The Topic of Great Randomness

[EricG1793]

While "on topic" (LOL) I'll say that we seem to be having a cycle of a few inches of snow, then it melts, then we get a few more. We're due up to 7 inches in my area in CT tonight, a cold week (down to 4*F tomorrow night), then 7 more inches on Friday. Then it'll get in the high 30s on Monday and it'll start to melt. Then we probably won't get any more. But I'd love more! I love the snow... getting out there and shoveling in the fresh, crisp air, getting the blood flowing, is a great feeling (as long as there's not too much and it's really wet and heavy).

Last week, regarding college, I had a dillemma. I wanted a bachelor's in Computer Networking or Information Systems or something along those lines. My community college offers and associate's in Networking, but the university I want to go to only has a bachelor's in Computer Science, so most of those classes I'd take at the CC wouldn't transfer. Then I found out that a private university an hour and 15 minutes away would take the CC's Associate's and let me to go on to bachelor's. But that means more money, and a long commute. So I started looking at job postings in the IT field and 90% of them require a bachelor's in Computer Science. So now I looked up every single class required at the university, checked their course equivilants at the CC, and am building a plan for which classes to sign up for this semester (which, aaaaahhh, starts... tomorrow...). So far it's looking like Precalc, Discrete Structures, Astronomy (my chosen class for the Natural Sciences part of the Tier I Liberal Arts Curriculum), and maybe something else, or get switch Discrete Structures since I'm already taking a math class.

[96bookworms]

Here in PA, it's a balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit, which is actually about 10 degrees warmer than predicted! There's some snow, but only about an inch, which is practically nothing around here!

Speaking in the spirit of true Randomness, has anyone seen the Lizzie Bennet Diaries? They're my current obsession

[Lazy Leopard]

Back here in the UK we've had snow this last week. My young (she's 12) Kenya-born niece was over with her parents for a school assessment. She'd never seen snow up close. There was a little snow on the morning I picked them up from the airport. Then, on the day before they were due to fly home we had about 6 inches of the stuff, and she got a proper introduction to it; sledging, snow-balling, building a snowman, and finally having to get from one side of the country to another on roads made somewhat tricky by it...

Early on Saturday morning I took them to Heathrow for their flight back to the warmth. Here, we had another four or five inches yesterday. I hope we're not going to get any more...

[EricG1793]

On the lawn! Heh.... We had a light coating of snow as a Christmas present here in CT.

We had a nice Christmas. Dad's side of the family came to my dad's house. We haven't had a party here in a while; usually it's at my grandfather's, but we took him out of the nursing home for the evening and we didn't want to take him back to his house because of his dimensia or the whole confusion and wanting to go home will start again. He actually seems to like where he is; he was antsy to get back, although he did have a great time and ate a huge plate full of food. He's 86, frail, in a wheelchair, and has a failing mind, but he's never had appetite problems.

Having the party at my dad's was a great motivation to get the house very clean. It needed it badly.

[Lazy Leopard]

It's now past 8pm here. Christmas day festivities are done. Too much food was prepared, of course. The weather stayed fine so we were able to use the large table on the lawn. Two family members were not well enough to enjoy the meal, however. I guess it all went reasonably well, considering. I hope other folk have had at least as good a day...

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I measure some authors by the length of bookcase they need. DD's up near the top, but PTerry and Anne and Misty all need more. (If you're really interested how my shelves are stacked then you could go looking on Library Thing in the obvious place.

I recently found out that LibraryThing was based in Maine when they posted a job ad I responded to. Wish I had known earlier, I might have dropped them a note while still employed. :-)

[Gibby Gibson]

I'm also an ... oldbie, I guess? Six years ago? It was right after Wizards at War was published. I came on just after chats ended. I wonder if they'll ever come back. Seems unlikely at this point...

While I would personally love to see the chats come back (I've always been more of a chatter then anything else), like you said, it's very unlikely they will come back. From the Young Wizards Discussion Forums FAQ:

In the past, the Young Wizards forums have featured a room for the members to chat between themselves and with Diane and occasional other guests. Because of abuse of the privilege, it was shut down, and only opened when there was an admin available to actively monitor. At this time there are no plans to reopen a chat facility. While DD plans to do more of the kind of conferences that used to be done in the chat area, we will be using other online software applications to host them.

In other news, I've also been really enjoying Diane Duane's OTP Challenge (Young Wizards) stories she's doing on her Tumblr page. I've been working my way through what has been posted thus far, and recording my personal opinions on each of the 'chapters' on my own Tumblr page. It's really nice to read more within the Young Wizards universe again. It feels like I haven't read much from them beyond my first read through of The Book of Night with Moon about a year ago, so having some new stuff is really exciting (even if at the end of it all none of it is canonical).

Beyond that, not much is going on here with me really. Work, sleep and reading. That's about it truthfully.

[EricG1793]

Hmmmm. Interesting. Games Wizards Play. *Searches forum* .... .... BOOK 10?!!!!! That was announced a year and a half ago! WOW, I'm behind the times!

[dorotheia]

I'm also an ... oldbie, I guess? Six years ago? It was right after Wizards at War was published. I came on just after chats ended. I wonder if they'll ever come back. Seems unlikely at this point...

I love the OTP challenge. I think "Shopping" is my favorite update so far, followed by "Wearing animal ears" because of the feline wizards. I take back what I said six years ago. Nita and Kit. Are. So. Cute. And. Adorable. Together.

I have got an iPad now, so I recently got a bundle of DD short stories and the revised SYWTBAW ebook. So seriously cool. I'm going to read them all on the plane home. I wonder if there any chance of The Big Meow eventually being finished and published as an ebook. The options have to be bigger now than they were when that project started...

I can't wait for Games Wizards Play. It sounds so intriguing.

[EricG1793]

Been a while, guys -- hi!

Garrett, Tuttle -- So sorry to hear about your employment situations. Just keep on keepin' on.... Tuttle, I think it's awesome that you've made the best of the situation by volunteering. That really is a wonderful thing to do, especially considering you're directly touching those kids' lives.

I'm currently going thrupough my (second?) re-reading of the YW series; I'm finishing up The Wizard's Dilemma. I can read and reread and re-reread this series and there's always more that I can get out of it! Just the incredible amount of deep thought that comes to me as I'm reading, specifically about just how huge and diverse the universe is, and how we're all insignificant in the grand scheme of things but can really make a difference in other people's lives on our own. And the message about the need for universal (think about that word, universal; in this case, it can quite literally mean "throughout the universe") harmony, and getting a real appreciation for the way things are. Wow!

Although, I have to admit that A Wizard's Holiday isn't my favorite book in the series... it just seems like it's very slow-moving and extremely grim (and I know that Mrs. Callahan dies at the end, anyway). However, it really displays the power of emotion and "What would YOU do if this happened?".

I'll be checking out the 30-day OTP challenge soon!

So, anyway, now for some more personal stuff. Graduated high school this year, now going to community college for Computer Networking, planning to transfer to a state university for a Bachelor's. I'm starting off easy, just 3 classes: English 101 (Composition), Network Essentials, and Intro to LANs, in that order, each an hour and a half on Monday and Thursday evenings, and I'm there from 5-9:30pm. It's been a rough changetaking night classes, but it enables me to work in the IT department at my high school. I actually like working more than going to school! I had been making my own hours (ending up being in the low 30s hours per week), but because of budget crisis, I've been cut down to a strict 15, which has been nice, actually; I work 3 days a week x 5 hours and I take Tuesdays and Thursdays off so I'm not as tired at school, plus I have those whole days to do homework and/or do other things.

So, how many of the "oldbies" are around still? Interesting term there, "oldbies".... I registered 5.5 years ago. I guess I might be considered by some as an oldbie, but in the grand cheme of things in YW's 10.5 years online, I'm still a "newbie." I remember when I considered myself highly important because I had been there for a few months or years, or had a hundred posts or whatever! It sure felt right at the time, but you know, I'd like to apologize to the many people I relentlessly antagonized in that time -- you know who you are.

[Stellazira]

OMG on one of my random checks the forums are back! O.o

Hi everyone!

[SpacePen]

movies, rain, and noises in the night

While catching up on the OTP thing (I never knew what OTP was till I saw it here) the following random thoughts crossed my mind

1) Bilbo Baggins, Dr. Watson.... how will I ever keep them straight again?

2) wet. cold. 3am. I guess it's almost December in Southern CA.

3) I think my neighbor has a new bird. Or else the wild parrots of Los Angeles county have taken to squawking and flying in the rain.



p.s. discovered a peacock walking down the sidewalk this afternoon. Well, it was only a matter of time before the wild peacocks joined the wild parrots as disturbers of the peace.

[Lazy Leopard]

I measure some authors by the length of bookcase they need. DD's up near the top, but PTerry and Anne and Misty all need more. (If you're really interested how my shelves are stacked then you could go looking on Library Thing in the obvious place.

Autmn's here. Winter's not far away. The weather's been very soggy. There are times I'm glad I didn't buy that house on the road called "Pondfield". While they havn't flooded, they've probably had a bit more than their normal share of extreme damp these last few weeks.

...and in other news, I'm having fun working on a WordPress website, and more fun trying to work out the programme for next year's UK filk convention, and in between I'm trying to get my home webserver back into action (its hard disk went west last week...).

Oh, and Morse code is hard to learn well.

This randomness comes to you with a little help from the oh-dark-stupid hours, and a fair dash of should have gone to bed already. G'night...

[Tuttle]

The post I just made on google+ (to my YW circle of people I know from here from chime/cedric era (2006/2007):

--

-SYWTBAW NME (couldn't afford it before)
-DW NME when it came out today (with the cyber monday sale so --SYWTBAW was only $2)
Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales (had been waiting on a sale because I knew there'd be one soon) and with not having a job I couldn't afford not waiting on a sale.

This weekend was mostly DD books for me. The only other stuff we bought was stuff to make me heated gloved. None of this present shopping...DD ebook shopping! Yay new books.

I now have:
-Paper copy of YW books
-Ebook copy of YW books
-Ebook copy of the two YW NME books that are out
-Paper copy of First two feline wizards books
-Want to get a ebook copy of The Big Meow so waiting patiently on that, and read it from the internet
-Paper copy of Tale of the Five
-Ebook copy of Tale of the Five
-Paper copy of Stealing the Elf King's Roses
-Ebook copy of Stealing the Elf King's Roses
-Ebook copy of A Wind from the South in pdf (from before I had a kindle, from when they were being sold on ebay)
-Ebook of A Wind from the South in mobi
-All of the other DD ebooks on the ebook direct site... except the cookbook
-One paper Peter Morwood book in my TBR pile because I should see how I like one of those, and I picked one up in paper, and will pick up an ebook too at some point but didn't get around to it yet because I want to make sure its a different one.

I um... didn't realize how many I had for not having read any Star Trek books until I actually looked through. I still need to get Omnitopia Dawn though, missing that one still.

--

Wow. I entirely didn't realize how many DD books I had. I think she's the author I have most books of if you count multiples. I think this beats out Pterry, because so many of those books I read from the library.

--

As for randomness:

Sandy was bad. For me it was terrible in that I get migraines from low pressure systems and I had a migraine for 4 days straight (and I'm a few states north). Luckily it was a silent migraine so I wasn't sobbing in pain like I sometimes am. I was actively monitoring everything with the storm because of it though, and yeah, it was bad in NYC. They are talking about this potentially being the second in cost of damage only to Katrina. Comparatively to other big storms not many lives lost, but the storm surge was bad, and its expensive how much damage happened.

But well, it helped me get more medication. I'm on migraine preventative, have been for a few months now, and after Sandy I also have a migraine abortative that I carry with me always. I also am documenting all headaches of all types for my neurologist for when I see him again in 4 months. Chronic headaches are a pain...literally. 8 headaches in the last 14 days (where I only count them if they're bad enough to interfere with what I want to do)

Have been volunteering at a school for high functioning autistic students. That's been going really well. I'm a volunteer math tutor. Last week I played zendo with the kids. I got a student who I've never seen focus on anything for a half hour to not only be focused but actually interested enough that he was analyzing his thought process afterwards. I completely succeeded at the lesson I was going for with multiple of the students, and am going to keep playing with them. I also know it'll help them in ways that they aren't thinking about, and that they're teachers aren't thinking about. Zendo is one of my favorite games and its really great for how you think about things both for math and in general, and well, its a game, and is good for thinking at the same time. You get to both have fun, and learn, and not have it be one of those fake educational games, but a real educational game that's actually both educational and a game, not neither, (or just educational and not a real game). It's a game that most people I know who play it don't play it as educational.

I miss the YW forums a lot. *poke* get back to active. I'm looking forward to Games Wizards Play for the forums getting active again, as well as for the book (for the book more though)

[96bookworms]

30 Day OTP Challenge

So....DD is doing a 30 day OTP challenge with Nita and Kit! Actual stories =) Might help tide things over until the next book! Looks good! Diane Duane, 30 Day OTP Challenge: Holding hands YAY!!!