elsaf

Is LJ down for anyone else? I can't seem to load the site, though status.livejournal.org doesn't show that there's any problem.

We all knew Spike started out evil. But after he got his soul, I at least thought he would stick to the straight and narrow. But apparently not! Our dear Spike has slipped off the wagon. Maybe he's lost his soul again, maybe it just went to sleep. But the evidence is incontrovertable!

( Look behind the cut if you dare )

judiang has turned in, and I'm still awake. I suppose I'll go to bed as soon as I finish this entry.

My mini-vacation began Saturday morning, when I overslept and had to rush like nobody's business to make my plane to Chicago. Originally, I was going to pack on Friday and be ready to go. But I was too tired when I got home from work, and I figured I'd get up a little earlier and do it in the morning -- best laid plans, and all that.

I opened an eye and saw the clock, for some unfathomable reason, was saying it was approx. 4 minutes before the time when I should have been leaving the house to get to the airport. I vaulted out of bed and packed at turbo speed. All-in-all, I did a pretty darned good job of packing for a three-day weekend in 25 minutes flat. I forgot my cellphone charger, and I ended up a little short on tops. (It would have been nice to have had one more.) But other than that, I've been pretty well equipped.

I got to the airport with all due speed, and spent an extra 20 minutes searching for a parking space in the "Blue Deck." You'd think they'd have closed it when it was completely full (which it was), but no... I guess they like the idea of people wandering up and down the aisles looking for non-existence parking spaces. I ended up in an outdoor overflow lot behind the deck.

With the car finally parked, I sprinted (or what passes for sprinting when you're dragging a suitcase and have a purse and a laptop bag weighing you down) for the Southwest counter and checked in. I was early enough that they hadn't begun boarding yet, but late enough that I was put in the last boarding group.

That could have been a problem on a full flight, but this plan was only about 2/3 full, and I even got an empty seat next to me. So, it all turned out fine.

judiang met me at the baggage claim at Midway Airport, and we took the El back to town. We stopped for a very yummy lunch of Sloppy Joes at Howies (a breakfast and sandwich shop near Judi's apartment), then went back to her place to chill.

After a visit to the "Bash on Wabash" (a fairly anemic little festival set up in the middle of Wabash Street) and a very tasty Mexican dinner at the Mexican restaurant that starts with a "Z" at the corner of Wabash and 13th (sorry, I'm blanking on the name of the restaurant), we headed to the Ford Center for "Wicked."

( Spoilers for both the musical and the novel )

This morning, we went to Chinatown for dim sum at the Three Happinesses Restaurant (corner of Cermack and State) with Judi's sister-in-law JJ. Then we made a shopping excersion to Target (ooo... aren't we the trendy ones), and came back to the apartment to chill. Later, Judi and I went to The Bourne Ultimatum (excellent action film, though I was getting a little tired of the hand-held camera stuff by the end). After the movie, we walked to Navy Pier and had dinner at Bubba Gumps (I had a BBQ pork sandwich, Judi a shrimp po boy), then we walked back to the apartment -- 2.4 miles along the lake shore.

So, I'm well-fed and pretty tired. Time to go to bed.

Persephone (the cat formerly known as Ruby) is giving birth today. Three kittens have arrived, (two in good shape, one may not make it), and most likely, two more are on the way.

My brother went down to the room where Persephone is staying this morning and found the cat and three kittens in the bookcase. The vet had said there would be advance warning and she would start to lactate a couple of days ahead of time. But, apparently not so much.

He took them all to the emergency vet (because she wasn't nursing the babies), and later took them to his regular vet. She's under observation and has started to mother the babies.

Life is full of surprises.

It was pretty warm by the time I finished mowing the back yard. My back yard is several times larger than the front, so mowing the back is a bigger job. I did the front and side on Monday (I always include the side with the front because the front is so much smaller) and today I did the back.

I'd hoped to start early enough that it would be hot out. But I just couldn't get myself together until around 11, and by that time it was 80F. (It's 83 now.) The sun is shining, but a lot of the back yard is shaded. I'm still pretty sweaty at the moment.

I'm always a little bit surprised at how much better things look after a good mow. Mid-summer, it doesn't make much difference (so little this year that I haven't done it since late June). But in the spring and fall, I always get a nice rush of satisfaction when I look out at the finished product.

Pssst, petzipellepingo: The fall clematis is absolutely covered in buds. It isn't going to be as impressive as last year -- no doubt because of the drought. I did get over and water it at least once a week through the worst of the dry times, but there's no substitute for regular rain and moderate temperatures. It's about two thirds the size it was last year at this time.

I think I'm going to dig out a bed around the base of the old laundry pole, and plant a peony in the fall (I'm thinking weekend after next), and some annuals in the spring. Another peony is going to go into the bed by the garage (maybe two -- depending on what I find when I do my nursery run), and I'm going to plant at least one tall shrub along the south fence.

Best laid plans... and all that. We'll see how much of this gets done. I'm trying to keep my grandiose gland in check and keep the project at a size I can manage.

My domain is completely off line. I suspect my web host is mired in some sort of catastrophic failure at the moment, but that doesn't make it any more palatable that I have no email, and my web page is defaulting to a 404 from a company I hosted with about 4 years ago.

I don't even get the expected robo-reply when I enter a support ticket. I called their 800 number and got a line that went dead as soon as I was transfered to the support line.

The really disturbing thing here is a few years ago, the PMEB got caught with a web host who went bust. We had to recreate our pages from personal backups, and we lost our member list.

I don't have a member list to lose, but I had a bunch of stuff I was working on for a freelance job, that I don't have complete backups for. I was saving several versions of a flash animation online because I thought that was the safest place for them. I'm praying that my web host hasn't gone belly up and taken all my files with it.

In other news, the shrubs out front are nicely trimmed and weeded, and I made a start on the back, but the back mowing still needs to be done.

ETA: I finally got through to their tech support. It was a "DNS problem." I wonder how my DNS is suddenly wrong? Well, they claim to have updated it, and my email is working, though I still can't get to my web space.

I took a nap this afternoon -- one of those naps where you lie down for "just a minute" and wake up more than an hour later with your mouth tasting like ick, and your body feeling like it weighs 8 tons. During the nap, I dreamed about my Floyd (the larger of my two dogs). Ollie was not in the dream at all.

In the dream, I was on an ocean-going salvage ship, with Floyd, who was working as a diver. He was apparently trying to earn some extra money for the family. Floyd didn't have any diving equipment. He would simply jump into the water, dragging a rope, and swim down to the wreck that was being salvaged. (I'm not sure how he attached the rope -- that wasn't an issue in the dream.) I was watching him on a video monitor as he swam down to the wreck, then came back to the surface. After he did his diving (several trips), he was lying down on the deck, and I was worried about him because he seemed too tired. I was afraid he was wearing himself out.

This was a strange dream on a couple of issues, not the least of which is the fact that Floyd hates water (somewhat unusual for a Lab), and while I've never taken him swimming, I doubt he's much of a swimmer. But also odd because I was standing by as my dog got a part-time job to earn some money. I'm pretty sure that in the dream, I hadn't arranged for the diving job. This was something he'd set up on his own.

I haven't been glued to this kerfuffle. But I have picked up some of the highlights.

The current outrage seems to be that LJ/6A is saying any depiction, whatsoever, of underage sex is actionable, but meanwhile they are turning a blind eye to self harm in the guise of pro-annorexia communities.

Well, DUH, people. This isn't about any principle but money. ( Read more... )

I have my new stove! Installed and everything, along with the new hood.

The process was not without it's glitches. When planning this, I realized that the installation might not be done before it was time for me to go to work. So, I invited my SiL over for lunch, and she would stay and lock up the house after the installer was finished, if I had to leave before he was done.

( Read more... )

I am searching for and trying to friend everyone on my list at LiveJournal on InsaneJournal.com, GreatestJournal.com and JournalFen.net. If you have an account at any of those places, and I haven't friended you, yet, please comment with which places you have accounts here (wherever here happens to be), and I'll friend you.

So far, in the Journal Derby, InsaneJournal seems to be winning. I've taken out a paid account (one year, not permanent) there (here).

GreatestJournal is just a bit unreliable with the icon deletion issue.

JournalFen is just a notch too exclusive. (By making accounts more difficult to get, they are protecting their fan writers and artists, which is a good thing. However, that where the fewest of my friendslist have gone, so it makes the community a bit less robust.)

InsaneJournal.com seems to be striking the most comfortable balance. They don't seem to be as focused on commercialism as LiveJournal(SixApart), so for now, they aren't attracting the kind of attention that leads to pressure to sanitize their content.

So, I'm going to continue to monitor and crosspost. JournalFen deserves some time to catch up on the community aspect. (Newest account, so it has fewer people friended.)

Happy birthday to opalescence_. Have a wonderful day.

I guess I must have had a typo in the server settings or something.

I am now "elsaf" on JournalFen.com, though the proliferation of journals is beginning to worry me.

I think I'm going to mostly monitor, and finally settle where the most of my friends list goes.

I just called the local appliance store -- the one that has two stores in the Detroit area and that's all -- and in a 10 minute phone call with a polite salesman who speaks clearly, I ordered the exact same stove, which will be delivered a week earlier, and installed the same day, for $100 cheaper.

I can't see myself going back to Best Buy for another appliance -- ever.

ETA: The salesman from Sergeant Appliance just called me back. He was apologizing because he made a mistake writing up my order. The price he gave me was $40 too high. This stove is now $140 cheaper (including delivery and installation) than it would have been from Best Buy.

I decided to do this 5 minutes in. This is my third try to arrange installation for the stove I bought from BestBuy last Wednesday. It's going to be delivered August 18th. They won't let you order installation when you order the item. You're supposed to wait until you get your order confirmation, then call the customer service line to arrange installation.

I gave up after 40 minutes last Thursday. I tried again at 8 a.m. this morning, only to be told the installation department doesn't open until 8 a.m. CENTRAL time. So, here I am now, waiting on hold again. I called at EXACTLY 8 a.m. central time. I should be close to the top of the queue. If there actually is anyone handling these calls. You couldn't prove it by me.

10 Minutes elapsed: The recording they play while you're on hold is beginning to grate. Particularly the tag line for each repetition of the guy who talks: "Your call is important to us, so please stay on the line." The background music is pretty annoying, too. It's a loop about 10 measures long, repeated, and repeated, and repeated...

15 Minutes elapsed: The only person I've actually talked to, in three phone calls, is the mumbly little girl who "directs your call." The volume on her headset is apparently turned down. All the recordings BLAST out of my phone. Her I have to press the phone to my ear as hard as I can, and plug the other ear with my finger and I can BARELY make out what she's saying. She asks for my phone number and name, and then transfers me onto perpetual hold. I'm sure the person I finally talk to (IF I ever get to talk to anyone) will ask for the phone number and name again. So, I don't know why she's taking that information. And it's ALWAYS the same mumbly little girl answering the 800 number. So, it seems they only have one operator. That's probably more staff than they have in the installation department, judging by the hold time.

20 Minutes in: I finally reach a human being. They DON'T INSTALL ON THE SAME DAY AS THEY DELIVER!!!! Can you believe that? I had to wait 20 minutes on hold to find out that they can't combine delivery and installation. So they're going to dump the stove on Saturday and I'm supposed to climb over the crate until Monday when they'll send someone else out for another $100 and install the stove and remove the old one.

THE HELL THEY WILL.

I think I'm going to cancel the stove order now and buy one from another appliance store that actually has customer service. Sergeant Appliance here I come.

Why do they call them cat macros?

I mean, I see the cats, but where I come from a "macro" is a small routine that streamlines repeated actions in a larger program by performing several steps with a single command.

Things returning to normal around here -- for now.

It was hotter than the hinges of Hades today. But it looks like the weekend is going to be glorious -- mid-70s and sunny. Of course, I'm leaving the state Saturday morning. I hope the weather is as nice in Vermont.

That's all.

Wel, well, well... We'll have to see about this. It could be great (seasoned, grizzly Indiana). Or it could be the lamest lame of the lame things. In my heart of hearts, I think Harrison Ford has another outing with Indiana in him.

I hope the rumor that Karen Allen is also in it is true. (I hope nobody looks at that as a spoiler, because I don't even know that it's true.) I just think that Marion would have had to be the woman he settled down with. If she's not in it, I hope they tell us that she died after they'd been married for many years. :-) Ideally, she died on a great adventure they went on together, and he feels guilty about it. Cliche, I know. But just the kind of cliche the Indiana Jones series thrives on.

Mingle² - Online Dating

Who wants to be loved, anyway?

( Read more... )

Had a nice Father's Day today. I made Sauerbraten (pot roast marinated in red-wine vinegar, onions and juniper berries [and other things] served with a gravy thickened with ginger snap crumbs) Potato Pancakes (always a favorite in our family) and Red Cabbage with Apples. We had apple pie for dessert, and Dad was in a very good mood. I made a batch of chocolate fudge for my Father's Day gift.

Only sour note was a lack of air conditioning at Mom and Dad's house. Mom is going to call a reapirman tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in entertainment:

( Doctor Who with spoilers )

( Buffy Season 8 comic, issue 4, with spoilers )

( Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip )