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| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | | 9:45 am |
| | Sunday, June 15th, 2008 | | 12:11 pm |
Gualala trip planning So, Sarah and I are planning a trip up to Gualala for the 4th of July weekend, and thought we'd see if anyone else wants to come along, since I know verious people have enjoyed coing along on these trips in the past. We've already got ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) temperance14 and battymaiden planning to join us. The plan is camping if there's space in the local campgrounds, else staying in the studio apartment attached to my family's house up there. Sarah and I plan on visiting a couple of my friends up in the area and going to the church I grew up in on Sunday morning, but we won't make any one come along on those excursions if they don't want to. We're currently planning on heading up Friday morning, July 4, and coming back that Sunday evening. | | Thursday, May 1st, 2008 | | 7:16 am |
Room available in Davis - anyone looking?
Since Hillary is moving out at the end of July, Sarah, Renee, and I are looking for a new roommate in the duplex we're currently in - the rent would be $418/month, and we're currently at the maximum number of cats that our landlady will allow. If you might be interested, or if you know someone who would be, let me know, and feel free to pass this along to anyone who you think may need a room. We'd much rather get a friend or someone recommended by a friend than have to find someone random on craigslist or the like. Thanks. | | Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | | 3:28 pm |
Fun times So, it's been a busy but fun week. Friday night involved going down to kay_gmd's dad's place and spending the night so we could catch our plane to Seattle the next morning. The flight was uneventful, and despite a not-very-promising official policy on the size of the musical instruments allowed as carry-on for Southwest, there was no trouble getting on the plane with the fiddle & mandolin. We dropped one of the rental cars and our stuff off at the motel, and went to lunch with kay_gmd's grandma, which was interesting as she speaks almost no English, and kay_gmd and I don't speak her languages. Still, it went well, and we had good Chinese food. By the end of the trip, I'd had quite enough of such, as the M.O. for a get-together with kay_gmd's dad's side of the family involves going to a Chinese restaurant and spending 2-3 hours there conversing. That was basically how I spent Saturday and Sunday, with a brief excursion to attend church with one of kay_gmd's cousins on her Mother's side, and a little time after church photographing said cousin's new baby girl - much cuteness. Monday, we were free except for lunch with more of kay_gmd's relatives - it was nice to get to know people I'd only met at the wedding a little better. We wandered down to the Utilikilts store that morning, and I left with a couple of pairs of socks and a new kilt. It's a more useful sort of souvenir than many, I expect. It was discounted in the "scratch and dent" section due to being the old version of the Survival model in Basil, which is a discontinued color, and the detachable pockets were missing. They were willing to sell me a pair of the pockets from the current model of a similar color, and I still came out ahead as far as the cost of a new current one is concerned. Monday evening, kay_gmd and I got to catch up with dgenerator, who I hadn't seen since we were in High School together. It was great to catch up, and he kindly treated us to dinner at a quite good Greek restaurant in the area. We'll have to return the favor if he makes it down this way. Tuesday was the flight home, with some excitement on the way back - a woman on the plane passed out ~25 minutes before we got into San Jose airport. I was quite impressed with the Southwest staff's handling of the situation, and with the EMTs at the airport. By the time we made it off the plane, the woman was recovering, though still surrounded by EMTs who were making sure she was all right. We made it back in time for me to make game that evening, and I was even not at all late, which surprised me. Wednesday was my birthday, though I didn't do much to celebrate, as kay_gmd has a Wednesday evening class. I did get sung to by ailurodragon on his radio show, and as a result finally was sucked into playing Kingdom of Loathing. I also spent Wednesday looking into things to spend the economic stimulus money we'll be getting,since we can afford to be good little consumers, with the result that today I ordered one of these: http://www.spadepot.com/shop/Spa2Go-P909C305.aspx So, in a couple of weeks, we'll have a small hot tub in the back yard. Reading the reviews, it's very much not a party tub - max capacity is 4, and that's likely a real maximum, but it will allow a nice soak in hot water, which will make my shoulders very happy. And for parties, we'll just have to keep going down to masterfiddler's place. Oh the horror. :) Tomorrow, I go shopping for a new clothes dryer with the rest of the money. The one we have is ancient, and has been known to make really annoying noises on occasion. Current Mood:  happy | | Thursday, March 20th, 2008 | | 12:07 pm |
On my faith This post's inspired by my lovely wife's recent postings on the subject. Many of you probably know that we're Christians - if nothing else, our wedding made that clear to many of you, but for all the other things that I feel easily able to talk about and share with my friends, this is the one area that I find myself actively avoiding bringing up. In large part, this is in reaction to the statements made by the loudest members of our family in Christ, who I tend not to want to be associated with. I realize though that by not speaking up, I allow them to become the public face of Christians everywhere, and I'd really prefer that people realize that we're not all like the ones who keep making the news. So, here's where I stand on a few issues where I differ from the public perception of Christians. I could expand at some length on these, but I'll keep them short for the moment. I am Christian and I am a scientist. I see no conflict between my faith and the scientific method, evolution, or any other parts of my chosen profession. I am Christian and I see no objection to same-sex couples being married, nor to poly relationships, nor any other sort, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. I truly do not comprehend why being homosexual or allowing same-sex marriage is such a big deal among some Christians - there's very little in the bible that can be construed as condemning homosexuality, and compared to many of the world's problems which we are much more clearly called to try and solve, it's a trivial matter. As for Poly, people these days seem to miss the parts in the old testament about the multiple wives of some of the major figures - where do they get this thing about Marriage only being between two people stuff? It's certainly not biblical as far as I've found. I am Christian and I firmly believe in the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. Historically, having a state religion has resulted in far too much fighting about religion, and trying to force your beliefs upon someone else is a terrible tactic for convincing them that you have the correct answers. Moreover, I do not believe that any one religion has all the answers - I simply cannot reconcile the idea of an all-powerful etc. deity with the idea that we can fully understand such a being enough to know God's mind. I believe that a major reason for Jesus' incarnation on earth was to give us a figure we could relate to. Also to let God experience what it is like to be human - from my reading of the Bible, it seems pretty clear that God's been learning how to deal with us humans all along, and likely still is. One of the principles I really like in Methodism is the reasoning behind having committees for so many things - because each of us understands God differently, and so as a group sharing our understandings, we can together come closer to comprehending God than any one individual can. I think this holds true overall as a reason to welcome and interact with people of other faiths. Current Mood:  contemplative | | Sunday, February 24th, 2008 | | 10:12 pm |
Silly biogeek quiz
Which Biological Molecule Are You?
You are an enzyme. You are powerful, dark, variable, and can change many things at your whim...even when they're not supposed to be changed. Bad you. You can be dangerous or wonderful; it's your choice.
Take this quiz!
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| | Saturday, January 19th, 2008 | | 10:00 pm |
| | Monday, December 10th, 2007 | | 9:58 pm |
Well, that was a bad Monday. Things guaranteed to make you lose focus for they day: Coming in for a regular meeting with your boss to be told that she's broke, and so you won't have a job after February 10. Yep, that was the start to my day. It turns out that she'd managed to misread her budget numbers and overspent her budget for three years before NIH noticed and informed her that she didn't have the money she thought she had. Since I'm the person who doesn't actually bring in money to the lab, I'm the obvious first candidate for cutting costs when things get desperate. (My boss didn't actually say that, but I'm quite aware that it's one of the realities of being a tech. Usually one gets a bit more notice when funding's an issue, but this is a somewhat unusual situation). So, I'll be looking for another job pretty soon - the head administrator for the department (MSO for those who know UCD acronyms) has offered to send my resume around campus, and I'll certainly be taking him up on that just as soon as I get it updated. I'll miss the job here, and it does suck, but the timing could be much worse. Sarah's got a good job now, and has actually been bringing in more money than me for the last couple of months, so we're in much better shape than when she was working for Lifetouch. Playing with our budget, it looks like we can actually come close to living off her salary alone if we cut back on stuff, so we'll be starting to cut back over the next couple of months - Gaskell's this month has already been a casualty of things, but we're still planning on heading to Dickens on Saturday. Still, if we don't head down to the Bay Area as often, you all know why. Current Mood:  drained | | Friday, September 28th, 2007 | | 9:17 pm |
Public service announcement for friends who are Heather Alexander fans Sarah and I had a moment of enlightenment reading the comments to the latest post to the ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) alexanderfans community. I thought I'd post in case any other friends are as clueless as Sarah and I have been. Someone who'd been away for a while asked what had been going on, and got the first straight answers we'd seen. Discussion here: http://community.livejournal.com/alexanderfans/46477.htmlShort form is that Heather had gender reassignment surgery and is now the "Heir", Alexander James Adams. Also, he's performing at the Palo Alto Unitarian church Oct 26, 8pm - Sarah and I are going, anyone want to join us? | | Sunday, July 22nd, 2007 | | 8:18 pm |
In which I blather on about my new toy for the fiddle So, a few months back, my mother managed to find at a yard sale a fiddle, in need of some moderate amount of TLC and tinkering. I spent quite a bit of time (and money for tools/bits) on it and have an instrument which I'm quite enjoying playing - enough so that it's become my primary fiddle. This left me with two fiddles and only one bow, which has been fine, except that I'd like to loan my old one to temperance14 so that she has one the right size for her to use, and so that she can loan her smaller one to sillymesaysme. So, I obviously needed to go shopping. (See, I have a good excuse rationalization reason for getting a new toy. Really.) So, I wandered down to Watermelon Music and asked to try out their bows in the up to ~$100 price range. Unsurprisingly, the one that made me and kay_gmd go "Oooh, pretty" was the one at the top of my price range. I hadn't realized just how much of a difference the bow made to the sound - after playing with the new one for much of the afternoon, I've discovered that it's going to force me to improve both my bowing technique and my fingering, as I can now much more easily hear some of the flaws which aren't as noticeable to me with the other bow. Current Mood: happy | | Friday, July 6th, 2007 | | 1:45 pm |
We have Internets! Yay, we officially have internet access again. The Comcast guy came out to swap our service so it's not in the ex-housemates' names anymore, and found that the reason our net access has been down since Monday evening is that the Comcast guy who installed our new neighbors' service just cut the cable that went to our side of the duplex and ran it into their side. Our guy said this unfortunately happens a lot. Oh well, it works now. Time for me to go back to the lab. Current Mood: happyCurrent Music: computer fans | | Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 | | 8:26 am |
The pryromanica's rube goldberg device reposted from ribbin's lj for kelsied's viewing pleasure | | Sunday, May 6th, 2007 | | 6:31 am |
Whee, party! loupyone's birthday party was another Good Party* As it was the day of my Lovely Wife's birthday, she was also made to have a birthday shot. Due to an inability to get back to sleep after a really odd dream, the pics have been processed, and the ones for public viewing are uploading now to http://flickr.com/photos/sarahandbrian As always, if there's one we didn't catch that you don't want online, let us know & we'll remove it. Now to try and get some sleep *For definition of a good party, see http://groblek.livejournal.com/54071.htmlOh, and for lindyhop18 www.liberator.com Current Mood: sleepy | | Thursday, April 26th, 2007 | | 7:39 pm |
Daemons meme Current Mood:  sickCurrent Music: dryer noises | | Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 | | 9:47 pm |
meme swiped from various friends
We all have things about our friends that make us slightly envious.
Not in a bad way, but in a 'Wow! I wish I had that person's hair/eyes/money/relationship/toenails/whatever.'
So tell me what about me makes you envy me. . . then if you feel like it, post this in your LJ and see what makes me envious of you. | | Monday, March 12th, 2007 | | 8:17 pm |
Housing
Sarah and I will have space available. Our housemates are moving out probably in July. Something about wanting to actually own a house, silly people. :) We live on 8th Street near the cemetery. It's a 3 bed 2 bath duplex, and we'll be occupying the master bedroom. WE'll be looking for about $400 a month per room or person. (I still have to contact our land lady and see how much if any rent's going up after we renew the lease before that's hard set.) If you're interested/know a friend who you think could stand to live with us (& vice versa) contact me or comment here. | | Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 | | 8:18 pm |
Sarah's surgery Sarah's surgery went well, and she's back home now resting. It was a long day - we showed up at 11am to check in, then ended up sitting in a small room with Sarah in a hospital gown for ~3 hours. A moderately annoying wait, but with a good book and someone to snuggle with, it wasn't too bad. Then they took her in for surgery at about 2:30, while I wandered off and acquired lunch & practiced the fiddle a bit. After that, I went to the designated waiting area for family of surgery patients, and had Sarah's doctor come talk to me at ~5 or so. He just let me know that Sarah was fine and that she'd be in recovery for another hour or so, as well as giving the general rundown on care of things after surgery. After that, I was directed to another waiting room until Sarah was in shape for them to let her go, and then I brought her back to Davis. Current Mood:  relievedCurrent Music: Muppets | | Sunday, March 4th, 2007 | | 11:03 am |
You know it was a good party when... There's a set of photos that have to be set aside for "limited distribution only" If you have to ask, you don't get to know. :) Current Mood: amused | | Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 | | 11:23 am |
| | Saturday, December 23rd, 2006 | | 9:14 pm |
Musical Disappointment (new Seadogs CD) So, I picked up a copy of the new Seadogs CD while I was at Dickens today. I really enjoy their first CD, and their stage shows, so I expected well of this disc. Listening to it on the way home, I was unfortunately disappointed. The music just seemed to lack energy, and it seemed to us listening on the trip home that someone had made a creative decision to put together a CD of slow, sad songs. Now, I don't inherently mind this, but it's not what I'd expect from either the Seadogs or a disc of pirate music. It's particularly egregious since several of the songs sound to me like they were forced into a much slower tempo than they really should have had. Several of the songs that I have heard them perform on stage sounded much flatter and lower energy than when I've heard them in person. I was particularly disappointed with "Dark Lady", mostly because I've really enjoyed hearing it at faires this season with laviolinista's fiddle strongly weaving throughout the song, but on the CD, I could only catch two or three brief places where I thought I heard a fiddle. She was listed on the credits as contributing, so I'm puzzled. laviolinista, can you shed any light on this, or should I chat with you privately about it? Current Mood:  disappointedCurrent Music: Nelson's Blood (Seadogs - first CD) |
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