Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

I am sitting downstairs at our breakfast table. Earl is cooking lunch (I believe we are having sausage roll) and watching some entertainment gossip show at the same time. I’ve been messing around with the computer and I just got around to taking a shower.

I have to admit that after 34 1/2 years in this life, some people may be right. My moods can be like a pendulum. Now I’m not some whackos that goes from 0 to 60 on the rage scale in five seconds, but I guess I tend to look at all sides of the situation and I tend to want to try all things. For example, I switched web page software today (again) and installed Microsoft FrontPage 2002. That’s a complete 180 from my anti-Microsoft stance last week, now isn’t it. 🙂

When I’m on “one side” of an argument, I stay on that side and stand my ground, but when it’s more trivial stuff (should we go to the movies, what do you want for supper, Linux-Windows-Linux-Windows) I tend to look at all sides (advantages/disadvantages) of this situation. Does this mean I’m a mess? Maybe … but at least I recognize it now.

I’m slowly accomplishing my 2003 resolutions and it’s Jan 4th! I haven’t fallen off the wagon yet.

Tonight we are going to see “Lord of the Rings”, the second installment. We watched the DVD of the first one on New Year’s Eve, now we’re ready to see the one currently in theatres. After Lord of the Ring, we watched Dick Clark and his usual drop the ball ceremony. I have a theory that he’s really not there at all and just recorded 15 years or so ahead of time and now we’re seeing that. But I can be a conspiracy theory whacko when I want to be.

I finally decided to shave off my mustache. When I did so, I instantly felt better about myself. I don’t know why I put such stock into my physical appearance, but I admit it, I am very vain. I may not be the prettiest on the block, but I carry myself like I am. 🙂

It’s been several hours since I started this entry, now Earl is taking a shower and we are getting ready to head to a 6:30 movie – “Lord of the Rings”. It should be a fun night.

12/29/2002

I’ve been slightly following this story about the cloning of a human, presumably in Europe. Now, I’m a pretty liberal guy and I have pretty libery ideals, but the idea of cloning human beings makes me sick. It’s coming to close to playing God for me. There are many whackos in the world who would like to play God, and this just gives them another tool to do so. And to name her Eve. What a crock of crap. I personally find the idea of cloning a human similar to purchasing a car just like your own at a junk yard so that you have spare parts. And that is just sick (the cloning, not the extra car). Maybe they see something beneficial that I don’t see, but right now I think human cloning is just wrong.

Earl and I are busying ourselves about the house today. Baking, exercising, cleaning. It’s an odd time of the year, since work is “stop and go, stop and go”… not very busy at all and with so many days off you can’t really keep track of what day it is. Not that I’m complaining or anything.

I worked on my clock system this afternoon and got the outdoor clocks working again. I haven’t mentioned this to Earl, but I’d like to get a miniature tower clock for the front yard, when the new landscaping goes in this spring, even if we have to have it custom made ourselves.

I am writing this entry on my Palm m515. Earl and I went to Syracuse today to do some shopping and to meet my mom and sister for lunch, in celebration of my mom’s birthday yesterday. Anyways, we had a lovely lunch, and while we were out there, we decided to spend some Christmas gift certificates. We went to Shoppingtown Mall, where we each had a $25 gift certificate from my mom and her boyfriend. One of the stores there is a Media Play. What do you know, they had the Palm Portable Keyboard there for 1/2 price… marked down from $99.99 to $49.98. I was quite pleased, to say the least. So I used my gift certificate to offset the price of the keyboard even more, and here I am with one of these nifty keyboards now. I’m hoping by purchasing this keyboard I am going to be more inclined to write in my blog while we’re traveling about. I may even use it to write downstairs while watching television, rather than sitting up here in the computer room away from Earl. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be write in my blogs more. Hopefully, you’ll see the results.

Our lunch together was at Applebee’s, and was quite enjoyable. We took our time and just laughed and laughed and laughed. And I ate pretty healthy as well, which is always a good thing.

Afterwards we all went over to Bed, Bath and Beyond and to Target. Earl and I picked up some new exercise stuff at Target. Like most of middle America, we are looking forward to getting back to our exercise routine with the coming of the New Year. One of my co-workers has been raving about these “push up bars”, so we are going to give them a whirl. I initially hope to do one hour of exercising a day, 7 days a week. I want to work up to 2 hours (one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening), but we’ll have to see if I stick to the first goal before looking to expand upon that.

I had forgotten what a Star Trek fan I am. Tonight Earl and I watched “ST: The Wrath of Khan” and “ST: The Search for Spock” back to back and I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. ‘Khan’ is my favorite Star Trek movie and I’ve seen that tons of times, but I hadn’t seen Search for Spock in years and it was wonderful to see that as well. I look forward to getting more movies.

I better get to bed – busy day tomorrow.

Well this is distressing. I just typed a huge entry in my blog and good old DirecPC decided to disconnect for a bit and good old M$ Internet Explorer decided to lose it. Gosh, I hate Microsoft. Gosh, I hate DirecPC. Isn’t that statement full of love and warmth for the holiday season. 🙂

We had a wonderful trip to Philly – it was great to get together with everyone. We had lunch at Chick-Fil-A (of course) and then went to Earl’s dad’s for the annual party. It was festive and LOUD (lots of little kids) but a great time was had by all. We got home around midnight on Christmas Eve and did the smart thing and put the plow on the truck because…

… we got 30 inches of snow on Christmas Day. That’s right – 2 1/2 feet. The roads were barely plowed and my folks barely made it here – but everyone made it safely and a good time was had by all. It took my Dad 3 1/2 hours to make a 45 minute trip but that’s was o.k. Everyone was in the festive spirit.

Today Earl and I are celebrating our six year anniversary. I can’t believe it’s been six years! I look across the computer desk at him right now and I can’t believe how much in love I am with him. Words cannot express it. And they say these things don’t last. Well what do “they” know.

🙂

Here it is a couple of days before Christmas! The holiday season seems to be flying by so quickly this year. I think that’s in part because of the lateness of the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think that time is actually moving faster as well. It sure seems like it!

Last night we went to my Dad’s house for the annual family Christmas party. We had an absolutely wonderful time. Everyone was in very festive spirits and we saw a good number of my cousins and aunts and uncles – very nice. Earl and I and my sister Jennifer started a little bit of a tradition as well. We drink a bottle of wine before family gatherings. Probably not the best way to approach something but I guess it couldn’t hurt. 🙂

Earl and I did grocery shopping today for the Christmas day celebration. We are heading down to Philly tomorrow afternoon and coming back late Christmas Eve, and then my family is coming, in shifts, on Christmas Day. I’m looking forward to it. I have to pretty much work a regular schedule outside of the holidays, but that’s o.k. It’ll be slow and I’ll be able to catch up on a lot of things that I haven’t had the opportunity to do.

I’m still using Linux on the old computer – in fact it’s going strong right now. Though I am using the latest version of Mandrake (9.0) running KDE. I’m finding it a little bit easier to use that RedHat – though I did enjoy RedHat’s Bluecurve interface. Mandrake gives you many more desktop choices (as far as which GUI to use) and I appreciate that. I’d like to slowly convert many of the computers at work over to Linux, but honestly, I don’t know if I see that happening or not. Perhaps. To be honest, I really like Corel Linux that came with “WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux”, but I don’t know if it supports new hardware or not. I’d like to become very proficient in SQL so that I could do database administration. I think that’s my favorite aspect of computing.

My goatee has been bothering me. I’ve been growing it for two months now. I had initially started with a beard but then went down to the goatee when I decided I needed to keep shaving my head. It’s getting rather long but I feel like it’s very scraggly and I’m twiddling it constantly. That makes Earl crazy. So I may cut it off – I haven’t quite decided yet.

Earl’s been plugging along on his iMac and loving it. He’s becoming more proficient everyday with it. I’m glad that he’s enjoying it.

Well I smell supper cooking, I better go see if I can help out downstairs.

I am typing on Earl’s old Compaq Presario tonight. You’ll never believe it, but I decided that it needs to run RedHat Linux 8.0. It’s kind of nice, because I have an extra machine at the moment and I can experiment with Linux again without disrupting my work on my regular computer. Pretty cool circumstances.

Earl and I went to Buffalo over the weekend. Well actually, on Friday night we went and saw “Star Trek:Nemesis”. If you’re a Trekker go see. If you’re wanting to see what Star Trek is all about, skip it and go rent another Star Trek movie on DVD. I love Star Trek and while I’m not a wild and crazy Trekker type, I do look forward to the new movies and such. I found this one boring and predictable, and it had quite a few plot holes. It’s not one that I want to see again.

On Saturday we drove through a snow storm and headed out to Buffalo. Every year we do Christmas shopping all in one day, away from our home turf. This year we decided on Buffalo. We hit the Walden Galleria and got 90% of our shopping done in just a couple of hours. We then checked into the hotel, and then headed out to the older McKinley Mall. When I was going to college back in the late 1980s at SUNY Fredonia, McKinley Mall was *the* shopping spot. It’s holding it’s own pretty well against Walden Galleria.

We then went crazy with TGIFridays – appetizers AND dessert, but who cares it’s the holidays. At least I stuck to the no dairy/no chemicals/no sugar thing pretty well. Except maybe for the apple crisp at the end. I had a wonderful grilled vegetables dish that I look forward to having again!

We decided to go out for a drink Saturday night… actually two drinks. I like that bar “Buddies”. It’s a crowd that Earl and I fit in with well.

Sunday we drove home, stopping in Rochester on the way to tidy up the shopping. We bought a Sony DV mini cam for the house – that’s the “house present” this year. It’s kind of cool – we can edit videos on both the PC and the iMac. I’ll have to share our creations as they get, well, created.

And then it was back to work today. I was in a funk again, but snapped out of it in the late afternoon. I really don’t know why. There’s stuff irritating me at work, but I don’t know why because it’s really business as usual. I don’t think it’s work that’s putting me in a funk so much as time tells me that it’s the holidays but I don’t honestly feel it. I’m hoping that it kicks in this week for me when I go and do Earl’s Christmas shopping. At least I’m keeping calm at work while still in the funk. I know tomorrow will be a better day.

I am so excited. Tonight I found out the something that has had me wondering for years. Brett Somers is still alive. You remember Brett Somers. Once married to Jack Klugman, she’s probably remembered most from “Match Game”, upper row, center panelist. She, along with Charles Nelson Reilly, was on a “Game Show Reunion” version of Hollywood Squares this week. It was kind of cool, they had Peter Marshall hosting with Tom Bergeron in the center square. The Price is Right voice (Rob Roddy?) was doing the announcing, they had one of the lovely Price is Right models, and then your usual standards.. Wink Martindale, Bob Eubanks, Chuck Woolery… it was good fun. And it was great to see Brett Somers again. I had heard a couple of years ago that she lived in Upstate N.Y., and then I saw her on a rerun of Match Game ’90 on the Game Show Network where she looked very frail. Well tonight she still looks very frail but she still is chugging along. Good for you Brett!

Earl was in Buffalo last night getting acquainted with some of his new duties. Like this summer, he is working part time in Buffalo and part time in Utica again. It may become a permanent thing. I am very proud of him for his accomplishments. Ironically, we are going back to Buffalo this weekend for Christmas shopping and spending the night Saturday night. It should prove to be fun.

Tomorrow is the company Christmas party and retirement party for one of our employees. We have our Christmas party during the day… which is kind of convenient because then tomorrow night we can go see the new Star Trek movie.

I’ve been concentrating on my goals a little bit – let’s see how they pan out. I seem to be a little bit more calm at work.

I was frustrated last night because the clock system here at the house was going crazy. Come to find out, the underground wire between the house and the barn must be getting wet, because once I disconnected that circuit everything seemed fine. I am going to make some adjustments to it so that it doesn’t effect everything else when it shorts out. Let’s see if that helps it along!

I got antsy last night around 12:15 (mostly because Earl wasn’t home) and danced around the house like a maniac. It must have been good, because when I weighed myself this morning I was a very light 185 lbs. Very surprising! 🙂

I had a very strange dream last night where I was actually talking with Sylvia Browne. Sylvia, if you’re reading this, please let me know if we did talk last night. 🙂 It was an amazing conversation, but it had some ominous overtones to it and led into that recurring nightmare I had… but it didn’t feel as bad as it usually does. The nightmare I’m talking about is the one where Earl and I are approaching some sort of conscious decision to “cross over” because the world is coming to an end. Like we’re doing something for a “greater good” or to save others. I always get the sense that it is nuclear related somehow. Like we are giving up what we have to save others. I think the uneasiness in the world is spooking me a little bit. I’m trying to write down as many details as I can every morning to see if I can find a pattern.

I guess I could be thought of as weird because I really enjoy sleeping and dreaming. I feel so at ease in my dreams (most of the time) and feel like I can actually control what’s going on. I’ve read several books on dreaming and I’ve found every one of the fascinating. For example, when I dream of elementary school, I can usually wake up and find the clocks acting all screwy. It’s like my subconscious is saying “Hey – the clock system is messed up again” even though I’m asleep. It is so fascinating to me.

Well it’s getting late, I’m going to read a bit and call it a night.

Well Earl and I just got done watching Judging Amy. A pretty good episode, until the very end. It struck me as a bit hokey when she found out that her ex-husband has had a detective following her around for a year. Oh well. Now, I think Amy Brenneman is one of the hottest women on TV, ever, and I really like the character of Amy Gray, so this story line is striking me as a little weak. Let’s see how it pans out.

Earl and I decorated the inside of the house tonight for the holidays. The tree looks beautiful – I’ll be posting pictures in a day or two. Earl took a picture of me wearing the Christmas Tree Skirt. Now that’s lovely. I was smoothing it out over my lap and he said I should put it on, so I did and even posed. I looked like a fool.

I felt much better at work today. I don’t know why I was in such a funk yesterday. I think it helped that last night I took the time to write my goals down for 2003. Earl has his managers do that at work, and I decided to participate in the exercise. The list is a little lengthy, but it’s all stuff that I really want to achieve next year. Sort of an organized New Year’s resolutions I suppose. One of the things I have planned are two lengthy bike trips. One will be a three day trip in late April or early May. The other will be a seven day trip in late August. I am really hoping to accomplish both of those next year.

Earl is slowly adjusting to his iMac. It does amazing things, but we’re finding that OS X 10.2 is not as “compatibility friendly” as we would like it to be. There’s a bunch of stuff that he still can’t do, but he made his first iPhoto album the other night and now he’s playing around with pictures he took tonight. Let’s see how he does. Thanks to Thom for the insight on “Virtual PC”. OS X really reminds me of Linux, but then again, it’s written on Unix which Linux is a derivative of, so there you are.

The Caroline Rhea show has been very fun the last couple of days. I wish the New York affiliate would get on the ball and move her to a normal time slot so that Monday night Football didn’t interrupt it.

I’ve been finding myself staying up later at night and my body seems to be adjusting pretty well. I seem to function pretty well on 7 1/2 hours of sleep these days (I was sleeping 9 – which I think was too much!)

Tom has found himself to be quite comfortable on the new desks. Now he can sit right over the keyboard.

Here it is, Monday, I’m at work, writing in my blog. This will be a short entry, but I haven’t written in my blog in a while and I feel so inclined. I need to clear my head a little bit and this will give me the opportunity to do just that.

Earl and I spent the entire weekend at home. We decided to redecorate the “wreck room” that I often mention. We had good fun and did it like the team we are. We put in two new desks; I threw out a lot of junk (I accumulate so much crap it’s not even funny) and we started getting organized. There’s still a lot more work to do, but we are getting closer. Hope to have the project done by Wednesday or Thursday.

We also set up Earl’s computer even though it’s not Christmas yet. Those iMacs are pretty impressive. It can do a lot of nifty things. It’s a shame that there’s not more software for it though, because I’d like Earl to be able to do wonderful things with it, but there’s a couple of Windows programs he was using that are missing a Mac counterpart. Maybe we’ll stumble across them sooner or later. But he made a wonderful photo album last night that I found quite impressive.

On Saturday we picked out our Christmas tree, though we are going to decorate it tonight. We wanted to give it a couple of days to fall so it looked a little fuller. We also put up the new outside lights and they look great.

I’m in a little bit of funk today and I don’t know why. I hope that I snap out of it before heading home.

Well I better get back to work. I hope to write more tonight.