TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Happy Valentine Daze, Taurus! During this lover’s holiday, I encourage you to devote yourself full-time to acting like a person who’s in love. Even if you’re not currently in the throes of passion for a special someone, pretend you are. Everywhere you go, exude that charismatic blend of shell-shocked contentment and blissful turmoil that comes over you when you’re infatuated. Let everyone you meet soak up the delicious wisdom you exude. Dispense frrreee blessings and extra slack like a rich saint high on natural endorphins. (I assure you that this assignment is in perfect accord with the astrological omens.)
Mostly Gaylord, with a spot of Cleveland and a fifty percent chance of diner.
I am cursed to listen to the same music over and over. And here, I thought that I was just stodgy.
The trip to Gaylord on Sunday was entirely unlike our trip to Cleveland, with striking similarities. Unlike Cleveland, our getting there wasn’t the largest problem. Car troubles – namely ours not starting – and whirling police lights did their best to keep us from Ohio, but the kindness of my brother-in-law combined with potent energy drinks saw us through the long drive. Our car started fine on Sunday, now that the ignition switch has been replaced. Getting me running was a different matter entirely.
I was grumpy, mopey, depressed and all other kinds of dwarf. Benny got me to the cafe for coffee, and we addressed the road situation. According to radar, Lansing and a spot north of Gaylord were terrible, but everything else looked clear. I called , who assured me that my continued state of being alive was far preferable to frozen death. I agreed, and she suggested that we make the attempt, and turn around if it got too shitty. As long as it was before the halfway mark.
I hung up the phone, and Benny remarked that I sounded excited to see Ani. I explained that I wasn’t excited to see her in Gaylord, but I was stoked to see her down the street.
The trip up had three distinct snowstorms, unlike the trip to Cleveland, where it waited to snow until we got there. Lansing, just north of Clare, and the Grayling/Gaylord area were all kinds of treacherous frozen hell. Everything in between was salted and dry, though I admit to being unable to relax for the entirety of the trip.
In Cleveland, we met quite a few of ‘s friends and associates (crap, I’ve got to send an email), but in Gaylord we pretty much stuck with , Justin, , and the kids. Much like in Cleveland, the snow kept coming down while we were there. Sunday night found us snowed in, and temperatures dropping to negative retarded degrees. We were graciously invited to spend the night, but I confess that between sleeping on the floor, the kids waking up, and then the kids staying up, I didn’t get much sleep.
Don’t let me make you think that I didn’t have a good time while I was there. The company was fantastic, dinner was delicious, and the visit was capped off with Monsters, Inc. I was even gifted with a new blank notebook. It’s enormous, and has a brazillion pages that are lined perfectly. And let me tell you, that’s a lot.
It’s struck me again, now that I’m writing every day again, how much people want to encourage my writing. The whole pen plus paper equals words thing. I’m continuously gifted with notebooks to fill. Not only that, but I am regularly getting (small) royalty checks from Lulu, which means that the book is still selling, slowly and steadily. They’re not encouraging me to be a writer. They’re encouraging me to nurture and develop an aspect of myself. It is there, and it is undeniable.
So thank you, everyone who believes in me.
Oh, right, the trip. Well, we left around noon on Monday, and the roads from Gaylord to Grayling were still frozen-over suck. Once we got beyond Grayling, the skies cleared and the roads gradually became sane. Sleepiness and hunger overcame clutch-the-oh-shit-handle panic, and I struggled to stay awake so that Benny would be able to do the same. The protein bar (yuck) in the car did nothing for me, so we decided to stop and eat in Clare. We were presented with the usual fast food fare, plus a Big Boy, but decided to see what the city proper had to offer.
I spotted a wee white-painted establishment sporting a sign that proclaimed, “HAMBURGERS,” and suggested it to . We parked on the street and inspected further. “OMELETTES” and “Breakfast served all day” and “Open 24 Hrs.” This was my kind of place. I secured seating while raided the ATM for cash.
The place had six or seven booths, top. Smaller even than the Golden Harvest in Lansing. Delicious food, the lady behind the counter knew we weren’t local because she didn’t know our names. Also, the place has been open for more than 70 years. 24/7. For serious.
Go there. Eat. It is awesome. Whitehouse Diner in Clare, MI.
My mood brightened, and I was able to stay awake, if barely, for the rest of the trip home, as well as my entire work shift. I totally forgot to leave one of my business cards on their bulletin board, but that might be added bonus for another trip up north after the weather has improved.
Hope I get a phone call tomorrow.
Horoscope
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In his book *Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships,* psychotherapist John Welwood writes, “Psychological work focuses more on what has gone wrong: how we have been wounded in our relations with others and how to go about addressing that. Spiritual work focuses more on what is intrinsically right: how we have infinite resources at the core of our nature that we can cultivate in order to live more expansively. If psychological work thins the clouds, spiritual work invokes the sun.” In my opinion, Taurus, both approaches are useful, depending on the season of your life. For the foreseeable future, though, spiritual work should be your emphasis.
Words… on paper… someone raise a glass!
This afternoon, before work, I put words on paper.
And not just any words. Fiction words. Words from a project. Steven words.
Holy crap, am I excited. I’ve been able to write some Adam stuff, but not much. I’ve been floundering since the end of NaNoWriMo.
So, raise a glass to my continued ability to put words on paper! :)
“But he does kick the Lex Luthor look like woah.”
I need to renew my paid account. I think I may just have enough in my PayPal account.
As a result, I need to get back on the eBay train. Choo choo!
I’m waiting for jetAudio to finish ripping a Black Eyed Peas CD to ogg vorbis format. Which my iPaq can now play, thanks be to Pocket Player. It feels so subversive to have all of this OSS running under such a well-known and obviously closed-source OS. Of course, Pocket Player isn’t OSS, but it seems worth the paltry registration fee to purchase the full version once the trial software expires.
That’s right, peoples, I don’t mind paying for software, as long as it’s worth the money.
My hair is already growing at a mad pace. I no longer look bald, but buzzed. Perhaps
Not only because I like it. Not only because
Somebody’s gonna need to take pics, so’s I can have me a baldy LJ icon. Heh.
Horoscope
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Your web of allies is a crucial part of your pursuit of happiness. The stimulation and support you ask them for are vivid evidence that you love life and have a strong sense of what’s good for you. Every now and then, however, you need to remember that it’s important to avoid falling completely under their influence. You’ve got to resist peer pressure, and declare your independence from the crowd’s power to shape you. Now is such a time, Taurus.
Breaking the universe through spontenaity.
So, I went and got my head shaved today. It was a whim that seemed like it needed to be put to action. I think, once the initial shock wears off, most people are more surprised by me actually changing something without a whole lot of reason attached than they are with the act itself.
It has been confirmed that the 4GB SD card needs to be formatted with FAT32, and so will not work with my older iPaq. However, the 2GB cards can be formatted with FAT16, so my plan is still a go. The battery arrived the day that I was griping about it, and has been installed. It’s working wonderfully. So is the extra battery that came with the PCMCIA sleeve, which arrived the day after the battery. The wireless card is on its way. My Frankenstein project is almost complete. I haven’t been able to actually pull shit like this together in a while, so I’m getting pretty giddy. And here I was all ready for the usual “nothing will work together the way that you want it to” usual state of affairs.
Lucky me. :)
I’ve got a new piece of LARP fiction up at
I’ve got a video game proposal and DJ bio to write next, and I’ve become unblocked, thanks to
Also, I owe five people snippets of fiction from a meme a while back. I haven’t forgotten, and I think I have something to write. You may have to huddle to get the entire story, though. :)
Technology is a sultry minx that toys with me.
So, we had one of these little gadgets that was sitting around, fairly inoperable, at the bottom of a desk drawer. eBay to the rescue! I have a battery en route, as well as an upgrade sleeve that will accept PC cards. I’ve already got the 4GB SD card. The idea is to get it able to connect to an 802.11 network, as well as play an appreciable amount of MP3s. I mean, the thing has a standard headphone jack right there on the top! It’s practically begging to be turned into a flashy mp3 player, on top of being a PDA and wireless… aw, hell. A palmtop. There, I said it.
Of course, this can’t go easily. I’ve been waiting on the battery forever, and had auctions (like the SD card) that I won after the battery show up before it. If I unplug the A/C adapter, *poof* goes all my data. So, I’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern. At least, when the SD card arrived, I could test it, right? Well, it appears that it doesn’t want to format the card. And while Googling seems to solve most Apple and Linux related questions, not so for HP/Microsoft amalgamations.
The only information I’ve been able to find is outdated. Compatibility listings only go up to 1GB, but there are spotty reports of getting 2GB cards to work. HP’s support won’t even attempt to answer the question because it’s so far out of warrantee. That’s odd to me, because their live support was always great at handling questions about my old Compaq laptop, and it was a Pentium 1. WAY out of date. Perhaps this is a difference between their live support and their email support, and I should try the live support again.
In any case, if any of you has knowledge of such handhelds, and wouldn’t mind shedding some insight in my general direction, I would appreciate it crazy-like. If I have to downgrade to a 2GB, or there’s a software update out there that I need, lay it on me. :)