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| Saturday, December 27, 2008 |
| Mandatory New Years' Resolution Post |
Will Take Work on a Daily Basis
- Finish organizing my photo collection (~17,000 photos). Get at least 1/4 of the way through tagging, rating, and eliminating duplicates.
- Get a real start on organizing my old design/writing work files.
- Create a good organizational system for ITP work files.
- Rate 40 days worth of music.
- Average one blog post every 3 days.
- Stay on-budget every month.
- Make some babies~!
- Use my 'power tower' (ugh hate the name) Christmas gift. I have yet to determine actual numbered goals. Get more sexy! This involves about 45 minutes of workout per day in 10, 10, and 25 minute sections.
- Eat well (almost no corn syrum, limited sweets, good snacks like carrots and nuts, more but smaller meals, drinking 2.5 litres of water a day).
- Take 4,000 photographs, including 400 5-star photos. Post the best to Facebook/Flickr.
- Consistently shoot 80% on freethrows.
Will Take Work on a Weekly Basis
- Create a home inventory for insurance purposes, including all photos, reciepts and serial numbers.
- Finish Ignition. This means professionally mastered and with a new website to promote it.
- Start re-learning piano and/or theory (haven't set up specific goals for this yet).
- Go on at least 25 hikes or other outdoor excursions.
- Consistently (at least 2x a month) do little things for my wife that would make her want to date me if we weren't married.
- Stay connected to friends via Facebook. Use it to get together with friends while we're still young and sexy.
- Get a good, highly-productive routine going at work that encourages me to take carpal-tunnel saving breaks and keeps me alert through the day (this relates to the eating and exercising).
Will Take Work on a Monthly Basis
- Begin to learn PHP in depth, preferably through classes that work pays for...
- Set up a long series of doctor's appointments to check for just about everything one can be checked for, to deal with any problems I might have before they're problems. That is - abuse the fact that I have a job with semi-decent medical care.
- Work on some way of respectfully resolving some core differences of belief between me and the in-laws.
- Get out of town 8 times (including at least 5 to family).
- Read a book a month.
- Reaquaint myself with all the outdoors knowledge I had as a Boy Scout.
- Learn to properly tune up my car.
One-Time Events:
Winter:
- Pay taxes by Valentine's Day.
- Visit my co-workers in San Francisco (I work from home 700 miles away and have yet to meet them).
- Use our new toboggan.
Spring:
- For the Prius: Replace scratched rear turn signal assembly.
- Redo my homepage/portfolio again in such a way that it all actually works.
- Create "A Ninja Wedding"
- Create the Impulse Nine TF2 frag video
Summer:
- Get to a water park.
- Write a short (20-page) religous-political treatise.
VW Work:
- January: Scrape off all the tar board from the floors and put down rust-preventing primer. Install aluminum side panels.
- February: Install floor drains. Put down floor lining. Install side brush bars. Install larger brake fluid reservoir.
- March: Create map pocket and cup holder in side panels. Install fire extinguisher holder.
- April: Install Dynamat (weather permitting).
- May: Buffer time.
- June: Begin working with simple fiberglassing by making rear trunk covers.
- July: Replace all the wiring with Jordan, adding circuits for all the new stuff to be installed later. Add gravel guards. Replace turn signal. Install air horn.
- August: Powdercoat rims, bumpers, brush bars, gravel guards, and door panels.
- September: Buffer time.
- October: Replace rims and tires. Raise rear suspension.
- November: Install new headlight system.
- December: Replace door and window rubber.
Labels: basketball, doctor, exercise, food, hiking, holidays, Internet, Leelu, money, mp3, music, organization, photography, Rachel, resolutions, team fortress 2, To-Do, work, Yoshimi |
posted by Steve @ 9:38 PM  |
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| Friday, December 19, 2008 |
| But it's chocolate chip! |
I enjoy shopping when it is relatively focused. Maybe it’s a deep-seated hunter instinct, but I enjoy having a particular goal in mind, and hunting it down. Aimless wandering, window shopping, and similar activities are, on the other hand, very frustrating for me. This is particularly true when there are a lot of other people in the store.
So naturally, there are few activities I can think of that are less pleasant than doing Christmas shopping.
Strangely, I’ve found myself in several typical Chrismas shopping places (Target, Ross, etc.) without doing any actual Christmas shopping, buying random household items. Today, I found myself at Ross, searching for a bag for my new MacBook. It’s no good having a laptop on the road without some sort of case, even if the boss did insist on getting the protection plan.
I was debating the merits of my options with Rachel when a woman with a petulant teenage boy in tow approached me. He was whining about how they hadn’t bought him anything. I asked her if she was just going to get his gift when he wasn’t around to see what he gets. She made a face, leaned over to me conspiratorially and said, “I’m in the business of getting rid of stuff this year. I have too much junk.” She noticed we were going through laptop bags and said, “oh, are you looking for a bag?”
I looked down at the obvious and explained why I was getting one.
“You want one? I have one. I’ll give it to you. I was going to give it to a thrift store anyway.” She gives me her phone number and tells me to call her. I thank her profusely and leave Ross with nothing but a confused look on my face and the watchful gaze of the Resource Protection rent-a-cops.
Our next stop was Walmart, another epicenter of Christmas Hell, to pick up a surge protector for Rachel’s desk. The shopping part of this was pretty straightforward, but as we were driving home, we noticed there was a cookie on our windshield.
It was difficult to concentrate on driving, just because we were so preoccupied with how on earth a cookie ended up on our windshield. I also wanted to know what kind of cookie it was.
As we drove, the debate over whether or not I should it flared. Rachel was adamantly opposed, as we didn’t know where it came from or whether or not it had any extra ingredients – be they the “happy” kind or the malicious. I, on the other hand, was having trouble ignoring the fact that it was a free cookie.
Moreover, it struck me as a test of the 3-Second Rule. You know – that if you drop something on the ground, but pick it up quickly and blow on it, the item is as sterile as a surgeon’s prep room. And if you only have to blow something for a few seconds to make it sterile, then obviously exposing this cookie renders it as fit to eat as you can get.
Rachel was not impressed. I ended up sneaking an extremely small bite out of the corner. It was chocolate chip.Labels: Christmas, crazy people, food, Rachel, shopping, stories |
| posted by Steve @ 4:58 PM |
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| Friday, November 21, 2008 |
| Rachel's computer |
Rachel got her Christmas present a few days before Thanksgiving. A year ago, she got a Prius and this year I managed to deliver in a similarly spectacular manner (albeit less expensive by two orders of magnitude): a very tiny ASUS eeePC 900HA mini-laptop.
Rachel had inherited my old computer (Baby Beast) when I bought my current, incredible computer (Black Beauty). Unfortunately, it kept losing track of its boot drive, and only occasionally worked. The whole point of her going part time was to get her to focus on researching the notion of building her own business (in crafts or books) and writing her stories. She couldn’t do either without a computer, and I couldn’t just lend her mine since I work on mine.
Well that and I don’t like other people being on my computer. I won’t justify it; it’s neurotic.
I have to admit that I got the idea from PC World. Dad had gotten me a subscription and it had an article on laptops that were larger than the truly tiny palm-tops, but smaller than the briefcase-sized standard laptops. The ones they reviewed were all similarly-specified, but one of them was a mere $350. It also was as powerful as Baby Beast. That pretty much decided it for me.
I had a great deal of fun teasing Rachel that I had bought her a relatively expensive present – and that she would be getting it soon.
The day it was scheduled to arrive (and did), Rachel worked a mid shift at work, and I made sure to tell her it would be delivered in her absence. I’m rather glad this happened, though, because it gave me a bit of time to install all the various bits of software she needed.
This wasn’t quite as straightforward as with other laptops – this one doesn’t have a CD drive. I came up with a good solution fairly quickly, though: I used Nero to create a CD image, copied that onto a thumb drive, and used Daemon Tools to emulate a CD. Done deal.
It’s nice having a very slim (literally and figuratively) computer around. It has MS Word and Outlook, Trillian, Winamp, Firefox, Avast!, DisplayFusion, KeePass, and the printer, Bluetooth, and scanner drivers.
It boots within a few seconds and doesn’t really need resetting.
I even managed to set up my phone as a modem for it, which means it can surf the Internet anywhere I have a data connection for my phone (which is basically anywhere within 10 miles of any metropolitan area).
Glee!Labels: Christmas, computers, madness, money, Rachel |
| posted by Steve @ 10:33 PM |
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| Wednesday, November 12, 2008 |
| Hiking Regularly |
When I was in high school, I was a Boy Scout.
As satisfying as it is to accomplish climbing a 5.10, it's very expensive to go climbing in a rock gym: Rocks & Ropes charges $479 for an annual pass. Because my climbing partner and I are the type that hate gyms, we're going out hiking every weekend instead. We'll see if I keep any self-promises to do some basic exercises during the week to shore up the exercise.
Our first hike was last weekend, and we started quite easy with Aspen Trail, near Summerhaven on the top of Mt. Lemmon. We'd already hiked the trail almost a year ago, but wanted to start out easy. It was basically perfect weather - just cool enough to be chilly when you're not moving, but a little warm while hiking.
There’s something about trees that change color that is endlessly satisfying for a desert-dweller. Having a small lunch at the top was nice as well. Nyssa, Rachel and I actually hiked this same trail a year ago, although this time it was Nyssa, Rhys and me. I took an awful lot of photos, and we capped the day with fudge from the gift shop and pizza in a very small log cabin restaurant. I can’t imagine what teenagers who live in a 100-person town do for fun, but it was a neat little place to visit.
(Clearly, the teenagers kept jobs at the pizza and fudge places.)
I’m looking forward to doing this every week.Labels: climbing, exercise, hiking, Nyssa, Rachel |
| posted by Steve @ 10:37 AM |
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| Wednesday, November 05, 2008 |
| Some Final Quotes |
"Mom, do you remember Reagan's 'big tent' strategy?" "Wasn't that a term for his hair?"
"I am really looking forward to the international reaction to [Obama's] win." "I think if you step outside and listen carefully you'll hear the cheers from our back yard."
"I just hope Obama's inaugural address is enough to bring the international public relations handjob to climax."
"I will be your president, too."
"[toasting] To America."
"Someday I'll be rich enough to hire Nate Silver to help make all my life decisions. 'Should I sleep with her?' 'Well, I'm showing a 35% chance it will end badly.'"
Labels: love, Obama, politics, quotes, Rachel, webcomics |
| posted by Steve @ 3:01 AM |
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| Wednesday, October 15, 2008 |
| The South, changing |
"Times change."
Rachel, on what she'd have said if I had asked her, four years ago, about the possibility that a mixed-race presidential candidate might win the electoral college votes of Arkansas.Labels: Arkansas, Obama, race, Rachel |
| posted by Steve @ 10:43 PM |
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| Friday, August 15, 2008 |
| I can't sleep. |
Rachel is visiting her family to meet our first nephew, her brother Isaac's son Elijah. I'm excited for them, and Rachel is beyond words.
She and I are, still, very close. That sounds strange from a married man talking about his wife, but we really do still have many of the hallmarks of a relationship still in the "honeymoon phase" - four years into the marriage. We sometimes chide each other for being codependent (and frankly it's a fair cop); I wouldn't eat without her and I don't know what her finances would look like without me. We still balance well, and that's largely because we're still good at communicating, even when we're angry (at each other or just in general).
I've heard from many sources that the first wall is at seven years, but I'm comforted, in a way, knowing that even when she's only gone for a day and a half, sleeping isn't something that's likely before complete exhaustion.Labels: family, insomnia, love, Rachel, sleep |
| posted by Steve @ 3:04 AM |
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| Thursday, January 24, 2008 |
| Birthing isn't something I'm gonna do. |
I'm male. I don't get to do the more involved half of baby-making. I just watched the trailer for The Business of Being Born, which is a Ricki Lake production about how natural birthing is pretty rare nowdays and how hospitals-as-businesses have a lot to do with that. It's most likely going to present hospitals as The Evil and midwifing and water-births as The Ecstasy, but hyperbole notwithstanding, the points are sound.
This is something Rachel actually decided quite awhile ago, since her aunt (I think) is a midwife. She's also the kind of tough-minded feminist that can't believe that she (and most anyone else) can't do what women have done since there were women. I admire that, and know full well I'll need a gauntlet to keep my hand from being broken off during childbirth.
No, this is not a veiled way of saying she's pregnant, despite the fact that we've had something like half our friends and most of her co-workers tell her that they've had dreams that she is pregnant. (Grammatically, that is an awesome sentence.) But we've discussed how and why we're going to have kids, though the exact times aren't something anyone can exactingly plan (nor should it be). Honestly, the only thing that really makes me think is how she's going to get her Librarian degree amongst part-time jobs and/or pregnancy.
It's all academic now, of course. Really. Of course, it takes like a month to find out, so how would I know?Labels: feminism, kids, Rachel, women |
| posted by Steve @ 2:49 PM |
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| Sunday, December 02, 2007 |
| Island living |
Apparently, buying your own private island is cheaper than I thought. According to Private Islands Online, you can have one for as little as $200k (less, actually, but not for decent-sized ones not in Northern Canada). OK, $200,000 is a lot of money, and the ones I really liked were more in the $600k range. But it's a lot cheaper than I had pictured in my head.
So Rachel and I, if Rudy Giuliani gets elected, are going to leave the country to live on an island. Right on. And actually, we will probably be able to save up for it by the time his first term is up!
Note: This is probably all a pipe dream.
Check this out. Rachel and I want to build a sustainable island community. Each person (assuming 15-20 wage-earners) would need to contribute somewhere between $75k and $200k. That's a lot of money, sure, but it's about as much as mediocre-to-crap house in Tucson. If, as a community, we make money, then we can pay it off like any other loan (I'll get to how we'd make money in a bit).
The goal is a happy life, I guess. Eat well, raise awesome children, enjoy friends and family, improve yourself, waste nothing, and be happy. What else could anyone want?
We'll get 20 adults together. Mostly they'll be people like this guy and others that are interested in the no-impact good life ideal, except without insufferably pretentious people. We'd take certain roles. I would help teach the kids, and keep all the electronics going, and probably do some of the maintenance of machinery. My load would be relatively light because I'd also keep my day job - web design - because I can do that from anywhere on the planet.
Others without the traditional white-collar do-anywhere jobs would be helping grow food, build and maintain stuff, cook, and so on.
We'd need some things:
- A good island. At least of the ones I've seen, most of the affordable ones are in the Philippines. A good island will be well above the sea (typhoons aren't fun to watch from underwater), ideally with some cliffs for climbing, diving, and windmills. It should have a decently protected moor for a boat, a place for a small ambphibious plane to be stored in case of a storm. A beach would be nice. Vegetation is also a must. Must also be at least 20 acres.
- Transportation. Gotta have at a good-sized boat, probably one capable of Atlantic travel. Also, a small amphibious plane. It wouldn't be hard to make the boat self-sufficient with today's power generation (solar, wind generators), and desalinization processes. A 60' ketch should be capable of sailing most anywhere, including crossing the Pacific, but I am waiting on an expert to be sure of that. Making a 'green' aircraft presents a more formidable challenge: you can mix the fuel (20 bio/80 regular), and lower emissions by 50%, in order to use a typical amphibious like a Cessna 208, or hope that the DA42 Twin Star gets a water-landing version with more cargo room. You'd have to get the plane from Japan or the Philippines if you wanted to have an island in the Pacific, though. It's a ridiculous notion, but I'd also want to turn my Baja bug into a biodiesel schwimwagen for diving trips and cruising around the island.
- Food. If you've got a couple of garden-loving hippies on your crew who want nothing to do with a 'real' job and want to grow stuff for the rest of their lives (and we do), this is mostly taken care of, and they don't mind farming a little extra in exchange for living in paradise. Apparently, most of the vegans we know would be fine owning (and eating) various animals if they did the job themselves. Currently it looks like we'll have a cats (as pets) and chickens and a few cows (as food).
- Water. Desalinization has come a long, long way. For about $10-20k you can get a salt-water purifier that's about the size of a dorm refrigerator, and it will give you 1,000 gallons of potable water per day. All you'd need is a clean reservoir, a means of getting the ocean to the filter, and a pump. Rainwater collecting has also worked well for humanity for... ever.
- Fellow colonists. While you don't want to pigeonhole people into jobs that can't be replaced (in case they want to leave), you'd want to be sure to bring people you want to live with. Of course, people will have their own homes and all, but community meals are going to be a big thing here (since it's shared food), so picking your friends will be important. Also, divvying up expenses will be a good thing since maintaining the boat and plane won't be free.
- Utilities. Power's the easiest thing on the list: solar and wind power is quite effective nowdays, and you'll have lots of both on an island. Use LED lighting, and highly efficient insulation (etc.), and you've got low-enough power usage (even with computers), for solar and wind. You can compost most any waste, and we'd avoid plastics like they were diseased. The only thing that won't be obviously not biodegradable is most of our...
- Other niceties, like Internet access (now available via satellite), plumbing, stereo systems, computers, swings, scuba gear, a library, a medical room, a distillery (booze!),
It's all doable, though, and there's already a market for pre-made hippies-in-trees commune housing. That helps construction quite a bit (and makes it a lot cheaper as well).
We'd have to get homeowner-type loans to pay for it all, most likely. So how would we pay that off? And what about the cost of upkeep for the vehicles, and occasional supplies?
Well, I work at home anyway. So I can make some money that way. We can also rent out a little vacation spot for rich tourists. $5,000 a week is the usual run, but with a nice place with maids, you can charge $10,000. So I figure we can hire a few local people for $200 a week to live there and keep up the guest place. Usual pay in the Philippines is $200 a month for that work, so we can get some good work for that. Figuring maintenance costs, that leaves about $8,000 a week in profit, and if we keep it occupied half the time, our island makes us $200k per year. That will pay off a $1.5M loan in 10 years, just by itself, and theoretically people should be going into this with cash deposits anyway.
Add in regular income from people like me. Rachel also suggested having a little cottage industry, perhaps selling fruit to nearby islands. Plus, if 20 people are determined, a lot can be done.
Figuring a 10-year, $2M loan and 6.5% interest, monthly payments would be $17,032.20. That's a lot of money - but divide it between ten families, who don't have to pay for electricity, a car payment, food, or a load of other usual expenses. Then you're talking $1,703.22. That's about normal for a mortgage. Just maintain the stuff, and occasionally fly to visit family. So in order to make all this work, each family has to average an annual income of about ... $25k, about $5k above the U.S. poverty line.
Of course, not everyone is going to have a prototypical 'job,' so some of the money has to come from the island or islanders. But between a rental villa and some work-at-home types (web design, graphic design, writers, perhaps musicians, online librarians, etc.), it can be done.
Now the biggest three questions:
1. Can we find fifteen to twenty other people (or ten couples) to go into this?
2. Can we work up the nerve to do it?
3. Can we put together enough cash to get to critical mass?
We'll see, I guess.Labels: ambition, life, pipe dreams, Rachel, To-Do, travel, vacation, work |
| posted by Steve @ 10:38 PM |
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| Friday, August 31, 2007 |
| Butt... |
A conversation with Steve & Rachel:
Steve: You know what it's time for?!
Rachel: Buttsex!
Steve: No! ButtROCK!
[Plays buttrock]
You'll need to go to this comic and its follow-up to understand.Labels: music, Rachel, random, webcomics |
| posted by Steve @ 11:03 PM |
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| Tuesday, August 07, 2007 |
| Music & Life... with Rests |
Rachel's birthday is on Wednesday, and so of course everybody - and I mean everybody - wants to see Rachel and I. It's nice that we're popular, but I'm pretty sure she's going to want to sleep for the most part.
Finding a balance is proving harder than we thought, especially since we have different weekends. Hopefully, when we go to the libraries around here to apply for a job for her, we'll have some luck and eventually have the same two days off every week.
We also weeded and pruned a ton this week. I'm pretty sure we've cut, pulled and otherwise removed about 300-400 pounds of foliage, branches and weeds. Sad thing is that we're not even really close to finishing. We're still excited about our new place, but boy it's a lot of work getting it up to where we want it to be.Labels: birthday, family, friends, house, Rachel, vacation |
| posted by Steve @ 12:52 AM |
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| Sunday, August 05, 2007 |
| Music & Life |
While it's easy to become obsessed with goals, I'm trying really hard to avoid getting so mixed up in them that I forget to enjoy all the goals I've met. Especially, I have a few friends here that are going and living life on little money, whereas Rachel and I seem to dip further into 'boring married couple' by the day.
Soon, hopefully, I'll be camping with Nyssa and Rachel and AZ. The whole philosophy is wrapped up in this YouTube video, a pairing of unlikely forces: Alan Watts and Parker & Stone, who animate South Park.Labels: AZ, camping, life, Nyssa, philosophy, Rachel |
| posted by Steve @ 11:50 PM |
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| Friday, July 20, 2007 |
| Menstrual Cycles in the Middle Ages |
So, Rachel, AZ and I were discussing chocolate's ability to soothe a menstrual cycle:
Steve: So, I've got a question - what happened in the middle ages, before chocolate was available?
Rachel: Oh, I have an answer - Lady Macbeth.Labels: AZ, frightening thought, joke, Rachel, shakespeare, women |
| posted by Steve @ 5:49 PM |
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| Friday, July 13, 2007 |
| Like the Sun |
I've had a lot of exposure to my in-laws lately -- because I'm still stuck in Prescott. I like my relatives a lot. I'm trying to get the damn truck running... but it's not going well. I'm trapped here, and that is what I have a problem with.
I'm leaving on Sunday, either in the truck or on a shuttle. I have to get back to life. My taxes aren't paid, I'm supposed to be moving into a new place in 2 weeks, my birthday's in there somewhere and I wasn't planning on hanging around Prescott for 11 days. I also miss Rachel terribly. I want to go home.Labels: birthday, in-laws, Prescott, Rachel, truck |
| posted by Steve @ 11:46 PM |
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| Monday, July 02, 2007 |
| Prescott for the 4th |
Yay! Rachel and I are going to Prescott for the 4th of July. We'll eat great food, see the in-laws, help build their new house, and rewire the truck. It's going to be great to see them and get so much done. I know that a working vacation is just what I need.
Meantime, I'm going out in a bit to check out where our next place is. I'm sad that we're moving, not because I'm particularly attached to this place, but because I've yet to live in the same place for more than roughly a year since I moved out to college - in 1998. That means this will be my 12th place in 10 years, including Okinawa.
Still, we've got enough money to be able to rent both places for a week or two, and so will be able to catalogue every last thing we own (!), partly to get rid of things we don't want or need, partly because getting rid of things will make the move easier, and also for home insurance purposes.
Oh, and this time, I have a nice camera to bring!Labels: apartments, family, holidays, in-laws, moving, Okinawa, Rachel, truck, vacation |
| posted by Steve @ 2:00 PM |
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| Thursday, June 21, 2007 |
| LePlan, part 2 |
It feels like it was forever ago, but at one point in my life, I was so strapped for cash that I had to make an elaborate plan to get out of the country.
No joke.
I had a hard time keeping all of the people involved in my head, and had to write it all down on a timetable in Excel. I called the file, 'leplan.xls.'
Fast forward a few years, and I'm in a much more comfortable place, and now have drawn this Georgia-time (i.e., casually-paced) plan:
- Re-wire the truck's entire electrical system with my awesome in-laws up in Prescott. Escape the heat, work online there, help them build their house, and get the truck to never-imagined levels of awesome.
- Look up a new house to live in that has a yard, laundry machine, a place to work on the fiberglass dash I need to put into Rachel's truck, isn' insanely expensive, and is close enough to Bookman's that Rachel can walk. The discount we get for not driving to work (either of us) is nice.
- Rent the place two weeks into August, and take those two weeks to move. Catalogue every last item. We'll be listing every item we own, and decide if we need it. If not, it's donated or sold. Keep the list for our house insurance, and update it as life goes on.
- Rachel takes her last class for her Bachelor's Degrees in Creative Writing and English Literature (fall semester). She drives her amazingly well-running truck.
- In January, I either get promoted to full-time at ITP, or keep working part time and begin finishing my teaching certificate. Either way, Rachel starts her graduate program classes in Library Science.
- After that, things get a bit fuzzy, but for now:
If we can afford it, sometime in Fall '08 or Spring '09, buy an RV, give the truck back to the in-laws for a while, tow the Bug and live on the road for about 3 months. Make a time-lapse video of the entire thing. Explore the entire United States, and decide on a place to settle down for the next few years. In all likelihood it will be in Arizona, but why not find out for sure? Living without regrets is a part of freedom.
- Reproduce on the road! Our kids will not know exactly where they were conceived, and I think that's vaguely awesome.
- Have kids. Name the girls Méria Jael and Artemis Ella; name the boys Aaron Isaac and Michael David.
- Buy a house.
- Live well.
 Rachel and I also bought an awesome floor carpet today. We're moving out in a few months, and so Rachel will be taking stuff off of the walls and packing her books to ease the move. Still, for a few glorious weeks, we'll have the place basically 'right,' and that's awesome.Labels: ambition, college, gas, house, kids, money, Rachel, rant, RV, To-Do, work |
| posted by Steve @ 5:20 PM |
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| Saturday, March 11, 2006 |
| A Funny Thing Happened Today no. 10: What Rachel Does |
| Said Rachel today: "I bite what I fear,
I suck what I love."
 | Currently reading :
The Eyre Affair
By Jasper Fforde |
Labels: joke, Rachel, stories, true |
| posted by Steve @ 7:37 PM |
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| Tuesday, February 28, 2006 |
| Whine with Cheese |
I don't know if I can make it all the way to June without living with Rachel.
 | Currently reading :
Silverlock
By John Myers Myers |
Labels: Rachel, work |
| posted by Steve @ 10:25 PM |
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| Sunday, September 18, 2005 |
| True Story no. 3: Rachel's homework |
| These are four homework questions my wife was assigned in her English classes at U of A: Assignment 1: 1 The influence of foreign languages - Latin and both Norman and Central French in particular - has always been important in the history of English. Explain in detail the patterns of influence of these languages (chiefly lexical but also orthographic, grammatical, and morphological) on English from the early Middle English times through the eighteenth century. 2 Suppose that the Beowulf poet, Chaucer, and Shakespeare were all seated in a room attempting to communicate with one another about matters in general. Explain in detail the advantages and disadvantages that each of them would have in speaking with the other two. Would any of those advantages or disadvantages be significantly different if they were writing to each other instead? Assignment 2 1 Explain in a clear, orderly way the major phonological phenomena affecting the English language from Common Germanic times through the Old English period. 2 Clearly explain in as much detail as you can the major morphological features of Old English verbs, nouns, and adjectives that make those parts of speech different from their forms in Present-Day English. um wow...  | Currently listening :
Led Zeppelin
By Led Zeppelin |
Labels: college, frightening thought, Rachel, school, stories, true |
| posted by Steve @ 7:42 PM |
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| Sunday, September 11, 2005 |
| A Funny Thing Happened Today No. 1 |
Today, I emerged from my cavern office and my wife asked...
"Honey, what are you doing in there?"
"Experimenting on aliens. I found them in the back yard" (Note we have no back yard, as we live in a duplex).
"I see. What are you doing to them?"
"Usual stuff - dissection. I had moral issues about it but ... fuck it."  | Currently listening :
Long After Dark
By Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers |
Labels: aliens, conspiracy, joke, Rachel, random, stories, true |
| posted by Steve @ 3:04 AM |
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| About Me |
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Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me:
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