Confessions of an Ice Cream Ninja

12:22am: Ah, family

Today's moment of family cooking zen:

N: We don't have a rolling pin—what should we use instead?
B: How about an empty wine bottle?
N: Oh, yeah! Think we have any of those?

<grin>

(Yeah, we made Sangria today. We made Sangria for ... well, it probably won't last out the weekend, but it should get Saturday, at least.)

12:06am: In case you wondered...

I am current in Durham, N.C., on my way to the big family shindig in S.C. (planned arrival time: Saturday evening). This means that as far as I can recall, the three longest solo driving days of my life will, as of Sunday, be Saturday, today and yesterday, in that order. Yes, I know, I'm a big wuss (the friend I'm staying with tonight, for example, used to regularly pull 12-hour drives across Texas), but it's a long drive for me... (bonus: these will slip down to ranks 3-5 in two weeks, since I'm doing the drive back in two days, not three).

Since the last time I checked in online, I have traveled much, slept a good number of homes that are not my own, found a home for next year, and rediscovered that my car gets really, really good freeway mileage. I shall miss that car... (come to think of it, also in that time I have sold the car and then had the customer back out on the deal, which would be annoying except that she's family, so it works out). Also I have declined to stand in line for an iPhone outside Apple Stores in three separate states of the Union (actually, I was forbidden to stand in one of those lines), discovered that my credit card is missing, and decided to try to buy an iPhone tomorrow despite still having no credit card and quite likely still having to stand in line. We'll see how that works out... <grin>.

Random personal notes from the drive: while driving through Virginia, I crossed the Ni River, which made me think of digitalemur, and the Anna River, which (clearly) made me think of llyrwellyn. And then I found myself, which wasn't really expected. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera out, so I can't prove it, but anybody who cares to apply google maps to the problem can probably work out where I was when this happened. ;-)

4:40pm: Drive-by post

No, really! I have free wireless in the Maryland Welcome Center! Unfortunately, the Beltway traffic is looking a little less welcoming... (or perhaps I mean a little too welcoming?) Oh well. Must be faced sometime, so it might as well be now. <wry/>

11:32am: Cookies!
In the department of "things I can't believe nobody has posted to my friends list yet", I give you the New York Times's Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie! (With recipe!)

2:01am: #!@*#&$!
OK, something always goes hilariously wrong with moves, right? This one? My car got impounded while I was eating dinner today. OK, not so very hilarious. Have to go get it sprung out of hock tomorrow morning first thing, and then try to keep it from happening again... meanwhile, while today everything ran like freakin' clockwork (thanks to awesome, awesome volunteers, to some of whom I still owe ice cream), tomorrow is going to suck above and beyond all reasonable expectations, because I have still not learned to apply the 80-20 rule appropriately to packing (you can get 80% packed in 20% of the total time, but since you want to be 100% packed, all this means is that you're only 20% done when you're 80% packed). Next time, somebody club me over the head and make me start packing for real a month in advance? There's no earthly excuse for my not having everything done on time this go-round, and yet I totally don't have it done, and I'm only going to survive because I have awesome friends and a patient roommate.

5:43pm: Sustainability + Political humor = win!

This just in (courtesy All Things Considered): the Democratic National Convention, as part of the DNC's efforts to be put on an environmentally sound event, will have all its considerable electrical needs supplied by... wind power.

Seriously?

Seriously.

4:42pm: Hey, New Yorkers! Anybody up for dinner tomorrow? Or a slightly late lunch, perhaps? I'm passing through town for a mid-afternoon housing seminar courtesy of grad student services (I think it ends "and may God have mercy on your souls"), but that's 90 minutes long and the train ride is 100 each way, so I feel like I should try to find something else to do while I'm there.

7:13pm: Appeasement (n.)
I don't generally approve of Chris Matthews, in that he is a know-nothing blowhard. On the other hand, set a thief...

12:12pm: One for the social scientists

Since we've recently clarified that most of the other political geeks on my flist don't read Yglesias, you will not have picked up this link from him (he flagged it "Asinine headline of the day"): Catcalling: creepy or a compliment?

Best line from the article so far: "There seems to be some evidence that it increases self-objectification." (Yeah, like... oh, the preceding three paragraphs? Right. Check!)

11:17am: PSA (for a somewhat limited definition of "P")

This Friday through Sunday will be this semester's instance of the officially semi-annual (it only happened once last year) EliCon. We will be playing a bunch of D&D and SpyCraft, and possibly other things, and generally hanging out and being geeky. If this sounds like fun to you, and you are within some reasonable distance of the place (for your own chosen definition of "reasonable"), click on yon link for the further details, and come on down! :-)

10:20pm: Ite, missa est

In December of 2000, the day after the Glee Club Messiah Sing (in which, because I was young and foolish, I sang Tenor), I went over to the School of Music to audition for Camerata. I sang "Down by the Salley Gardens", and did an apparently not-terrible job of sight-reading something I can't recall (probably Bach). About a month later, I sang my first concert with the group—Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and Stephen Paulus's Psalm 1, as part of a conference, and on rather too little rehearsal time.

Tonight, at Church of the Redeemer, I helped record Stephen Feigenbaum's Claire de Lune and Spataro's In Illo Tempore and Tenebre. And that is the last, as far as I can see, that I will sing with the Camerata.

It's been a good run. I got to sing in Carnegie Hall and Symphony Hall, and I got to sing for Helmuth Rilling, David Willcocks, Neville Mariner, Krzysztof Penderecki, William Boughton, and fifty or so extremely talented and frequently hilarious music students. And Maggie, of course. Who is, in fact, extremely talented and frequently hilarious. Probably not entirely coincidental, that.

I'll find another choir. Honestly, part of the point of moving away is that it'll force me to do things like find another choir. But I'll miss this one.

11:54pm: The familial response

One suspects this will be especially appreciated by those who know him...

To: holmes_iv
From: holmes_iv's brother
Subject: My condolences

Hee hee hee hee hee.... suckers!!!

4:11pm: Catching up is hard to do...

OK, so last time I said anything coherent here was... what, a month ago? Right.

So, first things first—I can drink coffee again!!!

Funny thing is, I'm so out of the habit, and being so careful about my sleep schedule and not lousing my throat up, that I've actually only had one coffee in the week since this became true (and that one was kind of symbolic, since I went to catch up with emilymorgan on Friday evening, and figured a half-caf Latte wouldn't come amiss). I think banana_plants was disappointed in me for falling off the wagon, but really, there ain't much virtue to staying on a wagon when there's lava on the ground all around it.... In any case, lest anybody get worried about me abusing my new-found freedom, let's just say that I have no intention of getting that hooked again any time soon. (Check back in late September, of course... but that will be a whole different ballgame.)

Going back slightly further on the calendar, we have ( ConBust )

In conclusion: ConBust rocked. If you are a sci-fi/fantasy geek (which, lets face it, the odds are pretty good that you are, if you're reading this), you should definitely check it out next year.

7:13pm: I should post a real post—I do actually currently have the perfect combination of things to talk about and lack of motivation to do anything else. But I'm feeling vaguely ethically obliged to do something that at least resembles work until I get around to leaving the office tonight. So instead... hey, orewashinanai! You think your accordion's kind of heavy??

12:16pm: Huzzah!

Let it be known that in the year 2008 so far I have now been admitted to more graduate schools than hospitals.

Now to keep it that way for the rest of the year...

2:37pm: For the typography geeks out there

Yes, I mean you, a_dodecahedron. Does that make this link propagation mindful, rather than mindless? Tough call.

• A Font We Can Believe In.
• BurMcCain?
• And finally, one completely non-partisan link: Keming (n).

Happy Friday, everyone!

2:08pm: A spontaneous Friday song....

Take courage my brain and let us soldier on,
though the work is nuts and I'm still far from done;
praise be to God, the Friday night appears!

The week is nearly over,
The week is nearly o'er,
The week is nearly over, hallelu!

10:21am: Whoops
So in retrospect, that wasn't the best day I could have picked to blow off work. Or then again, y'know, maybe it was... more later today, in any case.

4:54pm: What, me stereotyped?

I took the day off work today, for reasons having to do with problem sets, afternoon classes, lack of sleep and lack of motivation. I am now about to make dinner and head out to rehearsal, and am faced with the rueful realization of quite how deep in my pigeonhole I am today, when my principal activities are:

1. Buy coffee from my favorite local coffeeshop.
2. Vote in the Democratic primary.
3. Repair my friggin' espresso machine.

<sigh>

11:02am: Well, of course!

You know, when I'm thinking of people to invite as speakers for an event focused on high school students from Connecticut, there's really one name that just springs immediately to mind: Karl Rove.

Oh, and did I mention they're students who've all gotten into college already? Right.

8:26pm: Also...
Days on which the most interesting thing you did was write Visual Basic for Excel? Those are not good days. No, they are not.

8:14pm: Memo to Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Dude, how fucking stupid can you be? No, really. How fucking stupid?!!

9:32am: This one goes out to a certain Ladybird...
Oh yeah, you know it.

1:41pm: Woohoo!

It's snowing! It's Christmas and it's snowing! Granted, it'll never stick, but so long as I'm sitting down and looking out the window over the deck, it's snowing! Whee!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

12:11am: The life of the vacationing geek, in bullet points

In the last 36 hours, I have...

• Held the baby, who spat up on me.
• Panicked briefly over a certain grad school application, but recovered adequately
• Received an inquiry (to which I should respond soon) about my interest in helping a certain startup company in a technical capacity, based strictly on certain snarky remarks I made in the online chatroom associated with their product (NOTE: this sentence intentionally left vague)
• Been to another round of Football With the Uncles, in which the Seahawks again won, and to which I again forgot to bring my darned camera
• Talked to a college buddy of my brother's who is now a manager at the Borg, who seems to think that CS365b is the last CS course I actually need to take
• Talked to the wife of said buddy, who informed me that I need to move to Seattle and be set up with her younger sister
• Held and fed the baby, who, foiled in her attempt to spit up on my nice sweater (I learn!) found an... alternative means to make me need to do laundry again. Clever girl...

(List not comprehensive. I also went to church and the theater and did familial stuff, for example. Maybe I'll talk about those when I feel like writing paragraphs again.)