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November 12th, 2009
james_nicoll
 | 12:33 am - Wednesday Night D&D
It was both a standup fight and another bughunt.
( Read more... )
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kajafoglio
 | 09:29 pm - Experiment #1 Torments His Sister
We're leaving early tomorrow for Windycon. In the meantime, here are my children:
The best part is that Alex keeps watching this over and over again, and it makes her laugh like a loon. Hm.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/amused.gif) amused
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spiritdance
 | 10:49 pm
I've been understandably a bit overwhelmed the last several days.
Dad was a tough, but good father to me and my brother.
He had taken early retirement from Allegheny Power after 31 years of service there - about 12 years ago, now. The last year or so he was working at Fort Martin power station, ourside of Morgantown, WV (long story of how that happened - short version was a company reorganization that sent him working 2 hours drive from home the last 3 years before retirement). Anyhow, we actually both had apartments in the same building for a year or so - he drove up Monday morning to work from home, stayed in his apartment thru Thursday evening, and drove home after work on Friday. It was pretty nice, having him for a neighbor :)
After retirement, he finally got a chance to expand several hobbies - woodworking, biking, ham radio, following NASCAR racing, to name a few. If you visit our place, you can see some good examples of his woodworking skills - the kids' solid wood rocking horses, the bunkbeds, the play structure in our back yard. Not to mention the landscaping project in the front yard :) Or you could try what he did in 2008 - a 100 mile bike trip in one day (yes, that was at age 66). Ham radio fans? His call sign was W8UI (for those not familiar with ham radio - you can't get a 4 character call sign any more - they ran out of those about 20 years ago, IIRC), and he was qualified as an Amateur Extra. We have a picture of Dad with his favorite NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhart, Jr (I did a double-take, and realized, yes, that was Dale, Jr, not a cardboard standup/poster).
Oh, the people we've seen the last two days. College buddies, other ham radio operators, fellow bikers, men he had in his boy scout troop years ago, coffee buddies, folks he and mom did country line dancing and western square dance, friends from church, fellow Mon Power retirees, men he had helped going thru prostate cancer treatment ...
Family - both his brothers and sisters, and his foster family - every single one of them, 15 siblings total - were there. His foster parents. My mother's two surviving sisters. More cousins on Mom's side of the family than I can count.
And my brother came, along with his family. The brother we haven't had any communication with for over 6 years.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/ibrad/smile.gif) thankful
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November 11th, 2009
brokenallbroken
 | 06:20 pm - Finishing up what I started watching last night
Really, really nice of the jidges to not flat-out state "virgins can't dance Latin". Adam got close. Those two simply haven't had time to become interesting.
I like this Cheeseman fellow. We can keep him.
Russell and Noelle appear to be this season's Power Couple. I'm not entirely sold on her yet, but it's getting there.
And two Disney shout-outs in a single night! Jungle Book and Princess and the Frog. Awesome. Pity the second one didn't get picked up on. Maybe because it's Fox?
Current Music: jidges bloviating
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brokenallbroken
 | 05:09 pm - AAAUGH!
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cleolinda mentioned in a recent post I just now read a peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-Fil-A. This sounds like almost perfect me food, distilled into a single cup. There is no Chick-Fil-A within 100 mi. of here. One does get tired of living in a semi-civilized hole.
Back when TGI Friday's first opened and was actually still awesome*, they had a peppermint chocolate chip milkshake. They called it Pink Panther, and I ordered it all the time. Because it was peppermint with chocolate chips. And a milkshake. I think they had a plain mint version too (Grasshopper, natch). They had many variations on "drink with ice cream in" that were more complex than the flavor choices at McDonalds. I don't know exactly when they got rid of their truly awesome drinks, but they did. If I could smush awesomedrink!Friday's into JackDanielssauceonEVERYTHING!Friday's, truly, I would never need to eat anywhere else.
Unless I wanted Ethnic food of some stripe.
I would also weigh 400 lbs.
*Back before every single "family" restaurant looked like a flea market had vomited on the walls. This was also back when Olive Garden served their breadsticks in real wicker baskets with an actual cloth napkin**. I.E., when I was ten.
**YES, SOME OF US NOTICED THE SWITCH TO PLASTIC AND PAPER, KTHX.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/angry.gif) bitchy
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james_nicoll
| 03:57 pm - Not to tread on other people's terrritory but
Guess the state:
Marine reservist attacks Greek Orthodox Priest
Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions:
The man tried to rob him.
The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.
The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.
"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them.
Nicked from nihilistic_kid
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crazychicknlady
 | 01:42 pm - Quote of the day
"Playing with mousetraps is fun." - H, age 8 and a half.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/happy.gif) amused
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johno
 | 10:54 am
Air Force, Army, Marines & Navy.
Members of my family have served in them all.
One cousin crossed the Libyan "line of death" in a nuclear cruiser.
Another was a front line chaplain's assistant in the 1st gulf war.
One uncle joined the navy at the tail end of the Korean war.
Another did 3 tours in Vietnam and never recovered from PTSD.
Yet another did 20 years in the Navy serving during both the Korean & Vietnam wars.
And yet another did his 2 year draft time between the two wars.
Me, I did 5 years in the Air Force during the "quiet" 80s.
We are quietly proud of our service, but we have none of the arrogant "I served so you should honor me" bullshit.
We are honest about our service. We may not tell you everything we did, but what you'll hear is the unvarnished truth.
So for everyone thanking veterans today, no thanks are needed. We did what needed doing.
To those who serve today and have served, I salute you.
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james_nicoll
| 11:28 am - Whole Earth Discipline: New Nukes
Brand's annotations
I've been trying to stretch reading this out over as long a period as possible but of the chapters so far, this is the one most likely to send Brand's circle of friends and colleagues into paroxysms of rage.
( Read more... )
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mdlbear
 | 09:26 am - Wishful Wednesday, Work Party
Today is Wishful
Wednesday, when I point at my Caregiver's Wishlist.
Thanks especially to tetralizard, who sorted my health care
receipts last weekend.
And a reminder: Saturday, November 14th, our friend Andrew M
Crockett (contact him via the preceeding name, with no spaces, at gmail
dot com) has organized a "Starport Hardware Upgrade" work party. This will
not be a potluck -- we're supplying food and drink, so you need
to contact either Andrew or me so we know who's coming.
We also need rakes and shovels and implements of destruction: we'll be
putting in raised vegetable beds in the back yard, and concrete ramps in
the front. Besides the "day laborers", we could also use some help in the
kitchen and elsewhere inside the house -- don't feel that you shouldn't
come if you can't do yard work.
Thanks in advance.
Current Location: Grand Central Starport (o)
Current Mood: okay
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mdlbear
| 08:32 am - Done yesterday (20091110 Tu)
( raw notes )
I spent most of yesterday feeling rather groggy and underslept -- I think
I got four or five hours, between having trouble getting to sleep in the
first place, and being up between roughly 2 and 5am. The snuggle was
good, but I paid for it.
Took a good walk at lunchtime: down to Safeway on Sand Hill, and back the
long way via the pond. Noticably out of shape, but I think improving.
I have been working my way through Ten Days to
Self-Esteem by David D Burns. So far it's almost entirely about
depression and anxiety. It took me a while to resign myself to writing in
a book; it's not something I normally do. Some of the exercises are
surprisingly difficult -- they assume some background information that I
don't have, and ways of thinking that I'm not used to. Good for me, I
suppose.
I slept soundly last night thanks to a hot bath, cyclobenzaprine, and
snuggle.
Links up in the raw notes -- I'm feeling lazy.
Current Location: Grand Central Starport (o)
Current Mood: okay
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michimusic
 | 10:06 am - apple juice and "Blink" for dinner.
Did not go to class. Did not walk the dog. Did not even crack the chips, which have been dinner the last two nights.
Sick night at home gave me a great excuse to lay in bed and finish reading Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," a scientific ode to the unconscious. And then I had strange dreams.
I woke up wanting to know why I had to write a movie review for the new Batman, and why Jack Nicholson was playing the role of "the Gump" (the flying couch), when that character was so obviously stolen from "Return to Oz."
Anybody?
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papersky
 | 12:04 pm - Remembrance day
And what shall we remember?
That war is horrible?
People, young men traditionally,
get marched off to die,
in ugly futility
or destined glory
Rupert Brooke
on a naval expedition to Constantinople
or Wilfrid Owen
slogging across years of broken bodies.
Parade them out sadly,
the ghosts of the Great War
who have not grown old
and would be dead anyway.
Shall we remember the real forgotten
who left us no poetry
who fell in the morass they did not make
so very young, saluting,
going one more time over the top
to face the carnage, the guns, the bombs,
far from their homes,
their email, their iPods,
in far Iraq, Afghanistan,
the ghastly crop of this year's dead?
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