The Topic of Great Randomness

[Gibby Gibson]

[dorotheia]

Hello! We're baaaaaack!

Things are loads better now than they were when I last posted, which must have been December/January or something... How did a week of forums' downtime turn into half a year?

As for my future right now, I'm going to college...and I'm moving to a very cold place. Michigan.
Dear Californians: please stop panicking. I will survive. I know where my towel is...just kidding. It is much more important to keep track of your photo ID and a suitably warm jacket. If you have those, I think you can get other people to help you! SO! I can keep track of that much!
You just wait though... I am sure I will have my opportunity to poke fun at the rest of America which so misunderstands Californians... We shall see.

I'd've liked to have watched the Olympic fencing (watch me mangle my English, I'm going to have to curb this colloquial habit when I start writing essays), but since we only get NBC, well. No such luck. Nor do we see equestrianism, or Judo, or archery. During prime-time, it's gymnastics, diving, swimming, and beach volleyball for us... The former two options are more interesting, although Misty May and Kerri Walsh of beach volleyball are quite awesome. Their teamwork is impeccable. Oh good! The pole jump's on.

Do tell me, what is interesting about watching bicycle races (NBC's usual morning daytime Olympic TV)? The only thing I can think of is that bewildered sense of wonder and awe at how everyone manages to race without breaking their necks (though of course there are accidents occasionally) and that somebody actually manages to get ahead! How?!! But frankly, I do not have the patience to watch for a mere half-hour to get anything else out of that awe which can be had in the first two minutes...

The Olympic Opening was typically British: a mixed bag. In there is good, bad, and baloney. Great stuff. British humor stuff. Why-in-the-world-did-you-put-that-in stuff. "Er, what..." stuff. "That's beautiful, but it just doesn't fit!" stuff. Childhood-imagination-issues stuff. Like that. You know, what remember them for... But I did like the unsubtly disguised Lord of the Rings theme. I really wonder what the non-English speakers got out of it, though... I really do...

[96bookworms]

I, too, am getting a bit frustrated with the coverage we get for the olympics. There was a guy from our college who was pole-vaulting, but did we get to see him? No. And I was really looking forwards to the fencing, since I've started taking classes a few months ago.

Lazy Leopard: It doesn't really ring a bell for me...But I guess my parents don't usually swear in Afrikaans, so I don't get any of the dirty bits

Has anybody gotten a hold of the New Millenium edition of SYWtbAW? It doesn't seem to have been posted here....

[Tuttle]

Yay! The forums are back! I was checking regularly to see if they were back. Took a break because of moving. Finished getting out of apartment, checked and they were here! Yay!

Way too tired to have much too say. Quite unusual for me to say. I still have my very long posts that I'm known for. Other forums now also know Tuttle for her particularly long posts. Moving does that, even almost a week after finishing getting stuff out of the apartment though.

We've moved in with my boyfriend's family for now. It's meant that we were able to get me out of the city. I could not handle living in the city any longer. Also it means that we're able to get a dog. We're getting an oversized german shepherd. He's currently 100 lbs and still growing. He was being trained to be a service dog for someone we know well, owner trained by her, but she's figured out that at her current place in life there's no way she can train a service dog. So she's rehoming him to us and searching and searching for an organization that'll train her a service dog, because she needs a service dog badly but she can't train one without a lot of support, and she doesn't have that support. He's probably going to technically end up an home-only service dog for me, because we're going to work on teaching him tasks in order to make him happier, because he's a dog that was bred to work, so he'll likely be a happier dog with work to do. He was bred and raised to be a service dog, so giving him service dog tasks even if he stays within the house should work better for him. (And then if everything about him acting properly and the way he handles stress and what he wants begs for going into public, he'd go out in public, but we're not pushing for that, because its unsafe for him, for me,for the public, and for people with service dogs to push for it).

I think that's all that's new at the moment in Tuttle's life. Lots of obsessing about kitty. Lots of obsessing about dog. Being told that I'm unemployable. Probably going to volunteer in a school for autistic children in the fall because vocational rehab won't work with me because they consider me currently unemployable. Need to call them again because they didn't call back when I'd called before, but they were excited in the email. I hate phones.


Curiousity landed!

[kk]

Tuttle: Congrats on the moving, and the dog. ^_^ That sounds like it'll be fun. The "unemployable" bit sucks, though. :/

Dorotheia: Oh my...I used to live in Michigan. Erm...Stay away from Flint, or at least be cautious if you go there. We used to hear gunshots at night, and it has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Also, if you get snow, mail some over here - we haven't really had much after the Snowmageddons.

I'm going to New Jersey tomorrow! I'm pretty excited about this, because I haven't been in a while. And when my relatives aren't arguing with each other, it's usually quite pleasant. We'll be right across the river from Philly, so we'll get to go there, and we'll also get to go to the shore. Seaside Heights is...not as violent as The Jersey Shore makes it seem. I've gone there since I was little, and it's really nice. I don't know if I'll have enough energy to swim, but all I need is a towel, a hoagie, and a good book and I'm all set.

Except I haven't packed yet... Gah, so many things that need to be done...

Oh, also - I recently bought a new violin case! Because the one I currently have is...crumbling. It falls apart if you poke at it or move it. It stains furniture and fabric. It's a nice case and everything, but it's not really something I can use anymore.

(In its defense, it's old - the violin's been in the family for a while, and there's a receipt from 1923 in one of the case compartments.)

...I just heard a loud noise from the kitchen, so I'm going to go see what happened. I'll see you guys when I get back from NJ!

[Lazy Leopard]

It's one small step...

He was the first. So far, the first of only twelve. RIP Neil Armstrong.

Worlds grow old and suns grow cold
And death we never can doubt.
Time's cold wind, wailing down the past,
Reminds us that all flesh is grass
And history's lamps blow out.

But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when.
Time won't drive us down to dust again.

From Hope Eyrie (by Leslie Fish)

Here are the photos taken at Tranquility Base.

[Tuttle]

I still want to at some point buy this anthology of songs (which has Hope Eyrie on it). I just still don't have money. This has reminded me again that I want to do so. If people want to hear the song Lazy Leopard is referencing it is on that site.

I should say something about Neil Armstrong but I really don't know what to say.

Pippin is here!

I started my new volunteer position last Thursday. It seems like it'll work well for me.

Yesterday I went to a wedding. Exhausted, recovering now. People are exhausting.

[Lazy Leopard]

Pippin is here!

Pippin's a kitten? (I'm guessing...)

If people want to hear the song Lazy Leopard is referencing it is on that site.

Google the title, and you'll find a number of recordings, including various video versions.

Of course, about a month ago another space-faring pioneer died. Sally Ride was one of the first women to go to space. A friend of mine wrote a song about women in space many years ago, but I don't think you'll find a recording of it anywhere. However, the lyrics are online, and Sally gets a mention in the second verse:

The decade passed, then ten more years from those heady days in June,
Soyuz and Apollo flew, and men walked upon the moon,
The promise all but broken, till Sally flew to even the score
But politics still intervened, Svetlana flew the year before.

From "Following in Valentina's Footsteps" by Valerie Housden

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Re-hi, all! I obviously haven't been checking in often enough. Bad mod! No biscuit!

In the latest news, I got fired while my wife was in the hospital with a pulmonary embolism. In their defense, I'm told that they were actually going to talk to me on the first day I missed, but I found out my work login had been suspended when I tried to log in from home and send an update. But still, you'd expect more sympathy/better timing from a community health clinic...

In recent music news, this summer I played in the pit band for Johnny Baseball, a new musical hopefully on its way to Broadway. We were the second production ever, and I got to chat a bit with the writer of the book, Richard Dresser, at a reception after the first performance. He told me about some of the changes that had already been made for subsequent productions -- for example, two of the leading characters didn't wind up in bed with each other hours after they first met anymore. I liked it as it was, but I can see how that change would make it a bit stronger, especially coupled with a new song at that point. I got to play tenor sax for the first time in 20-or-so years -- the last time was a summer production of Evita while I was still in college (starring Liz Callaway, for any Disney musical fans out there).

My older geek, Ael, is starting high school this year, and has already been rehearsing with the rock/jazz pep band for the past week (and is badly addicted to Tumblr, grrr....). Erin, otherwise known as Thing 2, has a couple more years of middle school to go.

Looking forward to continuing to be random at all of you! :-)

[Tuttle]

Pippin's a kitten? (I'm guessing...)

Pippin's a dog. I also have a cat - Ada is my cat's name. I name cats after mathematicians. Pippin is a German Shepherd - he's the German Shepherd I mentioned a few posts back.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...e/IM000642.jpg is Ada - She's my kitty. She's between a year and two years old and my emotional support animal. She's a mixed breed, but personality matches a Forest Cat (that is Maine Coon, Norwegian Forest Cat, and the sort)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...0819121903.jpg is Pippin - he's our new dog. He's a purebred, well bred, German Shepherd. He's a year and a half old, so still partially a puppy, adolescent/young adult dog. He's doing lots of training currently. He's averaging about an hour of training a day currently.

[Lazy Leopard]

Pippin's a dog. I also have a cat - Ada is my cat's name.

Ah! Thanks for the piccies. Several friends seem to have been getting new pets of late. I hope the training goes well.

[96bookworms]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...0819121903.jpg is Pippin

aww, he's so cute!

Not too much news from me, started school =P, but I don't like it much ...The last 2 years have been like that. Just not as interesting as it used to be. Not that I don't want to learn, it's just that the teachers don't do it well.

Also, if there are fans of Tamora Pierce's work on here, you may enjoy this:

The Tortall Comics Project by Project Tortall (eBook) - Lulu

it's a fan-made comic book of different scenes in the Tortall and Emelan books, and it's really well done! I contributed the summary of the Provost's Dogs books, since I can't draw...It's worth checking out, and it's free!

[kk]

Garrett: That's too bad about your job and everything. :/

Tuttle: Aww, they're so cute! :3

I got back from New Jersey a while ago, but I've been distracted/exhausted and haven't been doing much. I've pretty much been watching QI and knitting, which is quite relaxing.

While in New Jersey I found a children's book called Our Man on the Moon at a book sale. It's from before the moon landing took place, and has a lot of brightly-coloured pictures and a tiny pop-up lunar module. It's really neat, but it made me feel a bit more depressed when I found out about Neil Armstrong's death a few days later.

I think the best part of the vacation was a library event I went to, where there was a presentation on Saturn's moons. It was fascinating, and a lot of fun.

[Lazy Leopard]

I think the tribute to Neil Armstrong that best caught my eye was one Neil Gaiman posted.

It's been a bundle of ups and downs of late:

I've had a bit of WordPress work which should bring in a little pocket money, but it means other things get put aside. The garden probably suffers most.

I've had family staying, and my young nephew is now at a boarding school only a hundred miles or so from me, and four thousand (or so) from his parents and siblings. I guess contact is easier these days, and I gather he's enjoying it, but it's reminded me of how I felt when I was packed off overseas for school...

Just had a chat with my sister. She was seething because one of her kids' aunts is having a dog put down because it escaped and went on a rampage. The poor dog never got proper training or enough exercise, but of course it's the dog who pays in the end for its owner's neglect.

On the up-side, I've been helping with an amateur radio course at one of my local clubs, and I get to do a couple of lectures on the second day, in just over a week. Better make sure I know my stuff, and know what they need to know. It's the foundation level exam, so it's all easy stuff - the catch is not to get the more complicated stuff muddled in by mistake.

Then there's the German filk convention coming up in a fortnight - a long weekend with friends and music in a castle in Germany - it's usually lots of fun.

[dorotheia]

Hullo!

I discovered that DD has a tumblr (geez, that's old news, huh?) and tumbled right into the past...

Found this gem:

Genre Legend Diane Duane Talks Scooby-Doo, Star Trek, and Beating Harry Potter to the Punch | GeekDad | Wired.com

Be warned, it's very long, but as far as I'm concerned, it's gold. Also, I had no idea there was a Geek corner in Wired Magazine's online site, so I'm going to have to start paying attention to that.

DD, if I had a donkey, you could talk the ears off of it. Since I don't...because that would be impractical, for various reasons... Well, you'd just have to make do with my ears. Because I am pretty sure there's a permanent sticking charm on them and I gravitate towards interestingly talkative people, they won't fall off. However one might eventually find oneself talking to a blob of pink goo in a naturally-occurring state of ecstasy. As much as the pinkish goo might want to, I doubt she'll be quite gibberish enough to ask questions...although she'd very much like to switch places with your shadow if she could obtain permission to do it. Whether such a position would be beneficial to her health is highly debatable, but she'd really really like to. Just to listen. Well, as long as one doesn't start repeating oneself. Your fan the raptly listening pink goo has enough presence of mind to interrupt on that score; there is precedent for it.

I am not quite joking. I think a single conversation with DD would be the equivalent of maybe ten cups of coffee, and a single cup of coffee wreaks quite enough havoc on my social coherency with accompanying ecstatic mood swings and some positive superstitiousness. I really should stop mucking with that stuff, no matter how good it tastes. It's not good for my sanity.

--

Nope, not planning on going to Flint anytime soon. I watched the documentary about its rise, fall and disastrous decline in my Econ/Gov. class.

College is going well. I should be doing homework but I can put it off, so for once I will. I don't usually, but I should get some sleep. Sleep. That's the mantra. (Although I am getting way more than in high school, simply because of the more flexible hours, but I have to make my own discipline.)

Blast iMovie and unhelpful updates. I hate making homemade video, even for the sake of art.