Life Can Be So Nice

A rare full-weekend off (complete with rawkin' thunderstorm line that marched through here as I started to write this) affords me the opportunity to say "HI!!!!" to everyone out there in the internets and also update this thing on recent life and stuff like that. A welcoming shout-out is also holla'd out to Mike Oberstar, whom I haven't seen in a looong time and who stopped in at the store over the last week for a nice chat.

First things first, the accursed car is running fine and dandy, thank you very much. That being said, there is one new issue to be reported as it now appears that the rear brakes may be in need of imminent maintenance (though not to the same degree as the front set). We'll just see about that. Really.

Thanks to said car, I'm still in "save money and pay off debts for a couple of months" mode, and I'll be tackling some sundry projects here and there to keep myself occupied for a bit. First and foremost of these new projects is the final relocation of all these goddamn boxes that have been sitting in this office since the day we moved in this condo (which is about a week and change short of a year ago now).

There is also the pressing need I feel to back up about 90 gigs worth of data from this computer as well, just in case of some catastrophic system failure that would leave me pretty well fucked if it happened, say, tomorrow. Backing up on that scale is, of course, a monstrously tedious task which is not made any easier by the never-ending stream of new stuff I keep grabbing off usenet (and lately courtesy of that amazing technological creation called Bit Torrent, though I've been having some system stability issues with that lately) not to mention my weekly sweeps of a few dozen mp3 blogs.

Another project that I'd like to tackle as I get some spare time is picking up some additional HTML skillz. Y'all might have noticed the explosion of pictures on this blog over the last couple of months, and I'm starting to get the hang of some other tricks of the trade here and there which, ultimately, points towards me joining the rest of the late Twentieth Century and creating an actual website with links and pictures and Goat knows what else. As of right now, this is all that I've put together...but I'll let y'all know if and when that changes.

While we're on that tip, I wouldn't mind tarting up this blog a bit as well since I think I'm starting to tire a bit with this template and a distinct lack of handy accoutrements that I have not figured out how to add to this page yet (i.e., links to other blogs and friends and et cetera). I'd also be interested someday in setting up a Google homepage ... but this all much farther down the line.

Last Sunday was a pretty good day all around as we headed downtown and spent a few hours in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with an old 'net friend, the one and only Dave Lynch (no, not the damned movie director), who was in town visiting. We hadn't seen Dave since we met for lunch at Hopkins Airport (with a swing over to Tower City for the "food" part) a couple of years ago easy, and we haven't been in the Rock Hall since the summer of 2001.

It was a blast to hang out with Dave again (though I wish the weather had been slightly more agreeable on that day) and it was fun to see some new displays and presentations at the Hall (though I can't say I was overly thrilled to see that the featured attraction this year is devoted to freakin' Tommy of all things). I really need sometime to just get down there at opening time and spend the entire day in the place, checking out everything as thoroughlly as possible and not feeling like time is running low (for whatever reason, we always seem to wind up being in a rush for one reason or another when we are down there and I keep thinking we missed something somewhere).

In an amusing new development, despite being neutered almost as soon as we brought him home, it looks like little Moe has discovered the joys of dry-humping Ghidorah's back. Even better yet, his preferred place for engaging in this happens to be in the bay window in full view of anyone who happens to be walking, driving or biking by. Beautiful.

Otherwise, things are going pretty fairly here during the times we aren't hosting amateur performances of Behind The Green Curtain for the neighbors. My job continues to go well, with this month looking so far like it'll be a bit more helpful towards attaining our new best-year-ever figure than July or June (which were rather flat). Sarah has a new job at Case which she started this past week and involves lab mice in many aspects -- not limited to working with them, monitoring them, breeding them, and eventually performing surgery on them. Insert "eewww" face here.

Speaking of my job, my friend (and ex Record Den co-worker) Dave Makatura has started hosting a whole bunch of Record Den pictures of varying vintage on the Other Pages section of his long-running website for the enjoyment of those interested. Some of these date back as far as 1982, and a few of them had me blanching in horror at clothes I only distantly recall and a haircut that I must have blocked from my memory for a decade...

Alright, it's off for now to enjoy the rest of my Saturday in one form or another. I think I might busy myself with one of the projects I mentioned above...or perhaps we may hang out with friends, or there are a couple of video games that I've picked up over the last couple of YEARS that I still haven't found the time to play, maybe some catching up on DVDs or the rest of the books I have yet to read...

Gads. Where did all the free time go?

NP Our Daughter's Wedding Digital Cowboy