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Headed down visit with the family for Easter weekend. On the drive down there, I realized one of my co-workers was in the car just to the left of me as we got on the highway. We ended up traveling together most of the way, so that was kinda cool.

I did some sleeping in over the weekend and mostly just hung out. I helped a little with the Easter dinner while the rest of the crew was at church. Pretty quiet time.

The weirdest bit was when my Dad came out on the patio with a plastic jug filled with water and tea bags. I figured he was going to make some more Sun Tea – but instead he opened up the cover to the hot tub and tossed it in. Apparently he’s been doing that since they first got the hot tub and says it doesn’t take nearly as much time as the Sun Tea version does. And no leaks yet.

And I guess that’s about it – oh, I did get the duck for my collection.

So, back to work…

On Sunday, while I visiting my family – I fixed lunch while they were at church. While in and of itself it isn’t a big deal – but considering how infrequently I cook, this was something of a big deal. I made taco salad and everyone seemed to enjoy it. And I even helped with dishes.

I worked on my project last night and made some significant progress. Still a long way to go, but it’s getting easier to hold the shape in my head and I’m having to dwell less on the construction of each area.

The hot tub that my parents came with a small rubber duck – which my folks gave to me the first time I visited after they got the hot tub. I promptly forgot it. They gave it to me again over the weekend and I forgot it again. This time…the duck is mine.

That’s it for now, back to work…

Yesterday, I went for a walk. I needed to use my computer at work to finish up some stuff with my taxes and decided that since it looked like a nice day, I’d walk there. Now, I’ve walked home before when my battery died, but I got a ride later to get the car back. This would be the first “there and back again” trip for me.
I started out at 9:10 am with a hooded jacket, a pocketful of paper and I backpack with my documents. The wind was a little chilly, but not too chilly. On the trip I noticed:
a): A kitten in the window of a printing business, rolling around in the sunshine. It noticed me, but I didn’t stay to make friends. It looked happy and healthy, so it must have lived there the whole time. Most people see more of their pets on the weekends – in this case, the opposite was true.
b): I saw some grafitti that had clearly been done by stencil. The lettering was in the “standard” grafitti style, but there was a dark rectangle around it of no paint, and then overspray beyond that edge. Seemed kind of pathetic – though I guess it made it easier to “tag” a larger area.
I got to work at 10:40, got a soda and some chips and played Diablo for a bit to relax. Then I dove into the taxes and did a ferocious battle with the needlessly complicated city taxes. It was worse than both the state and federal combined. In any case, they go in the mail tomorrow.
A little more Diablo and a couple of emails later and I decided to stop at the ATM on my way back so I could get some food.
The trip back seemed to go a little faster, though I didn’t really time it. The distance, according to Yahoo Maps was 4.7 miles one way. So, not a bad bit of exercise – though I did stop at Wendy’s and got some chicken nuggets.
I got home, finished my lunch and relaxed for a bit with some video games. My aunt called, and a with a small degree of convincing, I took a shower and hopped into the car for the 2 hour 40 minute drive to my parents house – where she and my uncle were staying the night after dropping off my grandmother for a 2 week visit. I don’t get to see my extended family much – so this was a nice, if somewhat short, visit.
My aunt, my uncle, and his son headed back to Illinois this morning and the rest of my family is as church. I’ll most likely head down here again next weekend for easter.
That’s about it for now…going to wrap this up and hang out with the dogs for a bit…

First up, the time change. As the master of Space and Time, I should be fine with it – or at least in control. But sadly, that is not the case. I finally got all the time-pieces in my apartment up to speed, with two exceptions:

1. My watch. Somehow, while clearly not paying attention, I advanced my watch by 1 hour and 1 day, instead of just 1 hour. Yes, I was on crack or something. What makes it worse? I can’t rewind the date indicator. I tried to wind it all the way around, but only got a few days in the future before I got ticked and pulled the pin. As a consequence, I can’t use my watch until 8:00 AM, Thursday morning. The rest of the world is just going to have to fend for itself until then.

2. I have a clock that shines on the ceiling in the dark – and is also supposed to automatically set itself based on some radio signal. Well, it didn’t do anything as far as resetting goes, so I unplugged it with the idea that a reset would get me the correct time. No such luck – it’s just glowing on the ceiling with FF:FF – which I think means something not very nice.

So, I’m going to have to dig out the manual and set the time myself. Dang it.

In other news… as promised, here are the Nerd Photos:

http://www3.uakron.edu/dds/geek/geek.html
http://www3.uakron.edu/dds/cyberSecurity_shoot/cyberSecurity_shoot.html

Scary, huh?

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this or not, but I repotted my Lucky bamboo into a larger container. It’s still alive and growing nicely.

More progress on the big origami – I’ve glue together over 100 units. It’s slow going as I have to plan ahead and not glue myself into a corner where I can’t fit my hands.

And finally, the eye exam. Some brief notes…

1. Didn’t allow quite enough time to get to the new doctor’s office.
2. Directions were not very precise.
3. Went to VisionCare – should have been at Valley Vision.
4. Hillarity ensues
5. Get to correct eye doctor and fill out forms
6. Take some cryptic eye exams, get slightly pissed off.
7. Find out my insurance sucks
8. Find out my eyes are okay.
9. No further action needed – still have same glasses and contacts.
10. If I want new contacts, I’ll need to go to my previous eye doctor and get the specifications – which makes no sense to me. Why not measure my eyes and go from there?

The doctor was fine and then news was good, I suppose. But I didn’t walk out of there feeling like I’d had an entirely good experience. Oh well, that’s what happens when your insurance changes make you change things.

And that’s about it for now – back to work…

I put the taped glasses and the bow tie back on for an reprise of my nerd role – this time for shots for a training course/manual. It’s spring break around here, so not many people on campus. But since we took most of the shots outside, I still saw a lot of people.

It was silly – and still fun. I’ll be posting some links as soon as the photos are online.

I also had some other ideas if we want to do future updates – here are the titles…

Mission: Nerd-possible
Nerds Gone Wild – On Location!
Son of The Nerd
Nerd Wars: Rise of the Nerd
Pimp My Moped
Dancing with the Nerds – or Nerd Idol

And now that I’ve de-nerded, it’s time to get back to work…

I listen to the radio on the way to work in the morning and decided to switch over to an AM station that I saw on a billboard for Radio Free Ohio. Unfortunatly, the “voice of reason and truth” is just as crazy and irrational as the people they oppose. So, I put in a CD.

I read an interesting article yesterday that compared George Bush politics to “1984”. The whole “War is Peace” seemed to strike a cord – more than a little scary.

Playing a new game the past few days – “The Bard’s Tale”. Pretty cool role playing game of sorts with some interesting features. First, no inventory. Everything you find gets instantly turned to money that you can use to buy weapons, but only one of each type at a time. You also get to summon creatures with magic songs to help you out – and you have a pet dog. I think this is the first time I’ve played a game where the main character had a pet. The dog helps out in combat a bit, scares birds, and digs up bones. Might be my favorite part of the game, actually.

I did a little more glueing with the origami model – it’s slow going. I have to do a lot of planning before I start any area and I’m trying to work form the inside out. It’s tricky, but I’m doing okay. I also think I may have undercounted yet again – but we’re not going to speak of that.

Well, guess that’s it for now…back to work…

I had a dream over the weekend that my grandfather on my Dad’s side was alive again. Some kind of genetic quick-cloning kind of thing. He was in a good mood and was helping us get ready for a family picnic. He keep freaking out my grandmother, especially when the phone would ring and they would both pick up differnt extensions in the house. While he and I were talking, he got up to get a couple of beers (both for himself) and we talked about making plans to go visit his grave. I think we were both a little weirded out by the notion, but he figured it was something he needed to do.

I also dreamed I rode a bike to Pittsburg to drive someone to a concern. Don’t know what either of those mean.

In other news, I’ve been letting my hair grow out in preperation for a reprise of the “nerd” role. It’s been delayed until this week and I’m way over-due for a cut. To the point that, over the weekend, someone bumped into me in Target and my hair reacted defensively and gave my “attacker” a wedgie. Okay, so, that’s not even remotely true – but I did turn someone to stone with a glance. Okay, that’s not true either – but I do need to get it cut.

Finally found a fog-free mirror this weekend – and not some phoney or fake thing either. This is the real deal, with the water running down the back to keep the mirror warm and consquently, fog-free. Not just fog resistant, like those cheap-ass mirrors with a fog-free “coating” that lasts about 1.09 showers. So, with my new mirror installed, I shaved in the shower last night and noticed two things:

1. I have far more gray in my beard than I would have admitted to. But, it’s there and the mirror magnified all of them.

2. I have really nice eyes. Which I’d been told, but seen that close up and magnified in my new mirror, well, it’s a differnt perspective. Yeah, it’s a little vain – but note that I started out with the negative first – gotta keep things in balance.

Also over the weekend I re-watched “Near Dark”. A sort of vampire movie, but they never say “vampire” and they never show fang. When asked how old he is, the oldest vampire among them says – “Let’s just say I fought for the South. We lost.” Classic.

In still more random news… my tub is draining slowly again. Last nights shower ended with water in the tub just covering my feet. Time for more drain-o, it seems.

I worked on my taxes over the weekend. I used to use telefile, but they’ve shut that down. So, I tried the efile route – and was really pissed when I realized there was a charge for doing it. And my carefully itemized deductions were less than the standard – and therefore, worthless. And since I didn’t have last year’s with me, I had to print and sign a form to finalize the whole thing. Morons. Why would I go to all the trouble and fill everything out if it wasn’t my own taxes?

And finally, I’m headed to the eye doctor this friday. Thinking about new glasses – and maybe switching to those for a while. Which is a little dumb considering I’m headed into sunny weather, but what the heck.

And that’s about it – I’ve got two meetings today, both of which I’m dreading. And I’ve got a lot of web-pages to make, so it’s time to get back to it…

I watched “Darkness” last night – and while not as scary as it could have been, I still shouldn’t have watched it alone. The plot was a little needlessly cryptic, and then totally in your face, but overall, not a bad flick.

While I was watching the movie and eating a turnip (well, it’s what I was doing, okay?) I also got out the glue and put the first 64 units together. Based on this – it’s going to be 27 inches cubed.

I thought about getting photos taken at various points of the assembly, but really, it’s not that big of a deal. The indivudal units are easy to build and the construction, while a little tricky in the formulation, shouldn’t be a big issue. It’ll still look really cool, but a play-by-play isn’t needed.

Well, that’s about it…lots to do today, so I should get back to it…

Yesterday evening I laid out the 64 units that will make one face of the giant origami construction. It looks like, if I’m at all clever, that it will go together pretty smoothly. I can already see the shape in my head, it’s just a matter of putting it into place. I’ve not made much progress on the origami angels – pretty much everytime I have an “ah-ha” break-thru, the next step has me totally stumped.

Work has been busy this week – gotta go snag some lunch then head to a meeting. It’s a little hectic when you’re the expert on everything. Sheesh!

later…

I watched the made for TV remake of The Poseidon Adventure over the weekend. It was one of the most ham-handed morality plays I’ve seen in a long time – totally over the top. Right down to the Evil Terrorist falling into the fire under the catwalk – followed shortly there-after by the Home-wrecking Massuse who’s only crime was sleeping with Steve Guttenberg. His character was – of course – reunited with the rest of his family in a hallmark moment. Which made sense since it was a hallmark film.

One reviewer on IMDB said that you could almost see when the various cast members would die – and who would make it out alive – right from the start of the film. Sort of like someone coughing in Act One of a shakespearian play – and knowing they’d be dead of the pox by Act Three.

So, what’s the point? Do we really need this kind of morality shoved down our throats yet again? This movie came out in 2005, shouldn’t we know better by this point? And if we don’t, will this be the movie that suddenly makes us better human beings?

I’ve read a lot of books – a huge number. And a few of those have involved introducing some kind of influence into humanity that forces us to be better people. Chemical, virus, or whatever – the goal is to make us more peaceful. Now, these are all Sci-fi, so of course something terrible has to happen. In a Stephen King story, everyone gets stupid. In Serenity, everyone either gets so peaceful they stop breathing or gets so agressive they turn into monsters.

But, can any amount of religion, politics, or social engineering really make a differnce anymore? Are there enough made for TV movies out there to influence us?

Maybe we need to risk it. Find a way to make us peaceful and good to each other. And then force it on everyone – take choice out of the equation. If it isn’t universal, those that aren’t affected would quickly go totally world domination on the rest.

I don’t have enough of a bio-chemical background to do this myself, but I wonder if anyone is already working on this. Seems like things are getting worse out there.

Well, enough of that for now. Starting to bring myself down. Time to get back to work…