(no subject)

There are days when I think that I really need to rethink the practice of eating extremely hot Chinese (or Japanese, or Thai *whines*) food. Usually those days begin about twelve hours after engaging in such gastronomical indulgences. This is one of those days.

(no subject)

I escaped Gary Indiana alive once again, though this time with minor damage. I hit my head on some exposed chicken-wire. Well, I guess that's not the precise term. It's that hexagonal stuff they use to pour concrete on to make walls and ceilings. I didn't think at the time that I'd punctured the skin because jimcyl didn't see any blood, but today I have a bump and what feels like dried blood after all. I'm going to have to call my doctor about getting a tetanus shot I guess. The idea gives me the willies.

I have a bunch of neat pictures, and Jim and daveqat do too. Dave was shooting black and white 200 speed film; the results of that should be really cool. I'll pick a few of the best and post them later on, probably sans commentary just because I'm trying to get other stuff done.

The three of us spent over three hours in the church alone, then moved on to the theatre. I'm really glad that my friends had such a good time. We even talked about coming back in October with more people to see the post office and apartment block when it's a little cooler.

Saturday was spent in the company of my extended family at my aunt and uncle's house for their yearly great big gathering of family and friends. Very unusually for me, I didn't play any of the pinball tables or stand-up games in the basement. Instead, I had a little too much good food and talked to people. My grandfather and I looked at each other's cameras and shared some pictures we'd taken; his from the steam power show out near DeKalb (by amazing coincidence, he'd been nearly in the same town I was in while I was helping tybis move and I'd been completely unaware) and mine from the Rhode Opera House and Sandusky drive in. I ran my idea about road-tripping to the Forevertron by him and he's very keen on it. I'll have to figure out when to do that, get in touch with Mr. Evars to make sure he'll be there, and then drive out there. I think if we leave early enough, we can make it a day trip. I'm so excited about it! It would be a nice chance to get to sit and talk with him on the drive too.

Oh, I have to remember to email him with a link to my Livejournal, as well as to deadmachinery, rural_ruin, and urban_decay. I was showing pictures from all four locations, and he wants to see more of what I have to say I guess. That makes me happy.

To continue in my reverse chronology, my Thursday and Friday off work were spent helping Tybis get his apartment packed up and cleaned out for his move back to Gurnee. With help from posicat and Tybis' mother (who it was really fun to meet; she remind me a little bit of my mom, farmcat) we managed to get it all done, though not until six o' clock on Friday evening. Somehow, the entire process was in a continual state of seeming like it would only take another two or three hours, but that two or three hours kept stretching, and stretching.... Just another example of Hofstadter's Law in action I suppose. There are very few, if any, universal truths in this world, but Hofstadter's Law is in contention for a place among them.

I was supposed to take Andrea out to see Stardust on Friday night. It's based on a book that's very special indeed to both of us, and we planned to take a trip to a pretty old theater and go out for a special movie date with each other. I failed to do so, and owe her a humbly large apology. I'm so sorry dear one; I just didn't know it would take so long.

Andrea graciously offered to let me take her out Saturday night instead. I would have stayed later at the family gathering had I not missed our date on Friday; I don't get to see those folks as much as I'd like. But a date with my star (a pet name that, not coincidentally, owes it's origins to the very story we were going out to see) trumps other happy silliness. We gave my brother, akreaveter, and my other brother, the journal-less Jim, a ride home, let the dog out for a bit, and then departed once more for the movie house.

Thank you, my dear one, for such a treat. It was a very special movie to see with a very special girl. It wasn't as good as the book, but such things never are. Stardust, being a story so close to my heart as it is, is a difficult thing for me to look at or describe objectively. Andrea gave me a copy of the book when we were first dating and I think it will be one of my favorites for the rest of my life. Seeing it on film was a pretty deep thing, and it affected me in ways that I can't quite relate, or really, understand. Once again, I owe an apology to my mate for being more than a little odd after seeing it.

(no subject)

The following things are in my truck right now to be taken to work to dispose of on Thursday. Someone might open up the tailgate and steal them? Awesome! They aren't going tomorrow because Andrea has to drive my truck to work 'cause her car is in the shop. If you want any of this, let me know when this week you can pick it up. I need to get this stuff out of my house. Weekend is fine; we'll be here. Our Minnesota trip has been postponed. Nothing has hard drives. For a friend, I could dig one up and go through the trouble of wiping one or two for you if you need them to go with any of this. That includes laptop hard drives. Nothing will have any software on it; this is strictly BYOOS (Bring Your Own OS).

Posi, anything that isn't claimed that you think we should bring to the ham swap is fine, but if it's going to stay, I'd like to put it in your storage locker until then. If not, I'm going to junk it. I can't deal with all this cruft anymore.

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15" CRT monitor.

17" Viewsonic CRT monitor.

Four or five Dell 500Mhz to 750Mhz laptops with a medium sized box of extra floppy drives, batteries, power supplies, etc. Not sure if they have working CD drives, but I can find hard drives. One docking station. foreignlegion, these are the same as the one you have if you want parts.

Lexmark Laser printer that frequently fails to pick up paper.

Ass-old IBM thinkpad. I think it's a PII.

2 PIII Dell desktops, one with trashed case.

Dell laptop battery, type 3R305. Don't know what it goes to, but something a lot newer than the ones I'm getting rid of.

Box of random ISA and PCI expansion cards, with a few AGP video cards thrown in for good measure. No, I don't know what's in there. NICs, video cards, random assorted stuff.

NEC 286 luggable with monochrome green display. Mmmm, green...........

Pentium 90Mhz laptop.

Visioneer Strobe XP200 scanner. Not sure if I have the power supply.

Box of CD-ROM drives, 5 1/4 desktop sized ones. Some DVD drives, some CD-RW drives, NO DVD-R/RW drives.

Gateway Pentium II 450.

An external SCSI CD-ROM tower. It has 7, count them 7, 2x SCSI CD-ROM drives that take the big caddies that you have to put the CD inside and then insert. I only have four or five of the caddies, but you can get them dirt cheap online or at computer shows. (Hey, posicat; you could use this and put the burners from that duplicator in it and have a 7x 16-spin CD ROM buner in a smaller form-factor package. What do you think?)

Box of random computer speakers, most without power supplies but I think they're almost all standard 9 volt models.

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stormgren, sorry I haven't got back to you on your touch screen yet. I should get to it this week and be able to let you know how much shipping is. Probably about five bucks. Do you want to email me with your address? Do you have my email address? *smiles*

Hey, vurtsnake; do you still want that Amiga stuff?

Wow, I actually have a little room in my closet again. I just have to get rid of this quad Pentium III Xeon Proliant ML570 and I'll be doing great! I think I'm going to put it on Craig's list this week.