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Yesterday was actually my first Valentine's Day that I had an actual valentine to share with. wooisme gave me a bag of wonderful, silly little gifts (like hair bands attached to a cute little teddy bear and a bag of York peppermint patties; yum!). She also gave me my first ever Valentine's day card with real meaning to it which touched me beyond my ability to exress. (Actually, the greeting cards that my brothers and I always got from our grandparents on Valentine's day had meaning too and I love them for sending them, but they are obviously not quite the same thing.) I have never had anyone in my life to be romantically involved with before and I continue to be awed that she wants me in hers. I think I always will be.

Yesterday evening, we went to the Val Day Feast that the Silverleaf Renaissance people put on every year during Valentine's Day weekend. It was another first for me, the first Renaissance style feast I've ever been to, and I enjoyed it immensely. It was, I think, seven courses of food in the candlelit basement of a cathedral in Kalamazoo, entertainment provided by various guests who chose to get up and sing, tell jokes, make toasts, or read poetry. My beloved and I saw many of her aquaintances from fair and we sat with a few of her very good friends who we were very pleased to spend the evening with. I had a good time talking with her friend crazycatladymel's companion who I can connect with in many things geeky. It was a really wonderful and romantic evening spent with my beloved and will be one of my many happy memories of good times spent with her.

Speaking of geek stuff, I finally started looking at the motherboard and processor my parents gave me last time I saw them. They're my brothers old ones and are about twice as fast as my system so I thought I'd spend a few hours swapping it into my system. I think I'm going to hold off though. It's a PC Chips board and only has four PCI slots on it and I'm not sure I really want to build my primary system on it. I think I may wait and pick up a case and power supply for it and build a new system with it. My raccoon is going to accompany me to the Gibraltar Trade Center (the local large flea market) for a computer show there this coming weekend. I'll see if I can get a good deal on a small, basic ATX case for it. I still want to step my main system up to something faster (it's only a PII 400), but I'm going to wait until I can get a mobo I really want, like an Abit KR7A which, though becoming rather dated, is a really good board that I can probably get a good price on through ebay.

Three weeks now 'till Congenial...

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Some pictures of the ice fountain I wrote about earlier and one of my parents outside Michigan Central Station. Upper Right shows my brother Jim and his girlfriend Lara while the middle right one features my brother Tim. The lower right one, obviously, is my parents. Still, my favorite picture from the weekend is one of my parents, my brothers, and my beloved, all together around one table. There is little more wonderful than that. I wish we could be together more often...



Clicking on the pictures will bring you to full sized ones. These are really large (1536 x 2048) for those who want to see the ice formations up close.