Dec 30, 2004

Mrs. Lockard is in a slow spiral downward. She's up to about 2 hours between meds, which is a frightening pace, and she's unable to use a straw. They are forced to squirt the medication into her mouth with a syringe. Then, sometimes, she spits it back out. Jen's not sleeping well, hasn't left the house in a week, and dangerously close to murdering a few family members. (Mercy killings, in my opinion.)

I'm going to head down there tomorrow afternoon, and do some shopping to stock the house with some food. Then I'm going to rent a room at the local Holiday Inn and check my wife in for a 12-hour nap.

Lest you think I've been spending all my time surfing the internet this week, here's a pair of screen captures of this week's work:

Tank 1 (the low-poly version for the game)

Tank 2 (which actually has treads.)

The treads I'll paint next week. | link

Dec 29, 2004

1:56pm. Mrs. Lockard is worsening. The nurse administering the meds gives her a couple of days at most. Jen is exhausted from dealing with both the family and her mother, and fighting off a cold.

All By Myself. Whenever Jen is away, I seem to revert back to my bachelor ways, which means I eat whatever is left around the house. Last night my feast consisted of a PB&J sandwich, the rest of the Doritos from Thanksgiving (our house is so dry, they were not even close to stale) and a glass of grapefruit juice. Now, before anybody gets upset, this is not a cry for help: usually when I'm alone, I try to fill up my time with projects that wouldn't normally fly while Jen is around. (Would you want your husband sanding drywall outside your bedroom door at 11:30pm?) Thus, there's not a whole lot of time to fuss with food. Unfortunately, the hallway repair project is drawing out longer than hoped—the walls have been abused so much that it's taking longer than expected to smooth out the craters. By the end of this week, though, we should have new outlets on both sides of the hall and on the stair landing, as well as primer on most of the walls.

Because of an inexplicable lapse in New Yorker deliveries, I started reading The Lovely Bones last night before going to sleep—it looks to be good so far. I was joined by three very lonely cats, who proceeded to hootch up on me so tightly that I was effectively stapled to the bed. We all miss Jen.

OK, and now for some humor. This blog is one I've been following for about a year now, and it never ceases to make me laugh. Check the archives, too- you'll snort your Quik through your nose, I promise.

Quick links. Protect your privacy. | Tsunami | Bye, Jerry. | Finally, another creative use for the iPod. | link

Dec 28, 2004

Many thanks to the Cauzzis, who invited me over last night for yummy pot roast and trivia. An evening with friends was exactly what I didn't know I needed.

10:41am. No word on Jen's Mom this morning. The phone rings and rings, which means somebody's on the other line and not picking up.

3:39pm. Holding steady, no changes. Jen is tired, and fighting off a cold of some kind. We're spending New Year's down there.

I'll have to look into this a little further when I get the iMac music server back online: the free ShoutCast music server works with unlimited clients. How it works with clients I have no idea-if it's a central playlist-oriented setup, I'm not interested, but if it's a library-oriented setup, like iTunes, I'm very interested. The site is pretty vague about, well, everything, so I'll have to set it up to try everything out. More on that later. | link

Dec 26, 2004

Christmas Eve. Jen and I loaded both our vehicles up with a new La-Z-Boy, six people worth of presents, one pie and two quiches, a dozen banana nut muffins, the coffeemaker, a gallon of homemade stuffing, and her brother sans luggage after his flight arrived late at Reagan National. We got into Pax River at about 9pm.

Mrs. Lockard is installed in the family room, in a portable hospital bed. She is pretty much immobile. Her sleeping, feeding, and waking are controlled by a pharmacy's worth of medications, administered dutifully by the family, and recorded in a book. She's mostly awake for a short while in the mornings, and then more pain medication is administered so that she can be moved from one side to the other. Moving her is a three-person operation, which involves arranging her legs, which she can't control, her torso, which she can't move, and her head. There is very little dignity. A specific method is used to arrange her feet, legs, and back, so that she can spend eight to twelve hours laying in one position. Mercifully, there is a catheter, so moving her to the portable commode is not necessary anymore. She spends most of the day in a twilight sleep on one side (laying flat is impossible now), drifting in and out as people sit with her. This morning, she did not remember opening any of her presents, nor did she remember anything else about Christmas day. We showed her all her gifts again, and she talked with her sister for a few minutes on the phone before tiring out. When I left this afternoon, she was drifting, but she made me promise to come back again so I could see her.

The rest of Christmas was as normal as we could make it: presents under a real tree, carols, a six-course Christmas ham, a shipping container's worth of cookies, pastry, pie, and homemade 180-proof bourbon balls. I'm hoping my wife will bust out the gaulette iron this week and whomp up a batch. I'm going to have to bring a bottle of Four Roses whisky back down with me next weekend. I also may have to pick this up now that Christmas has passed...

At the risk of getting sappy here, I'm just going to ask everybody to keep a kind thought in your heart for Jen's mother and her family. Gather your loved ones around you this holiday season, keep them warm and safe, and hold them close. | link

Dec 23, 2004

What Is Christmas? So the holidays are bearing down on us, and we are scrambling to get last-minute things done before the 25th. We erected a small fake tree last night (we're not chancing a real tree if we're not going to be around to see it) and decorated it with some of the ornaments from our collection. I bought some garland at the store last week, wired it together, and hung it over the entryway to the living room. There are some things, though, that we don't have that remind me of the seasons of old...

Pine. My parents had one of those old-time Sears humidifiers for the house, which was filled dutifully every night. Along with three or four buckets of water each evening, they added a capful of Pine-Sol to the mixture to give the house a decidedly original odor.

Perry Como and Bing Crosby on vinyl. I have them both on the iPod, and I can pipe them into the stereo whenever needed, but there's something old-skool about hearing LP's on the big console record player my dad used to have.

Tinsel. Remember when that stuff was big, and everybody had it? I'd bet a bunch of people still use it, but I personally haven't seen it in the stores in about five years. I remember vacuuming the house in 1988 and finding tinsel from 1984 still stuck under the furniture.

A Christmastime when every other commerical was not a diamond/jewelry commercial. Or was it always like that?

The days before "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer." Corrolary: When "Band-Aid" was new, and it was cool to be an activist rock star.

Big Lego sets for Christmas. Many a Christmas day I spent on the floor in front of the tree, building directions spread in front of me, ripping open little bags of plastic parts and assembling the kits. Legos still rock the world.

What's Christmas to you? | link

Dec 22, 2004

Early. After jointly checking out the gift for Jen's Dad, we decided to upgrade to a different color and style. (It's hard to accurately decribe a color and pattern over the phone.) After dinner and a few phone calls to check in on the patient, we decided to spread our private holiday out over the next three days by opening a gift each evening.

Sometimes I Forget. I've been slowly trying to get an online comic off the ground over the last month, and trying various work methods to see which one feels the best. I cut a panel with scratchboard, and scanned it. After testing out an intuos tablet and using the pressure-sensitive brushes, I went back to the old-skool method of making a copy and using a combination of white-out and black pen to refine the artwork. There are some things which just feel right, and I've gotten so far away from making art with my hands that I forgot how good it is. So if anybody needs a stocking stuffer idea for me, here are a few hints: some correction pens (fine point) and my black pen of choice (V7 Fine). At some point in the next month or so, I'm going to finally spring for a decent copier, and that will speed up the process. I'll start posting some panels soon, promise. | link

Dec 21, 2004

Tarred Too. Last night I ran around cleaning up my messes around the house, awaiting Jen's return from her parents' place. I plugged a vodka tonic in and let her talk for a couple of hours, and she went down hard at about 1am. This week we have a few minor gift items to wrap up, and we'll celebrate our own holiday outside the vortex on Thursday evening.

Here's something to read and think about as you throw that credit card down to pay for sparkly presents under the tree.

Looks like everybody's doing their top ten lists already; I'd have one for you here, and it would be nothing but new 2004 music, but money for new CD's is a luxury, which means I am at the gentle mercies of rich and generous friends. I'll attempt to give you an unordered list here with stuff I've found in 2004, which is almost as good as the real thing.

• The Presets, Girl and The Sea (via MP3Blog.) Catchy, bleep and drum-machine pop with strong melodies and instrumental breaks. Somewhere between Howard Jones, New Order, and a sprinking of the Fixx. But better.
• Styrofoam/Death Cab For Cutie/Postal Service/Dntel - I've written about it here before, and you've most likely heard it already. Just get some.
• Franz Ferdinand - Yeah, again, you've heard it before. Good stuff.
• The Secret Machines, Now Here Is Nowhere. Good alterno-prog rock-type-stuff, with vocals that balance on the edge of annoying.
• The Go! Team, Thunder Lightning Strike (via MP3Blog.) There are no words to describe this, other than hyperactive cheerleader multiple-personality disorder. Clap yo hands.
• Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, Shake The Sheets. Excellent stuff. Sort of a newer, 2000's Look Sharp era Joe Jackson.
• Skalpel, Sculpture (via MP3Blog.) Very ambient, quiet, jazzy mood music. I'll be buying the rest of this one.
• Spacemonkeyz vs. Gorillaz (via MP3Blog.) I've heard one track from this, but the play ranking on my iPod tells me the rest of the album is most likely worth the price.
• The Killers, Somebody Told Me. The standout track on this album. The one I played over and over again.
• Probot - One half annoying, the other half inspired. Lemmy's track is the gem on this one, but, hey man, he's Lemmy.
• The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow. - Thanks Rob. Good stuff, this.
• The Stranglers, Golden Brown (via MP3Blog.) - The first song ever to convince me that harpsichord might not be evil after all. You'd really have to hear it.
• Air, Talkie Walkie - besides being straight-to-commercial fodder, there are a ton of good tracks here. Mike Mills was in heavy rotation this fall.
• Kings of Convenience, Quiet Is The New Loud. A Scottish Simon & Garfunkel. Beautiful music.

Got something to add? Drop me a line. | link

Dec 20, 2004

Busy. This weekend, I...

1. Sanded the shit out of the upstairs and downstairs hallway. I put at least four and a half gallons of drywall mud on the walls, and sanded at least half of that back off. It's almost done.
2. Found some more Christmas presents for certain people. The Target was packed full of holiday zombies, slowly circling the aisles and getting in the way. It took me 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot.
3. Coordinated long distance with my wife over her father's present, and put it on hold until she gives the OK.
4. Staked the tent over the Scout down. Good timing, too—with last night's snow and cold snap, we have gusts of 40mph today. (I still think that thing is going to blow away into the next county, though.)
5. Began running new electrical wiring to the hallway—while I have the kickplates off, it's an easy thing to cut a square and stick an outlet box in, and going through the floor plate is a zillion times easier. This will be so much easier than doing the upstairs...
6. Did the laundry in our own washing machine; with the help of some Oxy-Clean and laundry bluing, the rust in the water hasn't stained our clothes as far as I can tell. Which is good, because I hate the laundromat.
7. Attended the Breakaway Christmas party, which was held at the Cloisters, a very pretty manor house-turned formal hall (not to be confused with the Cloisters in New York City, which is frickin' amazing.) It was beautiful, catered by the same folks who did our wedding, and a mellow good time. It's frightening how many people this company has hired in the last six months, and how much that reminds me of my first six months at Cidera.
8. Cleaned up the house as much as possible for Jen's return. She's leaving Dysfunction Junction today to come back home, and the least I could do was make our place as peaceful and calm as possible.
9. Missed my wife. This has not been an easy Christmas.

Jen's Mom is now installed in the back room of their house in St. Mary's county. The doctors have concluded that there's nothing they can do besides manage the pain, so a hospice nurse stops by daily to administer the happy juice. Two of the three sisters are home and are helping take care of her. As of yesterday she still wasn't able to hold anything down. | link

Dec 17, 2004

Music Of The Day. Courtesy of our friend Dave (the Tunemaster), I'm grooving to Bran Van 3000's first album, Glee. I had heard the single "Walking in LA" a long time ago, but never knew who did it until now.

I Feel Dirty. Point Your Missile...

Expectations. This year, instead of the usual dual-handmade J&B holiday offering, we're keeping things decidedly lo-fi. Time is precious, and our attention has been elsewhere, so last night I took an idea from my first-grade teacher, carved a potato into a stamp, and made 50 cards while watching reruns of CSI.

Acts Of Contrition. Looks like my little hint yesterday went unheeded. | link

Dec 16, 2004

Weighing In. NPR this morning was reporting on the recent problems the District of Columbia has been having in regards to bringing a major league baseball team to the city. Now, if you do a search on this log for sports content, you'll come up pretty dry—and there will be almost no mention of baseball (except, maybe, the mention of free Orioles tickets.) I like the football, although I don't arrange my Sundays around it; I like the baseball as long as the tickets are cheap, my beer is full, and I'm actually sitting in the stadium. Hockey is fun, but there's none of that this year. I don't write much about sports, but this story gets at the heart of something I've thought about for years.

Apparently, the mayor of D.C. promised MLB all kinds of concessions in the standard "We [the city] will roll over and pay both MLB and the team owners for the privilege of hosting this team in our city, as well as hiking taxes on our citizens to generate the money to build them a stadium" plan. Usually this deal forfeits parking concessions and other revenue-generating enterprises, involves knocking down a large amount of existing buildings, and leasing the city-owned land back to the team for $1. (See: Ravens Stadium.) The common wisdom is that the team's games will bring revenue into the city via tourism, merchandise sales, and taxes. What it usually boils down to, in my opinion, is trickle-down economics—the team, owners, and MLB pocket the lion's share, while the city is forced to sell bonds and further tax its citizens to pay for the whole thing, just so that it can claim a team (for a limited time. Just wait 'till those attendance records start dropping.) The city gets a pittance of revenue through stuff like payroll taxes on minimum-wage earning concessioneers.

In a rare, well-intentioned move, the D.C. City Council decided that it would sign a contract with an added provision that half the money to build a stadium would have to come from private financing, not the taxpayers. And, predictably, MLB lost it's frickin' mind. "WHAT?!?! We deign to offer you a baseball team (after having taken two away from you already) and you expect us to pay for some of it?!? HOW DARE YOU!"

I say: Fuck Major League Baseball. Go watch a triple-A team and save yourself some money. (Chances are, they're not taking steroids yet.)

To a certain someone: You got so very, very lucky yesterday. You'd better show some contrition and respect for that, or I'm going to go absolutely mental on you.

I used to work here. Still do, kinda. | link

Dec 15, 2004

Not So Grouchy. The 2004 Christmas Shopping Crusade is in full swing, and Jen and I have our marching orders. I've got my sister, ¾ of Jen, and my mom covered; My dad is in the works and I've got Jen's brother partially done. Problem is, we're picking up the slack for Jen's parents while they attend to other matters, so there's an extra five people to shop for this year. (I just got part 2 of Jen's gift today—hee hee hee!)

Meanwhile I kicked up about a pound of dust last night in the first round of sanding in the stairwell. I had to pull about 32 square feet of plaster down and replace it with ¾" greenboard, which was lots of fun and involved much hammering. There's still much to be done, but we're making progress in there. | link

Dec 14, 2004

Grumble Fucking Grumble. Swell day. Just swell. I am in a rotten goddamn mood today, boy. Merry goddamn Christmas. I think I may have had a better day if I just jammed a pencil in my eye.

Meanwhile, the long bloody crawl to the 15th of the month is almost over, and I can relieve some of the holiday strain on my credit card. Although, now I can't relieve as much as I thought I could. Hence my rotten mood. I think I'm going to have a few of those chocolate cookies Jen was writing about when I get home, because we're out of pumpkin pie. | link

Dec 13, 2004

Music Of the Day. Vince Guaraldi, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Because I need a little Christmas, right this fucking minute.

Hi Dad, I'm In Jail. Heh, heh. This story just gets better and better, folks. Note to self: when the Man has you dead to rights, and you're facing some jail time, and your dying mother is in the damn hospital, it's probably best to arrange for a public defender, instead of smoking crack, or whatever you're doing at the time.

Enjoy that prison shower, kid. I hear it's a load of laughs.

Brighten The Corners. I spent about five minutes locking and unlocking the Jeep with the keyfob buttons this morning. I'm sure it would have made a great picture—the first time the village idiot sees fire. It honks when you've locked it, so you don't have to walk back and test the doors. It's the small stuff, people. | link

Dec 12, 2004

Tarred. Yesterday we headed to the LP City to see Jen's Mom, who has been bedridden for the past three days in slowly worsening condition. I'm going to let Jen explain the situation in her own words—but suffice it to say when the patient is burning through enough Percocet, Oxycontin, Neurontin, and Tylenol to bring down a charging elephant and still unable to lay flat on a bed—that's not a good place. Most of the afternoon involved hoisting her from the edge of the bed to the commode and back again, making sure she was drinking water, and convincing her that the hallucinations she was seeing were not actually there. Toward the evening, it was decided that she was better served being admitted to a hospital, so we carried her down the stairs, out to the car, and in through the big sliding doors. Let's all hope she gets the care she needs there.

My wife is one of the strongest, bravest people I have ever met. Her grace in the face of all this shite leaves me awestruck, and I am a lucky man to have her as my bride. In the past week, I've seen her deal with more stress, worry, and abuse than any one person should have in a month, and she hasn't failed herself or her family—at great cost to herself. I spent a good deal of time yesterday quietly stewing on the sidelines, watching her deal with the situation, and it made my blood pressure spike. She shows no emotion in the moment (emotion is weakness on that particular battlefield) but I see the toll it takes on her daily. Were there one thing I could give her for the holiday, it would be the most peaceful, worry-free, uninterrupted month of sleep and relaxation possible.

Today has been a day of mental and physical recovery—after yesterday, my heart is heavy and my back muscles are tighter than piano wire. We've been screening calls, getting some minor work around the house done (some wall patching in the stairwell, a new color in the kitchen), got a few minor surprises (two commercial potting tables from the garden center clearance sale, the missing key remote for the Jeep) and generally taking it as easy as we can.

Clue. You know you're near a Naval Air Station when a Landcruiser passes you with a license plate holder that says:
TOO CLOSE FOR MISSILES
SWITCHING TO GUNS

Reality. Discussing bowel movements and Rush Limbaugh in front of Mrs. Lockard (who was convinced a tiny Rush was crawling around the carpet by the closet), and trying to get her to laugh about the situation:

Jen: (relaying earlier conversation with her mom, which probably brought about the Rush sighting in the first place): I'd never get addicted to Oxycontin. Look at Rush Limbaugh; no wonder he's so puffed up all the time--he's upset because he can't take a poop.
Me: That's what I love about being a Democrat: Loose stools! | link

Dec 9, 2004

Charlie Brown Christmas, 12.7.2004

Explain This To Me. For the people out there who ride motorcycles, can you please tell me what the deal is with "pocket bikes"? They're these teeny versions of large street bikes that people buy for some reason. Jen and I were driving through Ellicott City a few weeks back and some guy was selling them in an empty Royal Farms parking lot. He was riding around in circles, and he looked like a Russian circus bear riding a tricycle. Why would anybody buy one of these? All it says to me is, "I'm too poor/stupid/gullible to afford a real crotch rocket, so I'm going to buy this minibike and ride it around my neighborhood to annoy the crap out of my neighbors." Am I missing something here?

This is your Secretary of Defense. "Support the Troops" my ass. What a dick. | link

Dec 8, 2004

For All My Old-School Peeps Out There. Santa Mosh. (I think his technique is a little aggro, however—throwing those elbows around in some of the pits I've been in would have earned St. Nick a punch in the back of the neck.) Substitute a little S.O.D. for the supplied soundtrack, and you've got yourself a whole bootful of Christmas cheer!

As you may have read elsewhere, Jen's Mom is fading pretty quickly—the feeling in her legs is gone and she's now on heavier meds (the stuff Rush Limbaugh was addicted to), which means Christmas is definitely not at our house, and we're most likely going to have a very subdued holiday.

Kick Myself Dept. Two points down in the karma category this morning, and it's not even eleven o'clock. Sorry, friends.

Printer Update. After some consultation with the generous Kristen last night, I've decided against the Epson printer for a couple of reasons:

• The printer is $400, and the prepress RIP for CMYK files is another $500. Booting into OS9 to print an EPS file from Quark every five minutes does not appeal to either of us.
• The printer model is now discontinued by Epson, and probably due to be replaced with something new.
• Consumables are expensive, don't last very long, and aren't UV-safe. | link

Dec 7, 2004

Slayed By The Dragon. Jen and I tried an offering of sweet & spicy chicken from the new asian cafeteria on Rolling Road last night as an experiment. Usually I stay away from most Chinese food, especially the fast-food variety, because it has detrimental effects on my gastrointestinal system. Let me just say for the record that this experiment was a failure.

Crap. It's still boggling my mind how much Windows XP sucks. In the month I've used it, the computer has been brought to its knees twice by malware clogging up the whole system. After I switched to Mozilla, the problem went away. Now, programs that used to work fine are crashing and burning repeatedly—Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and random bullshit processes in the background. It's a miracle I can get through a day without clicking through a bug report window at least once.

I should clarify something: I'm using this computer at work, which means the nastiest site I visit is Slashdot. Simply opening Explorer on this machine means the floodgates of crap are open. | link

Dec 6, 2004

Christmas Hints. Model Kit. (While you're at the hobby store, there's this one as well...) Light summer reading. iPod accessory.

Changes. This page is now at least halfway coded with CSS instead of nested tables; I made a few changes to the column width for easier Powerbook editing and readability's sake, reduced the size of the pictures and generally scraped another 20% of gunk out of the HTML. Next up is a redesign of the calendar nav to the left to further reduce the pageload. Let me know if you find anything ugly, and what browser you're using on what platform.

RIP, Mrs. Betty. Jen and I got out of bed early on Saturday so that we could check out an estate sale in the neighborhood. We didn't recognize the address, but when we followed the signs, we pulled up in front of the tidy house down the street from Jen's old apartment building. (A little history: Jen's old apartment building was one of the original estate mansions in Catonsville. The caretaker's house, set off and to the east of the main building, later became a private residence, and the house in question.) Jen may write about this at some point, so I won't go into too much detail here, but she knew the woman who owned the house, an elderly lady known as Mrs. Betty. A sweeter, kinder woman has never walked the earth (except, maybe, my two Grandmas). We looked through the house and picked out a mirror in an upstairs bedroom, then got to talking with Mrs. Betty's son, who let us know that she passed a couple of days before our wedding. Having never taken her up on a standing invitation to stop by for tea, both Jen and I left feeling guilty and sad.

Busy Weekend:

• Haircut. I was reaching Art Garfunkel stage again—bad scene, man.
• Consulted with the Cauzzis about some home improvement projects. I'm going to give Todd a hand with some house upgrades.
• Raked and bagged leaves in the backyard. Good timing, because it's raining this week.
• Laundry. Our water is stained with rust while the DPW replaces valves or some bullshit in the neighborhood. Memo to the Baltimore County folks in charge: next time, wait until the day after Thanksgiving before you poison my water. Washing a turkey with water from a Brita pitcher is a pain in the ass.
• Washed the walls in the downstairs hallway. The wierd concrete fill on the wall was covering a PVC pipe behind the lathe, most likely a new drain for the upstairs sink. | link

Dec 3, 2004

City Life. Last night Jen and I drove into the city to watch the Washington monument be lit for Christmas. As mentioned before, we're both struggling to get into the holiday spirit now that Thanksgiving is over, so the offer to enjoy some fireworks and hot chocolate was a welcome one. Cabbing up to Charles street, we walked to the base of the statue and found ourselves in front of the Mayor, who was surrounded by two burly security guards and quietly talking to a couple of mounted police.

We decided it was time to get some warm drinks, so we looped around the museum and waded into the square in front of the stage, which was ringed with booths selling food and drink. After buying a couple of burritos (nothing like a burrito in December in front of a gospel choir singing Christmas carols to get you in the mood!) the Mayor led the crowd in the countdown, and they shot off fireworks.

After the celebration was over, we walked back down Charles street and bumped into a friend of Jen's, whose boyfriend runs a new restauraunt downtown, and decided to join them for drinks.

Now, a little Baltimore history here: Back in 1989, when I was new in town and wanted to go out drinking without getting carded (before I got my in at the Tavern), my roommate Pat and I would wander down Charles Street to a little jazz pub called Buddies. I don't know how we found the place, or how we knew it would serve us (although I suspect it was through our friend Jay, who had already scoped the entire city's offerings in an alcoholic haze), but there was Guinness on tap, the lights were low, and the barmaid on Saturday nights was beautiful. The band was anchored by a ruddy-faced drummer named Bing, and he was usually accompanied by a guitarist named Steve, who had a wide Magnum P.I. moustache and an old hollow-body Gretsch. There were a revolving group of horns who came to blow—an alto sax one night, a trumpet the next, and usually they were joined by a student or two from Peabody down the street. We saved our money and drank Boh all week just to afford a pitcher and some nachos (dinner), we tipped well, and always staggered home happy.

Fast forward to 2004; Buddies is gone and replaced with Copra, a complete gutting and rebuilding of the old space. The vibe is very much like San Francisco without the uptight more-beautiful-than-you attitude; the menu is upscale comfort food, and the drinks are poured well. Upstairs is normal dining, and downstairs is a wide room ringed with comfortable couches, a fireplace, and four plasma screens. We relaxed and caught up with some old friends, enjoying our evening. | link

Dec 2, 2004

Blown Away. I pulled into the driveway last night to find the tent I'd put up over the Scout upside-down, wrapped around the corner of the house due to the high winds. I put on some gloves and a hat and straightened it out, but found that two of the poles got bent all to hell and some of the grommets pulled out of the canvas. I'm going to have to anchor the thing down further with some sandbags and tent stakes, especially now that the trees have all lost their leaves. Obviously this is a temporary situation, and we'll have to switch to Plan B. When I determine what Plan B is, I'll bore you with it here.

Then I went upstairs and put some candles in each of the front windows to get some christmas frickin' spirit up in this be-yatch. The house looks a heck of a lot friendlier and I'm considering leaving them in there year-round. (Our house needs all the friendly it can get.) Tonight, in a further attempt to get into the spirit of Christmas, we're meeting my best man and his wife in the city to watch the lighting of the Washington Monument and catch a drink or two; I'm looking forward to seeing them and taking some pictures.

True love.

Jen: If you ever buy me anything from a store calling itself "a galleria of jewelry", I will divorce you.
Me: Duly noted. | link

Dec 1, 2004

Another Day In Paradise. Beautiful grey skies, high winds, and rain. Hello, December.

Observation: raisins baked into pastries are instruments of the devil and are, more than gay marriage or the lapse of moral values, All That Is Wrong With America. I spent the better part of the last half-hour picking little wrinkled squishy bombs out of an otherwise delicious bran muffin. The horror!

Prolonging The Agony Dept. My mother works at a very small, all-women college in upstate New York. Recently the college decided that it needed to go coed in order to survive, and predictably, some folks got upset. Here now, is the outcome: several students have decided to sue the college to stay women-only until 2008. Big fun! | link

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