August 2005 Archives

The Itty Bitty's team had their first game today... well, technically it was more of an exhibition pre-game kinda game, which is good because we didn't exactly win. We only lost 6-0, though, which is not so bad considering their little guys were lots bigger than our little guys.

Here's my daughter cheering on her valiant Sea Lions:

I'm going out of town tomorrow so I wasn't even bright enough to bring anything to keep me entertained (except, obviously, for the all-important camera).

Did manage to get down to the Gap and pick up some "Curvy" jeans and other pants... and grab lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant which is, sadly, not very convenient from our new house. On the other hand, the Mexican food available in Watsonville is spectacular, so as always, there are tradeoffs.

Tomorrow I will be spending a fun and exciting 10 hours travelling between here and Ottawa. I could have made it in much less, but the Cisco Travel Network scolded me for being non-frugal, so I shall be languishing in the Chicago airport for 4 hours. It'll give me a chance to work on the presentation I'm supposed to make on Wednesday, so that's good. In fact, knowing I'll have that layover has given me a good excuse to procrastinate on the presentation until now, so in a way it's been very helpful.

Yes, as the header says, I understand that I'm a bad blogger. I know we have this relationship, this writer/reader thing, and in order to hold up my end of the bargain I need to actually write something periodically. What have I been doing instead? I'd love to say that I've been doing some fabulously crafty thing so I can regale you with pictures and win back your love, but really, truly, what I've been doing is... driving.

I'm hoping to find someone to sponsor me for a Frequent Driver Mileage program. My daughter just started Pop Warner Cheerleading this year, and it seemed like a much better idea before we moved - now the practice site is at the other end of the county (which is, of course, on the other end of the traffic) so my evenings are completely controlled by getting her to practice from 5:30 to 7:30, every single weekday.

Sadly, you can't knit while you drive. I would spend the time listening to a book on tape but both kids want to talk to me, so we do that. Devon and I generally find someone's house to hang out at, or something else to do for her cheer time, so it's not terribly wasted time, but I am away from the house from 4:00 'till 8:00 most evenings, so I've just plummetted in my domesticology skills.

I dunno. Is it worth it?

Yep.

I'll be out of town next week, so I'm taking Friday off from my job to take the kids to the circus. The real one, the Ringling Bros. 3-ring circus with the animals and scary clowns and the human cannonballs. Strangely, I am actually looking forward to this - the last time I saw a real, big circus I was about 6 years old.

As most of my readers have probably noticed, I tend to keep a lot on my plate at once. I've got a lot of energy, and a lot of things I want to do with that energy. However, I'm not necessarily good (who am I kidding, I'm completely awful) at the whole 'day-to-day' things that other people magically achieve. Keeping track of my keys/phone/credit cards. Making/keeping appointments. Yes, I have ical and it's very nice... when I remember to start it up. It even puts schedule on my phone... when I remember to tell it to sync.

Anyhow, one of the things about which I am so neglectful is my car. Thank heavens it's a Honda so it doesn't need much attention, but periodically, yes, I need to have it serviced. Last time I had it serviced was *waves hands vaguely* a while ago, and about a month ago I noticed that my brakes were squeaky and I made a mental note that I *should* make an *appointment* to get the brakes fixed (oh, and an oil change too). This morning I realized the squeak was gone and the squish had appeared. Uh oh.

Now, usually what I do at this point is to call and make an appointment with the auto guy for 3 weeks from yesterday and spend all of the intervening time certain that my brakes are going to go out, killing my family, because I am a flake. Oh, I know, I could drive my husband's car most of the time. But he doesn't have satellite radio, so that's out.

Anyhow, being as I am a research fiend, I checked Monterey Bay Opinions to see if I could find any highly rated local auto folks so I could start the ticking clock of anxiety before the brakes are actually fixed. I picked the most highly rated place and called them up. He said "I can fit you in any time after Tuesday..." (at this, my heart leaped. Tuesday, that's not so bad!) "...or I had a cancellation today if you can come in right now." Hurray! So now I'm sitting in Starbucks while my car becomes less squeaky and more safe. I'm very happy to have been so lucky - must be clean living or something.

I managed to unpack my yarn yesterday, so I can get back to work on those Fixation Broadripple Socks. Our house is starting to really shape up well, and I'm starting to feel somewhat less anxious about things in general... plus I've been assured that I will see the sun next month so I'm looking forward to that.

Oh hey, I also found my camera, so I will put up some pictures reallyreallyreally soon!

*warning, no knitting content here, only read if you're interested in detailed minutae of my life*

*oh, also, sorry for the lack of pictures. My camera is on the fritz*

Good grief, what a busy month I've had. We moved on July 15th, and that went well, but since we're moving from a Really Really Big House into a much more reasonably sized one, many of our less treasured items have had to find new homes. We tried to pre-filter our stuff (using a dumpster and several charity runs) and did a decent job, but the truth remains that we still have too much stuff so the last 20% of our unpacking is going somewhat slowly. Sadly, my yarn remains packed - not that I would have any time to fondle it even if it were freed from the confines of its box...

Last week I went to a conference related to my Actual Job. I am a Geek so it was basically Geek Con. It was great fun, I attended tutorials and sessions, tried to cram in a bunch of work, and actually met new people. Usually, during these things I cling pitifully to the side of my co-worker and avoid talking to anyone I find intimidating. At OSCON, pretty much everyone is intimidating to me, so I generally hide in the corner and focus on my laptop. I've been 3 times so far, and that's my M.O.

This year, after getting abandoned by my co-worker for an evening (he had friends to visit with) I went to a party at an 80's arcade bar (free beer! free pizza! free video games!) I was sorely tempted to just buy a book and sit down by the hotel pool instead but I steeled myself and pulled on my Stonehenge t-shirt (required for entry) and boarded the train for downtown. As it turns out, it was fun! There were a zillion old video games (Robotech! Tron! Ms. PacMan!) so after I got my pizza and beer I went off in search of my old favorite, Tempest. They had it, and the game was in great shape, so I played that pretty much all night, getting hit on by several geek guys who were impressed with my Tempest Prowess and other geeky traits.

The next night I actually chose to go to another couple of events in our hotel - I had some snacks and hung out at a MySql reception. A little later, I ended up wandering upstairs to a party filled with those very people I find so intimidating (celebrities in the open source world). I brought a Scrabble game hoping I might find someone who might want to play... after going in and surveying the scene I decided to bail and just go to bed. I headed back out the door, but before I could get to the elevators I was stopped by a very kind (and cute) guy who had seen me wander through.

"Hey, where are you going?"
"Back downstairs... "
"Why?"
"Um, I don't know anyone in there, and they're scary."
"Come back in and I'll introduce you to some of them."

So back we went into the party. Turns out that these geek celebrities were, in fact, just regular folks. And pretty nice ones, at that. The party got broken up at midnight so a bunch of us just went down to hang out in the lobby. I fully intended to go to bed when we got down there, but there were all these fun people having a great conversation, and whenever someone would leave, another interesting person would wander through and stick around to talk. Presently, the same guy who had originally kept me from leaving came down and sat with us. I tell you, a geek girl in a room full of geek guys generates a *lot* of positive attention waves so I stayed to bask in the limelight... I didn't end up getting any sleep that night, but I sure had fun. And I'm sure we were great entertainment for the night staff at the front desk of the lobby.

The next morning I had a job interview. Normally I would be worried about a job interview on basically no sleep, but what the heck, these were geek guys asking questions about my favorite topic (me!) It went well and they seem quite cool, so I'm hoping to hear from them about a possible job...

In other news, I did get my green belt in Bujinkan, so I'm one step closer to being an actual ninja :-)

Cross your fingers that I get some unpacking done so I can, you know, relax sometime soon. And maybe even knit.