elftao

Well, since it's "post about the music you listen to while writing" day...

Yes, I've been writing a little. No, it isn't going very fast. I really like the soundtrack to Chrono Chross.

Due to LJ deciding that I should have to endure flash-based in-window popup ads to see what y'all are up to, I might be abandoning my LJ account. It's nothing against any of you - it's just that I don't see LJ as providing me with enough value to be worth the irritating Best Buy ads that pop up.

I am going to give it until after the holiday, to see if perhaps they just got eaten by the capitalism dumb. But if they keep it up, then I'll be packing up and officially moving over to Facebook full time, where (at least up to this point) they have kept all the ads on the sidebars like a reasonable organization.

Yesterday was feeling the first stages of "the cold." Last night woke up in the middle of the night with my throat so swollen and sore I could hardly drink water. Couldn't talk at 9am. Feeling better now...have only been up ~11 hours with a 1.5 hour nap in the middle.

Hopefully tomorrow I"ll be back on my feet. Want to work on the apartment!

I just got a POPUP AD on LJ! What's that about?

I have taken up knitting. Landon now own a Jayne hat, and I am working on a pair of mittens for myself.

But I'm guessing many of you thought I could be since I haven't posted in months and months and months.

Well, I'm not dead. Landon and I moved to Columbus, OH in April. Columbus is perhaps the best possible place to be living, period. For those of you who naysay, I encourage you to spend a few years in hell Peoria, IL, and then move to Columbus. It is a large enough city to have night life, diversity, tolerance, progressive values, culture, art, music, dance, theatre, great food (I've gained almost 10 lbs since moving), eco-conscientiousness, public transit, local breweries, major shops, major shopping centers, an Apple store, and more. Yet at the same time it still has polite and friendly people, polite drivers (yes, I did say that - you obviously have never lived in Peoria), local shops, local eateries, hippies, students, and walkable areas. And, unlike, most large cities, the crime is not too bad and you can get around without facing horrible traffic.

So, living in Columbus has been fantastic. We have great, supportive friends, a good work environment, a lovely neighborhood, good parks, a fantastic stretch of local shops/restaurants just two blocks from our apartment, etc.

On the downside, Landon lost his job about a week after we moved. Fwiw, it had nothing to do with him moving and more to do with the fact that Caterpillar is managed by idiots and has no concern for employee welfare or loyalty; they suddenly realized that they weren't going to make that month's budget and dropped a bunch of people. Turns out that working at Cat is far worse than cutting corners and squeaking by on unemployment. Lots of applications sent; no employment yet. We'll see how things go when April comes; it looks like the U.S. might have to figure out what to do with a standing 20% unemployment, unless they intend to extend unemployment benefits indefinitely, because the job market is not getting any better and doesn't look like it will anytime soon.

However, in his copious amounts of free time, Landon has been working more than full-time on www.metroplexity.com. If you haven't checked it out, give it a try: it comes with recommendations from gamers and nongamers alike. Then tell your friends!

(Landon has also become quite the housekeeper, maintaining the cats, keeping the place clean, learning to cook - it's been quite fabulous!)

My job has been and continues to be fabulous. I've been traveling a lot lately, and it's good to be home for a few weeks (maybe even months!!). It makes a huge difference to be working from an office rather than from home, and I'm highly appreciative of that.

I'm also playing with a local early music ensemble called the Early Interval. I found them through my undergrad instructor, who has played with them when he was living in Columbus many years ago. We have a great time and I've been learning a lot. New instruments lately: soprano shawm, historical-fingering recorders, and medieval bagpipes. (!)

Zoe and .tif are good, if being a bit of a pain in the "waking Lyz up at 4am most mornings" manner.

Doing a little bit of writing; nothing worth writing home about. Also learned how to can pickles, tomatoes, applesauce and jellies this summer; next summer I'll be on a mission!

Anything I missed? Feel free to ask questions, I'll actually respond.

fwiw, I use Facebook more than LJ these days, although I do read LJ every morning to stalk all you people who are still on here.

Had another dream about the crazy A-frame house in Peoria last night. WTF?

You know, this week has kind of sucked.

Suck #1: Closing on house in Peoria gets pushed back again. Suck.
Suck #2: Landon lost his job the next day. Fuck.

Who wants to bet that our house and/or apartment burns down tomorrow?



FWIW, I'm less bothered than I could be. The stress will be, of course, but it could be worse - we could have zero offers on our house, we could still be living in Peoria, Landon could have no job experience, etc. Le sigh...

At least there's unemployment!

I work for the Secular Student Alliance, an umbrella organization that creates and supports atheist (and the like) college groups across the country.

This is how fast we’re growing:

In 2007, we had 81 active affiliates.
Today, we have 149.

During the 2007-2008 school year, we set up 22 speaking events on campuses.
This year, we’ve already set up 49.

During the 2007-2008 school year, we gave out $1,978 in direct support to student projects.
This year, we’ve already given out $5,801.

Our 2006 conference was attended by 30 students.
Our 2008 conference (a joint event with the American Humanist Association) was attended by 80 students. This was made possible by more than $11,000 in student travel grants that we have offered over the last two years.

We’ve done all this with only two full-time staff members at the helm — a smaller staff than at many local chapters of Campus Crusade for Christ or Hillel. Imagine how much more we could do if we had greater resources.

We exist primarily on donations from individuals. When the economy went south and people started watching their checkbooks, we found that the gifts that support our work were dwindling. But we can't do what we do without them.

Can you give just $5 to make this happen?

We are a grassroots organization, and our supporters are from all walks of life. We’re dependent on several small donations rather than a handful of large ones.

If enough people pitch in, it would make a huge difference in the types of services we can provide to our affiliates.

If you can give more, we would put it to good use.



I won't see who donates and who doesn't, so I won't chase you down if you don't feel that this is your charity of choice. But we can use every bit of help we can get.

Ugh. It's been about a billion years since I posted about anything, so this is going to be a huge post. I'll sort it into sections.

( House... )

( Apartment... )

( No House... )

( Columbus... )

So that's where we are. It's been totally crazy (I've put over 5,000 miles on my Prius in 6 weeks) and posting about it sounded like more work than it was worth. Sorry for the radio silence! Hopefully I'll be better now that things aren't as crazy.

PS - bug me about pics and I'll post some! I already have promised to take and post them, so I'll probably just need a reminder.

Anyone have a sudden feeling that WOTC is about to start desperately trying to make money off old D&D products, and most likely in an impractical, useless, ultimately inoperable way?

Why would you think that, Lyz?

Oh, I dunno, maybe the sudden, out-of-the-blue, no-warning-given demands that all 3rd-party companies stop selling D&D products RIGHT NOW. I mean, nothing like that happened when they yanked rights from Paizo for Dungeon and Dragon magazines.

Le sigh.

So, we're moving! I'll post the gritty, grueling details elsewhere. This is solely a PLEA for HELP!

Yes, I'm asking all your beloved people to get down and dirty for me and help Landon and I move all our crap from our house onto a truck, and off again at the other end. I intend to provide beverages of many varieties, lunch and dinner. Probably snacks, too. We have a dolly/hand truck to make life easier. I have lightweight tasks if you can't lift heavy objects but want to help anyway. I'll be happy to have everyone!

West Peoria Deets:
-Thursday, 4/9/09. 11am start, working through whenever we get everything done.

-2117 W. Barker Ave. (West Peoria)

-I'm thinking Avanti's gondolas and/or pizza bread for one meal and Domino's awesome thin-crust pizza for the other. Let me know if you have requests for snacks, bevs, or dietary restrictions.

Columbus, OH Deets:
- Saturday, 4/11/09. 10am start, working through whenever we get everything done.

-194 W. 3rd Ave. (Victorian Village)

-I'm thinking something for lunch and then we'll all head out to dinner when we're done. Let me know if you have requests for snacks, bevs, or dietary restrictions.



Thank you everyone!!

So I played in a Peoria Symphony Concert on 2/14. If you'd like to listen (and it should be a good time!), you can tune in to WCBU (online at www.wcbufm.org) either Weds, 3/11 at 8pm or Sun, (I think 3/15, but it might be 3/23), at 7pm.

Check me out! Actually, check out Time for Three - they were awesome! K-chan - you in particular should make a point to listen to this one!

Well, tomorrow I'm leaving for California. It's going to be a wild 5-day trip, during which I'm meeting with 7 extant student groups, three potential groups, one interested student, some of the funders and supporters of this project, and flyering 4-6 new campuses.

I'm in that kind of nervous state like I'm going to forget something REALLY important. Probably because this is my first time doing this sort of thing (I've done conferences, but never something like this) and I know I'm going to be doing a lot of things by the seat of my pants. Read: I will wish I had done more prep work, but at this point I'm not sure what I should be prepping FOR or HOW.

When I get back, I'll be driving to three separate Dawkins lectures in three different states. Then I get to go to Columbus for a week and try to find a house, or at least an apartment.

Whew!

I think I'm probably going to have some weird, weird dreams tonight.

I FINALLY finished the damn bit of writing I was working on.

AND I think i've figured out how to handle a really awkward, clumsy, problematic chunk of plot. For only actually writing a couple hundred words, it's been a pretty thoroughly productive evening. Much like the rest of my day, actually!

EtTR playcount: haha, 535. Wow.

Well, I'm a dork and forgot to post something kinda major.

Landon and I lost our bid on the house in Columbus. We liked it a lot, but someone else came through and put in an offer. Nothing we could do - we can't buy a second house! So we had to let it go.

This means that we are looking at the possibility of being 'homeless' if we get an offer on our house here in the next few weeks. There is literally NO time between now and mid-March that we are able to get to Columbus to look at houses, and if we got an offer tomorrow (closing in 30 days) means we'd be moving to ??? probably an apartment while we looked at houses. This means moving all our junk twice, which would be lame.

On the other hand, we're planning a week-long venture to Columbus in mid-March - probably the week of 3/15-22 or so. I'm so excited to see everyone! I think we have a place to stay, and L will be working from 'home' while I hopefully work from "the office" with Aug. What a crazy thing to do - work in an office with my coworkers!! HA!

We have been having good activity on our house here, but no serious offers. We're having an open house this weekend - hopefully I'll get my gear together so that I can have coffee here for visiting peoples. Mmm, coffee!

In other news, PSO rehearsals have been going well. I play actually rather little, which is a shame in some ways and fine in others. I took a book with me tonight - I have that much time that I'm not playing...

Speaking of, the book I'm reading is Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought." It's an interesting bridge between linguistics (heart!) and psychology/cognition. I don't think it would make much sense if I hadn't taken a language theory class in undergrad - and i might not like it as much - but it's fascinating! This is one of the most academic books I've tackled of my own perfectly free will since I graduated. It's kinda slow reading, compared to the devouring pace I use for most fiction that I read, but it's a good read. I would, so far, recommend it to anyone with a strong English language/linguistics background. I'm not sure I could recommend it to someone without that background.

And now, to bed. I am sleepy.

Enter the Twilight Realm play count: 450. BoT chapter: 10 (it's been a slow few nights...how do you write something with a very litte underlying sexual tension while not sounding like the first half of a romance novel...?)

PSO

No, I'm not shedding. The cats aren't doing too badly, given all the stress they're under. Landon does shed, but that's also not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the great shedding of possessions that happens when you move. I was shedding useless/unnecessary junk pretty steadily through the first week in January. Now that the house has been on the market, I've been a little slower about the process, since part of me was so sick of packing/cleaning that I was just ready to come to a complete halt, and the other half of me didn't want to get up to my elbows in a packing/cleaning project only to be interrupted by a showing.

Yesterday and today, though, I got down & dirty. My initial plan was to get the apartment vacuumed really well and figure out what to do with the stuff left up there. I did that, and then took a bunch of bags of stuff to the goodwill, sorted a bunch of stuff and furniture for the garage sale, packed bunch of clothes, linens and other stuff that we don't really need to have around but was less urgent to pack since it was 'behind closed doors,' so to speak. (Not that you really have any of those when people are looking at your house...I suspect that the transformer collection in my top filing cabinet drawer has been discovered more than once by nosy visitors!)

In other news, the collection of packed boxes in my furnace room continues to grow in a somewhat frightening manner. I would absolutely love to see the reactions of people when they look into that room (pre-warned with a note: "Furnace room - please pardon our boxes!") and are confronted with the walls of neat stacks of identical Starbucks Coffee boxes. Ha!

But, the great benefit to them - and the reason I'm being thusly selective about my boxes - is that they ARE all the same size. Packing them onto a moving truck is going to be EASY.

In other news, my first PSO rehearsal is tonight. I haven't been feeling too great all day - I hope I'm up for a 3-hour session!
____
'Enter the Twilight Realm' play count: 353. BoT chapter: 10.

I, like many people I know, have a mid-day (or mid-afternoon, or after-dinner) craving for sweet foods. For a long time this was turning into a downward spiral of me eating way too much ice cream. But then I had this idea...

See, I'm picky about the cereal I eat. Breakfast, for me, needs to be something with lots of whole grains, a good texture, and maybe some fruit or nuts. Simple carbs plus crazy amounts of sugar just doesn't cut it. I like cereals like Great Grains, Frosted Mini Wheats, museli, grape nuts, raisin bran, etc. I couldn't imagine eating something like Lucky Charms for breakfast - it would be like eating a bowl of ice cream...

...like ice cream, I say? Hmm. These cereals are by far sweet enough to satisfy those midday sweet cravings. Most of them tend to be fairly low-fat and vitamin/mineral-enriched. Way better for you than ice cream, chocolate, cupcakes, milkshakes, cookies, etc.

And so I've been satisfying my cravings with Cap'n Crunch peanut butter crunch.

Oh, cereal's cheaper than ice cream, too.

There is a song in my iTunes playlist with, at present, a play count of 281. I noticed it when it hit 249 and my jaw hit the floor - my next highest-played song was a whopping 72. (This is over a fairly recent time-frame - no more than six months but I have a feeling it's likely far less than that.)

At first I couldn't figure out when I would have listened to it that much. Or why! It's a tiny little clip from a video game (LoZ: Twilight Princess, if you care; the music that plays after you defeat a boss and get a heart piece, and Midna is waiting to take you back to wherever), about 1:15 long and simply a short little interlude.

Then I realized that my habit over the last few weeks has been to sit down at my computer, poke around at my music for a while until I find something that supports the mood of my writing but isn't distracting, and ignore it for an hour or so while I produce some thousand+ words.

This little interlude, with its calm melodic line and simple texture, has become the mostly-ignored mantra to the last 12k words of my novel, even though I've only had it for about a week. Repeated 282 - no, 283 - times.

I bet you're all wondering how my house is coming along, sitting on the edge of your seats because I haven't posted anything...

...or not. Regardless, we've had a bunch of showings but only one less-than-ideal nibble that might turn into a real bite later on. It's odd - showings seem to happen every other weekend, with maybe one or two during the two weeks in between. We had a bunch the first weekend, then it got ass cold and we had nothing for almost two weeks, then we had a bunch last weekend, and while I was expecting to get some this weekend, so far we have nothing. O well.

I had my car washed today - it's really the first day that it's been warm enough to do so all month. I had forgotten what a lovely magnetic grey Alfred is under all the salt. And I can SEE! Amazing!

And that's about it. We've been doing a few little things to the house (like figuring out which keys go to what doors and labeling them all, doing more packing/sorting), but mostly just keeping it sparkling. We've been *doing* very little...I replayed Twilight Princess (the music in that game is really great) and we've been playing a bunch of Mario Kart with friends. I've been doing some writing, although not as much as I would have hoped, given that I'm home all the time. I've been reading Dawkins' The God Delusion, albeit slowly. The only thing I can say is that Landon and I have been doing more walking (go mall walkers!) and at least slightly increasing our fresh-produce intake.

So when I open a window in Finder, the Mac OS interface, the left-hand bar shows all the computers that I can connect to as servers. Somehow it knows what kind of computer they are - it shows Landon's older iMac as an older-looking iMac, it shows my new iMac as a different-looking iMac, it shows my MacBook as a little laptop.

Today I noticed another computer showing up on the network (no doubt one of my neighbors piggybacking off my network...or, I suppose, maybe Landon's work computer). It's a PC.

The little icon? An old CRT monitor with a blue screen of death. No kidding!