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Mar. 4th, 2007 10:16 pmI write this on a Metra train on the way to Ogilvie station. I'm bound for downtown Chicago to meet up with a friend from work; Kris, our soon to be ex network guy from our Washington state office (they're closing that office and, rather than move, he elected to transfer to a different department in our company; one that doesn't mind him working remotely from home).
I think I've mentioned him before. He's the soft-spoken teddy bear computer geek with friends in the SCA and an interest in Japanese language. Oh no; he doesn't fit in at all with me. *smirks*
He's in Chicago to help out with a project in our office there as a sort of departmental last hurrah. We consider each other friends through our interactions at work, and he suggested getting together while he's in town. Andrea was going to come with, but it seems that she's just too sick today to want to deal with downtown Chicago in below freezing weather. Poor raccoon girl; I hope she's better soon. I'm feeling a little odd myself, but more on that later. A little bit of my rationale for hoping she'd come with was that I'm a little more at ease being social with her around, but I think I'll be okay on my own.
So Kris suggested seeing either the Field Museum, Blue Man Group, or both. Since it's been a good fifteen years since I've seen the former, and I've never seen the latter, I was game for either, and after some discussion, we decided to try for both. I'm due in at Ogilvie at about ten thirty which should give us three or four hours at the museum before the show. I called yesterday afternoon to finalize times and to go through the schedule of public transportation with him; it looked like we could probably make it work pretty well. I started to go through the route and he said something to the effect of 'Don't worry about it. We'll take a cab and I'll make (our V.P. of IT) pay for it. I may just expense the tickets too.' Okay! Works for me!
I just finished catching up on my financial ledger using transaction records that I printed up at home. Now that I know how much money I have, I can sit down and pay some bills once I get home tonight. I love having a laptop I can do things like that on.
Speaking of portable computers, I just acquired a couple more of them that were being obsoleted at work; tablets this time. These are so neat! I can open up the Windows IME pad and hand-draw Japanese characters into a text document. They are TC-1100s and TC-1000s, the only tablets I've ever seen where the screen part can completely disconnect from the keyboard. It's so thin and light! I can't decide whether I like it or a standard laptop more. Pointing interface speed is about ten times as fast with a pen instead of a mouse, but text entry speed is about ten times as slow using an on-screen keyboard or hand-writing text. I'll probably end up using both of them for different purposes. I will say that I can't wait to start doing some serious picture editing with it in Photoshop; the pen should make that work beautifully.
I got most of the downstairs cleaned up yesterday. Then, using some spring-clip curtain rings that Andrea bought, I finally properly hung the tapestries that we've had folded in half over their rod for the last month or so. It's so cool having our cozy little curtained off bedroom finally! It feels a little magical, uncommon and beautiful, and it makes me really happy. Now I just have to clean the bedroom!
I was in the Rhode Opera House for about four hours on Saturday with a group of four other people who are involved in this latest push to get our theatre up and running. We took down the three giant electrics that had been up there forever. Not since the building of the theatre in 1927; I found tags on them that listed the theatre's name as the "Saxe New Kenosha", it's second name, which means that they were probably put up in the fifties. They were still very old, were probably a falling hazard since the wire rope holding them up was at least forty or fifty years old, and I'm very glad to have then gone even as I feel a little sad to no longer see something that's been so long a part of the theatre.
There's going to be a lot of change coming to the theatre. There was talk of building a second floor above half the original stage to use as a scene shop, about building a new floor in the west auditorium and removing the seats to make it more versatile, and even of rebuilding the stage in the east auditorium to match the rake of the seating there. Years ago, I would never have seen the merit of such drastic change that didn't match the original construction of the building, but now.... Nothing is being done that can't be undone someday, and I can see that in order to radically turn this building and organization off the path to death that it's been on, some radical change is going to be needed. I really like some of the ideas that were tossed around and I'm looking forward to taking part in the decision making process about which of them are eventually going to be implemented. I'm going to be at the next board meeting too, which I believe is this coming Wednesday, so I can see about getting my name on the ballots to run for a seat. Though it's hard to believe, and I haven't fully convinced myself of it yet, I really think things may be looking up for my theatre.
I have nearly enough money for my camera. I found the check that CJ wrote me and I lost, and I still have the one that Misti gave me. I was going to contact them this weekend and confirm that I can still cash them, but I haven't had a chance. I'll have to call them on Monday maybe. I haven't yet heard back from the local camera shop, so I may give them one more call and see if they've heard anything and then look to Ebay. Or maybe call around shops in nearby towns first. It's going to be my first SLR and it would be really nice if I could actually hold it and look at it first, even if the one I actually hold and look at isn't the same one that I buy. On the other hand, I can't really imagine changing my mind from the 20D anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter that much.
My train is just coming into Winetka, and I'm coming up on the end of my battery life, so I think I'll sign off now just in case something comes up later that I need ten minutes of laptop life for. Wish me luck in the city, even though I won't be able to post this, meaning you won't be able to read this, until I get back to Kenosha.
I think I've mentioned him before. He's the soft-spoken teddy bear computer geek with friends in the SCA and an interest in Japanese language. Oh no; he doesn't fit in at all with me. *smirks*
He's in Chicago to help out with a project in our office there as a sort of departmental last hurrah. We consider each other friends through our interactions at work, and he suggested getting together while he's in town. Andrea was going to come with, but it seems that she's just too sick today to want to deal with downtown Chicago in below freezing weather. Poor raccoon girl; I hope she's better soon. I'm feeling a little odd myself, but more on that later. A little bit of my rationale for hoping she'd come with was that I'm a little more at ease being social with her around, but I think I'll be okay on my own.
So Kris suggested seeing either the Field Museum, Blue Man Group, or both. Since it's been a good fifteen years since I've seen the former, and I've never seen the latter, I was game for either, and after some discussion, we decided to try for both. I'm due in at Ogilvie at about ten thirty which should give us three or four hours at the museum before the show. I called yesterday afternoon to finalize times and to go through the schedule of public transportation with him; it looked like we could probably make it work pretty well. I started to go through the route and he said something to the effect of 'Don't worry about it. We'll take a cab and I'll make (our V.P. of IT) pay for it. I may just expense the tickets too.' Okay! Works for me!
I just finished catching up on my financial ledger using transaction records that I printed up at home. Now that I know how much money I have, I can sit down and pay some bills once I get home tonight. I love having a laptop I can do things like that on.
Speaking of portable computers, I just acquired a couple more of them that were being obsoleted at work; tablets this time. These are so neat! I can open up the Windows IME pad and hand-draw Japanese characters into a text document. They are TC-1100s and TC-1000s, the only tablets I've ever seen where the screen part can completely disconnect from the keyboard. It's so thin and light! I can't decide whether I like it or a standard laptop more. Pointing interface speed is about ten times as fast with a pen instead of a mouse, but text entry speed is about ten times as slow using an on-screen keyboard or hand-writing text. I'll probably end up using both of them for different purposes. I will say that I can't wait to start doing some serious picture editing with it in Photoshop; the pen should make that work beautifully.
I got most of the downstairs cleaned up yesterday. Then, using some spring-clip curtain rings that Andrea bought, I finally properly hung the tapestries that we've had folded in half over their rod for the last month or so. It's so cool having our cozy little curtained off bedroom finally! It feels a little magical, uncommon and beautiful, and it makes me really happy. Now I just have to clean the bedroom!
I was in the Rhode Opera House for about four hours on Saturday with a group of four other people who are involved in this latest push to get our theatre up and running. We took down the three giant electrics that had been up there forever. Not since the building of the theatre in 1927; I found tags on them that listed the theatre's name as the "Saxe New Kenosha", it's second name, which means that they were probably put up in the fifties. They were still very old, were probably a falling hazard since the wire rope holding them up was at least forty or fifty years old, and I'm very glad to have then gone even as I feel a little sad to no longer see something that's been so long a part of the theatre.
There's going to be a lot of change coming to the theatre. There was talk of building a second floor above half the original stage to use as a scene shop, about building a new floor in the west auditorium and removing the seats to make it more versatile, and even of rebuilding the stage in the east auditorium to match the rake of the seating there. Years ago, I would never have seen the merit of such drastic change that didn't match the original construction of the building, but now.... Nothing is being done that can't be undone someday, and I can see that in order to radically turn this building and organization off the path to death that it's been on, some radical change is going to be needed. I really like some of the ideas that were tossed around and I'm looking forward to taking part in the decision making process about which of them are eventually going to be implemented. I'm going to be at the next board meeting too, which I believe is this coming Wednesday, so I can see about getting my name on the ballots to run for a seat. Though it's hard to believe, and I haven't fully convinced myself of it yet, I really think things may be looking up for my theatre.
I have nearly enough money for my camera. I found the check that CJ wrote me and I lost, and I still have the one that Misti gave me. I was going to contact them this weekend and confirm that I can still cash them, but I haven't had a chance. I'll have to call them on Monday maybe. I haven't yet heard back from the local camera shop, so I may give them one more call and see if they've heard anything and then look to Ebay. Or maybe call around shops in nearby towns first. It's going to be my first SLR and it would be really nice if I could actually hold it and look at it first, even if the one I actually hold and look at isn't the same one that I buy. On the other hand, I can't really imagine changing my mind from the 20D anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter that much.
My train is just coming into Winetka, and I'm coming up on the end of my battery life, so I think I'll sign off now just in case something comes up later that I need ten minutes of laptop life for. Wish me luck in the city, even though I won't be able to post this, meaning you won't be able to read this, until I get back to Kenosha.
