weekend

Friday night alenxa and I went to a Gin Blossoms concert in Cerritos. They spent most of the show alternating between songs from the new album (which is surprisingly good) and their old standards. Encore was 2 covers: Rocketman and something I didn’t recognize.

Funniest remark: “We don’t get to play many Performing Arts Centers. Mostly we play casinos and dog pounds.”

Saturday I spent some time filling in random songs for our music collection, going with Amazon’s DRM-less plain old MP3s when possible and iTunes when not.

Sunday we watched Phantom of the Paradise, a truly bizarre mash-up of Phantom of the Opera and Faust set in a satire of the 1970s rock music industry.

Halloween, Nanowrimo, Pushing Daisies

Last night we got the biggest Halloween crowd we’ve had in years. Which isn’t saying much, since it was only around a dozen kids, but I think there were a couple of big groups that collided, because about 6 or 7 of them showed up at the same time. alenxa redid her Sylar Victim makeup, and scared some of the kids. (One actually asked, “Does that hurt?”) After that first round, she stayed in the back room and I handed out the candy.

Official NaNoWriMo 2007 ParticipantSince I was up late anyway last night (making sure everything on the laptop worked after upgrading to Leopard), decided to get an early start on Nanowrimo after midnight rolled around. Only jotted down 135 words (including the title & byline), but it’s a start. Then I spent too much time looking around the site for counting tools and such. Should’ve gone to bed as soon as I stopped writing. I’ll probably be blogging progress reports over at K2R this year, instead of here. Haven’t decided for sure yet. Here’s my profile.

Pushing Daisies continues to be fun. Anyone else here watching it?

Current Mood: 😴sleepy
Current Music: The End of the World, Gin Blossoms

Whee.

Orange MoonGot some nighttime photos yesterday of the orange moon (to the right) and the glow coming from the hills in front of Saddleback.

The smoke is back again, like Monday. It’s thinner, so at first I figured it would be better, but I feel much worse. Maybe because I’ve been breathing the crap for the last 4 days, maybe because without the wind, the smoke and ash are settling at ground level.

Meanwhile I’ve been putting out virtual fires with our network since about 3:00 yesterday. Yesterday my boss and I spent most of the afternoon trying to troubleshoot a computer that was running incredibly slow, but only when the network was plugged in. I was there until almost 6:30 trying to troubleshoot problems that started affecting the few other people who were still in the office at that hour.

This morning, I got to troubleshoot the connection issues that started cascading around the office. Finally I discovered a cable on the back of the stack of hubs was plugged into the wrong port. We’d temporarily disconnected it yesterday afternoon for testing, and someone (presumably my boss) plugged it back into the wrong connector.

And of course, anything that’s already flaky has taken the opportunity to stop working, leading to follow-up “Hey, X isn’t working” visits that have led, so far, to rebooting a server, replacing a network card in a desktop, and resetting a hub. Did I mention my boss isn’t in yet, and no one’s really sure if he’s going to be in today?

So here I am, sitting at my desk, writing this in bits and pieces when I have time, drinking hot lukewarm chocolate, wishing I’d remembered to grab that bottle of Vizine or Clear Eyes or whatever it is from home. I really don’t want to go anywhere at lunch today, between having to leave early and wanting to stay indoors as much as possible.

Current Mood: 😴groggy

Smoke

Lungs doing tolerably well, considering all the smoke in the air. On the plus side, it’s a lot clearer (relatively speaking) than yesterday, since the smoke seems to be concentrated in the canyons & drifting outward, rather than being driven directly at the building where I work. (Naturally, I had an appointment with my allergist yesterday. In an office on the edge of the smoke plume. And she insisted on doing a breathing test.)

Family are all okay, though my dad’s workplace keeps trying to call people in despite being a few hundred yards from yesterday’s fire lines. AFAIK, friends all live out of the danger zone (I think we’re the second-closest to the Santiago fire, after wayens).

Smoke ColumnWork’s been interesting, with people periodically clustering around computers for online updates or around a conference room window that looks out at the mountains. Two co-workers who live out in the Santiago Canyon area: one was evacuated this morning, and figured he might as well come into the office. No word from the other. We’re all speculating as to whether he’s still helping put out fires, or standing guard at his house, or what.

Been fireblogging at K2R, with photos.

Current Location: Irvine, California

Utilization of College Impulses

I’ve been meaning to run by the UCI bookstore and pick up some new license plate frames (the original plan was to just move the old ones, but when we took them off, we realized they looked kind of ratty) — if possible, before the plates arrive. Around 11:30 or so I decided I’d run up on my lunch hour, then drop in at the Apple Store at Crystal Court (excuse me, South Coast Plaza) and see if they could give me any pointers on some weird stuff my iPod is doing. (The Googles, they do nothing.)

I hadn’t been in the bookstore in several years, and it was mostly familiar, with only shelves and departments rearranged, but this was my first visit to the new Student Center. It was actually kind of eerie, since what I’d seen of construction made it look like they’d razed the entire old building except over at the bookstore/Cornerstone (sadly, now a Starbucks) end of the place. And yet the landing in front of Crystal Cove, the hallway below it, and the landing above, all looked strangely familiar. (And I could swear the only thing changed about the restrooms was the auto-flush sensors and the graffiti.) It turns out they actually kept most of the building below the terrace intact, in some cases moving stairways or adding partitions, and mainly built around it.

Most eerie: In the checkout line, I heard “La Vida Loca,” which for some reason I associate with the Student Center Zot-n-Go.

While I was there, I remembered a photo I took of the old Student Center from the top floor of what was then the Humanities Office Building. (10 years ago, as it turns out.) I had enough time left on parking that I figured I’d run over and try to match the shot. On the way, I pulled up the website with my phone and looked at the original photo so that I could match as closely as possible. I’ll try to post the before and after photos tonight. Edit: I’ve posted the before and after photos at K2R.

UCI Student Center: 1997UCI Student Center: 2007

By then I figured I didn’t have enough time to deal with the iPod, so I’ll just wait until the Spectrum store is done remodeling and drop in next week.

Current Mood: 🤔nostalgic
Current Music: The World is Not Enough, Garbage
Current Location: work

Heat Wave and a New Car

Last weekend I spent a lot of time reading on the balcony after things cooled off enough that outside was better, with the slight breeze, than the inside. I finished rereading A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, and started on The Farthest Shore.

Monday alenxa and I tried to run out to the local second-run theater and see Pirates 3 again, but they were sold out. None of the other movies looked interesting, so we spent an hour and a half in Barnes & Noble instead, then went for an early dinner at Ruby’s.

Even though it cooled off substantially Monday night, the apartment stayed warm, no matter how we arranged the fans. We seriously considered sleeping out on our balcony.

Tuesday I had the dubious honor of changing a tire in 85-degree heat, which was better than changing it in 100-degree heat on Monday would have been, but still not much fun. I took it to Costco, where they said they could repair it (it was an obvious puncture, with a 1/2″ bolt sticking out of the tire), but the tire was worn down far enough they wanted to replace it. I told them I was looking at replacing the car in a few months, so they stuck with the repair.

As it turned out, we ended up replacing the car this weekend.

Current Mood: 🙂relieved
Current Music: Almost Rosey, Tori Amos
Current Location: home

Cool

The theme of the day, at least for me, has been trying to keep cool. I went to see Transformers (and I have some things to say about it at K²R) in part because I was curious, in part because I found a Regal movie pass I’d forgotten, but in part because movie theaters are air conditioned better than our apartment is.

Came back mid-afternoon. Rehydrated. Opened up all the windows since it had gotten to the point where it was just as hot inside as outside, and at least outside had a breeze. Thought about swimming, then thought about just sticking my head under the shower for a minute. Finally settled on swimming, for the first time in several years.

We’ve been in this apartment for something like 6 years, and until today, neither of us had ever used the pool. The last time I swam was on our 2003 trip to Hawaii with the IVC choir (with alenxa of course, and also andrea_wot and zehntaur, though I can’t recall whether either of them were on that side trip), when we stopped at a small bay on the north shore of Oahu. That was salt water, so buoyancy was another issue. (On a related note, every time I walk down the main aisles of the Spectrum, I get stopped by the “Wonders of the Dead Sea” spa people. It’s getting to the point where I want to start responding, “Yes, I have heard of the Dead Sea!” and then rattling off a bunch of facts about it. Then telling them I still don’t want their spa products. Do I look like their target audience?)

Treading water is more tiring than I remember. And I seem to have no natural buoyancy. When I lie on my back, I have to flap my arms and legs from time to time or my face starts sinking below the surface. Still, I was out there for about an hour, trying to keep out of the way of the family teaching their two kids to swim (I think it was the mother and an aunt, with the father sitting out on the deck). When I realized that my eyes were clouding up with chlorine, and my fingers were beginning to look like prunes, I climbed out and walked on unsteady legs back to the apartment, rinsed off, and collapsed for a few minutes.

It’s still warm, but it’s a manageable warmth. Evening should be more comfortable.

Current Music: Aimee Mann, Ghost World
Current Location: home

Fun with Electricity! (Also Coffee and the Bust of the Year)

Heat wave + 3-day weekend = way too much hot air trying to sneak into the server room. Extra measures are being taken to ensure that the server AC can keep things cool, but I’m probably going to spend much of the weekend worrying about getting a “Server X down” SMS.

Brownout during lunchtime. I was at the Spectrum food court. All the lights flickered off and back on, and the muzak went silent for just a second. Twice. Here at work, most of the desktop machines rebooted. (Servers, of course, are on UPS.)

Coffee Crisis! Coffee maker at work shut off this morning just a few cups in. Determined that the power outlet had gone dead. Tried plugging it into another outlet, via extension cord + power strip. Power strip started buzzing, then circuit breaker tripped. Further analysis of coffee maker’s plug identified melted, cracked plastic. The company we lease it from can’t send out a replacement ’til Tuesday.

So, only 3 cups of coffee for the entire office. No gladiatorial combat, oddly enough. Though I did joke that it must be a fiendish plot by the cafe downstairs to sell more coffee.

Bust of the Century: Yesterday afternoon, got onto the 405 and immediately got stuck in traffic. Turned out to all be rubbernecking from something going on by the side of the road, where police were searching a stopped car. Lots of them. At least 5 squad cars, from at least 2 different cities, and a sheriff’s car.

Current Location: work

Bookses

Finished reading The Man Who Was Thursday on Friday.

Went to see Stardust again. It holds up quite well to a second viewing. Ever since seeing it last week I’ve been desperate to reread the novel, but maldis still has my copy. Since we were near a bookstore, I decided to pick up the paperback version, though, since it’s actually a different format than the one I’ve got already. The downside is that it doesn’t have Charles Vess’ illustrations. The upside is that it’s more portable.

I ended up rereading the whole thing last night. short comparison.

We’ve been trying to be out during the hottest part of the day, since our air conditioner isn’t terribly effective. It’s not really the AC’s fault, it’s the airflow in the apartment (or lack thereof). I’m out on the balcony right now, which is really nice. Step through the giant open screen door into the living room, and it jumps up considerably. Further back, into the room with the computers? Forget it!

So I’m sitting outside, occasionally glancing out at the trees, or up at the not-quite first-quarter moon, typing on the laptop.

Current Music: You Better Leave the Stars Alone, Ego Likeness
Current Location: home

Random

Got out to Santa Monica last week to meet up with my brother and his coworkers as they returned from a conference in Taiwan via LAX. Must remember to post pictures of dinosaur topiary and sundry oddness. (Edit: I finally got around to it.)

Speaking of photos, alenxa and I managed to get some really interesting cloud & sunset pictures yesterday.

Saw Stardust w/ andrea_wot and zehntaur. It was good. Disappointed to find how few people went to see it, though. Seriously, Rush Hour 3? At least it didn’t lose to Daddy Day Camp. Anyway, Stardust is highly recommended. If you haven’t seen it, try to catch it this weekend while it’s still in theaters.

Apartments are resurfacing the parking lots this week. Tomorrow through Saturday we’ll have to park on the street. This place doesn’t have enough street parking normally, never mind when 1/4 of the spaces are unavailable.

The Question of the Day

It seems that the question of the day is, “What page are you on?”

No spoilers.

I’d pretty much figured on not picking up Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until after Comic-Con. I had some things I wanted to make sure I got finished first, in particular some website updates. But then alenxa finished the book on Saturday, and I decided that the updates I had left weren’t quite so important as the ones I’d done Saturday afternoon. So I picked up the book Sunday afternoon, and put it down around 11:00 at night, a little over halfway through.

This morning I took the car in for some fairly major maintenance. They’d offered a complementary rental, which I happily accepted, and arranged for Enterprise to send someone over. (I would have been quite willing to walk, since it was hardly even sprinkling, but figured if they’d made the arrangements, I might as well. As it is, I think it would have been faster to walk.)

Naturally I pulled the book out in the waiting room. After a few minutes, the 50-ish man a few chairs over asked,

“What page are you on?”

“428.”

“432.”

I found it funny that we were not only both reading it, but within a few pages of each other.

After picking up the rental, I drove over to my allergist. Afterward, as I was making my next appointment with the new receptionist, I noticed the book on her desk (open and upside-down, but it was recognizable by size, color, and a name which jumped out at me before I looked away). Before I had a chance to mention it, the doctor walked up, noticed my copy sitting on the counter, and said, “Oh, you’re reading it too?” She then explained that her son and daughter (the latter turned out to be the unfamiliar receptionist) had each gotten their own copy so they could both read it immediately. At this point the daughter asked me,

“What page are you on?”

I opened the book. “448.”

“Oh, I’m on page 530” (or something around there). “I’ll close it so you don’t see anything.”