Yes, I have been blogslacking. Again.
Let’s get past that and on to the real content, shall we?
Since mid-March… hrm. Concert with Ann Hampton Callaway at the Roberts Orpheum fka the American Theatre. (I was giddier about the balcony on stage right where Eddie Vedder swung around in the video for [I think] “Alive”.) Managed to appear for roughly 3.2 seconds on NBC Nightly News; video and story are still online. (That one stupid sentence appeared in a Parade Magazine classroom-related bit too, apparently.) Somebody tried stealing Nigel, but failed miserably; we missed this year’s gay rodeo as a result, but the good news is that the insurance will handle all costs beyond the deductible (to include new driver’s side window and door handle and key lock, shroud for steering column, and some newly-surfaced dents on the door proper). Had appointments with our nurse practitioner (last week) and optometrist (today); everything is peachy keen on that front, though my eyeballs still hurt a bit (student optometrist + first day of clinicals with real patients = NERVOUS and a wee bit rough). Looking at houses with 4+ bedrooms, as ye olde clock is ticking. Been working out pretty well, doing squats et al. for legs and using the Perfect Pushup (as recommended by Jocko) for upper body; legs are progressing as normal but I am completely loving the P.P. bars even though (and perhaps because) they kick my ass. Got my mother hooked on Lush by giving her a gift assortment thingy for her bday.
Work… uh, well, I’m still employed, even though some days it is VERY TEMPTING to call somebody a vapid self-absorbed fuckwit. Still in the market for something else, if any of you know of anything.
Fred’s good. He keeps up with his classwork better than me (cough, cough), and is in the thick of clinicals. Sometime in June or July he’ll receive his provisional license for massage therapy, and can start seeing actual clients rather than those who swing by the school. (He already has a couple lined up…) However, he is a bigger blogslacker than I, hint hint.
My ten-year high school reunion fast approaches. Honestly, I don’t care. In the prepwork I found quite a few people on MySpace that I’d rather avoid, and only two that I’d actually want to see again (one of whom I’d only want to see because I had a notable crush on him in HS). Better to stick to electronic means as far as I’m concerned, because that way I can be much more selective.
That’s all I can think of. Please ask if you want to know anything further. (can’t guarantee that i’ll give you the answer you seek, but you are more than welcome to ask.)
May 15, 2007 2 Comments
Um, and again.
Since the last update… well, Ed got married, I got engaged to Fred, I keep moving up in the Wikipedia active-poster rankings, my workouts are becoming shorter but more intense, finished that project (thank God), learned that Fred is completely unwilling to learn how to keep score at a baseball game, we’ve started looking for a place together, I’ve started looking for another job, and we became addicted to Amazing Race (sooooooo glad that Uchenna and Joyce won…).
More this next week; in the meantime I have a man who requires specific attention, hint hint.
May 21, 2005 Comments Off
Back again…
Started singing with the Gateway Men’s Chorus, the local gay men’s, uh, chorus, at the urging of the aforementioned BF/P/SB. I also managed to get myself into the Gateway Singers, the auditioned ensemble formed from the larger chorus; that seems to be mostly about timing, though, as the director was looking for a baritone/bass and I just happened to be thinking about joining the chorus. Doesn’t hurt that I can read music, though, or that I have a bit of experience. (or that I’m sleeping with one of the high tenors.)
Ed’s getting married this weekend, and I’m the best man, and I still have to write a toast.
I MUST find the lyrics to “One Two Cha Cha Cha” by Usha Uthup and chorus. The movie it’s from (”Shalimar“) is TOTAL cheeseball, but the music is suitably funky and desi all at once. This particular piece starts it all off and is probably the best earworm-killer I have yet found.
And while I’m thinking about Wikipedia… turns out I’m one of the top thousand (human) contributors to the main article namespace on the largest ‘Pedia (the English-language one). Not entirely sure how to feel about this; after all, most of my edits have been reverts of vandalism, spelling or grammatical fixes, or minor copyediting. (Yes, I’m becoming a WikiGnome.)
Not feeling the workout today — otherwise I’d already be down there — so I’m skipping it. Harrumph. Otherwise, though, things are progressing nicely: squats are about to hit the 405-pound mark (4 45-pound plates on either side of the 45-pound bar), toe raises on the leg-press sled just reached 585 lbs, weights on upper-body exercises are increasing by leaps and bounds, and the mid-section is becoming strong and flexible. I’m even (slowly) upping the amount of cardio I’m doing.
Work… sucks. As always. But at least some key people are starting to develop clue about the wealth of documentation already available on the company intranet.
The network admin and I are talking about developing a new database system for the company, though. Well, OK — we have discussed it jokingly for over a year now, but we’re moving away from the “jokingly” and more towards the “seriously” now. It’d be a MySQL/PHP/Apache project, like so many others, but would be specifically geared towards our unusual needs.
Then again, I have to finish a major project before we can start on any of it, as its deadline got moved up by almost a month. grrr.
Yes, I know I’m rambling.
Oooh — while I’m thinking about it — I snagged a secondhand Thinkpad T23 from work, found its problem (bad hard drive), replaced the bad part, and got a slick Gentoo install going on it. Just need to get the onboard networking components running and it will be supersuh-weet.
Fred and I are going to be moving in together in June, when his current lease expires. We’re essentially living together now — he and I wear the same size, and I’m even wearing his clothes right now, for everything but the whities and the shoes — but it’ll become “official” then. Once we get through this whole wedding bit we’re going to start looking for a place…
The iPod’s filling up gradually, mostly with interesting MP3s I find places. Recent additions include Mozart’s Requiem, Beck’s newest album, a musical version of “Silence of the Lambs” (fave song: “Put the Fucking Lotion in the Basket”), and a German group that covers techno and pop songs in the style of Fred Astaire et al. (”Oops I Did It Again” sounds SO MUCH BETTER this way, I’m not kidding you). I’m also putting chorus rehearsal tracks on there to listen to obsessively.
The iPod has also helped me discover that Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” is completely and utterly inappropriate to play loudly from one’s car stereo when one has the windows down. Suffice to say, you will freak out everybody within earshot.
Going to the ballgame tonight. Should be good. They lost the last one I attended this year, and it was a real heartbreaker: Cardinals down by one, Danny Graves walked Larry Walker to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the night, and Albert Pujols — on the first pitch — grounded into a 5-4 double play. d’oh!
Tonight Fred will learn how to keep score at baseball games, whether he likes it or not. Neener.
More news to come later; now, peach cobbler. Mmmm.
April 26, 2005 Comments Off
A looooooooooong-overdue update.
Sorry about that. I got kinda busy around late October, and lost my will to blog after that whole November 2 nastiness. But I’m here again, and will be posting again regularly as time permits (more on that to follow).
So. Cards phoned in the World Series. I turned 25 amid chicken shawarma and metropolitans, all of which was yummy. Stood in line for an hour and a half at the polling place (because they split the book A-K and L-Z and 2/3 of the precinct is L-Z; some reports from later in the day had the L-Z line at 4 hours long) so that STL could go 82% for Kerry. Wailed; gnashed teeth; explored jobs in Canada and New Zealand but decided ultimately to stick around and cause tremendous grief for the Republicans by living well despite their best efforts (neener!).
Worked. Worked. Worked. Took a teensy bit of vacation time scattered across November and December (a day here, a day there).
Brought a now-departed-for-Florida roommate to Thanksgiving with the fam. Had lovely brined ‘n’ smoked turkey and lots of other delish fare; had the fam share embarrassing stories about me simply because I brought a guest.
Went with roommate DD to his old haunts in Wisconsin, with a stop at IKEA in Chicago the day after T’giving en route. Went to a Packers game, too. Got a 15-foot Christmas tree and loaded it up for the drive back.
Um, worked more.
Met this boy through a particular well-known site known more for hook-ups (and attempts thereat) and drama than for stable relationships. Have dated him regularly since, and am really quite smitten with the lad. (More details on him in a future post, once I determine how much he wants revealed on here.)
Got clothes, iPod (from self, a 40-gigger), megahuge hard drive (400GB, which is now in a fresh-built-from-old-parts Samba server), and other interesting things for Christmas. Brought R* to the family Christmas dinner; had roast duck and other lovely delights. No stories, as R* had already heard many of them; instead R* and I spec’d out his new PC.
Went to a NYE party with the new boy, who really needs an acro- or pseudonym, at the house of one of his friends. Had our first — well, not really an argument per se, but definitely at least a disagreement — between dinner (Arcelia’s, yum!) and the party itself, but managed to pull ourselves together in time for the party. Brought a bottle of champagne like everybody else (at midnight, there were 15 people and 12 bottles of champagne). Ate, drank, made merry on an unseasonably warm night. Sang ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at midnight while accompanied by the host’s piano and PIPE ORGAN; it was definitely the most ostentatious rendition of that beloved song I’ve ever heard. Kissed aforementioned boy. Drank, drank, drank. Socialized with the FATTEST pugs I have ever met (one laid down and resembled a lozenge). Went home, made out with boy some, went to sleep.
Worked lots ever since. Have more plans with the boy this weekend.
I’m still in Soulard, still editing Wikipedia (and you can too!), still driving my beloved Mini, still bitching about my users to anybody who’ll hear me, still half-heartedly looking for a new job, still lifting weights, still tinkering with interesting foods, and still tinkering in general.
I’m going to follow this post with one containing R*’s Trini chicken curry recipe, which is quite good, and for which he has given me permission to post. Of course, I’m going to be posting my own slightly-modified version…
January 5, 2005 Comments Off
Ack, I’m sorry.
Between work and moving (just across town, don’t get all freaky on me) and general mishegoss, I’ve been lax in updating this blog o’mine. For that, I am very sorry. Please forgive.
I’m about to post some stuff that’s been rotting on queue for a while, including a combined August/September search-query-results recap and an update to the gulab jamun recipe. After that… well, you know the drill.
October 7, 2004 Comments Off
