I Like the Rain

TagFest: Weather

After many dry days we're finally getting rain here in the Bay Area. I'm glad it was dripping on me as I left my car yesterday morning because I remembered to tuck my umbrella in my bag. I sure needed it at night. It was raining hard enough in the City to need it just for the walk from my office to the station. Once I arrived in the East Bay it was really coming down. The wind was blowing but not hard enough that I had to choose between fighting it or getting wet. My new Rick Steeves umbrella survived.

I like rainy days a lot. Granted, I live a life inside. (My time out of doors can be counted in the minutes, usually less than 30.) There's something about the sound and the light and the smell that speaks to something inside me. Sunny days get tedious around here, even when there are clouds or fog in the sky.

After checking with my WeatherBug gadget, I see rain is predicted for the next three days. Woo hoo!

Talking Nonsense

TagFest: Rants

Rant: to speak or shout at length in a wild, impassioned way.

The word "rant" is from the Dutch word "ranten" which means "to talk nonsense". I think that's highly appropriate for most rants I make, and have to listen to. It's not the words that are spoken but the fire behind them that is important. You just need to get something off your chest. You might not have the perfect argument backed up with icy facts and stony figures but you have an opinion and someone needs to hear it, dammit! (Ah, there's the shouting.) Powerful gestures from the arms and hands often help.

My obligatory rant for this TagFest post is:

Some people think they can just criticize someone's spelling when they really should be offering their congratulations on an important anniversary in their friend's life. I don't need to hear about where the parentheses should be. I want to hear, "Hey, great job sticking with your stupid blog for a year. I never thought you'd do it."

Oh, sorry, 'geek. Just talking some nonsense.

Creative? Sweet!

TagFest: Work

The last few times I've talked to the prepress guys over at our printshop, they've kidded me about being behind the times. I was the one who converted to InDesign first (from PageMaker and Quark Xpress) and was able to help them out with a few questions they had when they first switched over. Now they think I'm lagging.

It's true. But I work for a non-profit and we can't afford to be buying the latest Adobe software for hundreds of dollars. We have to buy it through another organization that gets discounts for non-profts and they don't always have what we need.

Take Adobe's Creative Suite Premium for example. Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Acrobat Pro, etc., all cost loads of cashola: $1199 But I just ordered it for $150! Of course, I've been checking the TechSoup website for months and months and it's always been on back-order. Not today. I'm so excited to finally catch up with the masses.

Anniversary Tag Fest

Welcome to my First Annual Tag Fest!

In celebration of my one-year anniversary and the advent of the use of tags for organizing my posts, I'm planning to take each tag on my list and write a post during February pertaining to that topic. Some posts may be general observations about the tag. Others may have specific relevance to current events in my life.

If you'd like to promote your favorite tag for early inclusion in TagFest, leave me a comment and I'll try to take it into consideration.

Happy Anniversary to Breeze By!

Congrats to myself for one year of blogging! To celebrate, I recently switched to the new (and improved) Blogger format which allows the use of tags, or labels, to better organize my posts.

You may have noticed tags at the end of posts the last few days. I spent a few hours on Sunday applying 23 different tags to the over 300 posts I made in the last year. Some unsurprising results were the high number of TV, books and sports posts but I was a bit shocked to have only a couple family-related entries. I guess I need to start talking more about my fam.

Another change is that instead of showing a list of the most recently posted titles (the Back Burner), my new template only allows me the monthly archives (The Collection, formerly known as Cold Storage). However, it does show how many posts were made during those months. I've definitely been slowing down over the last half year. I sure was a busy little blogger last May (46 posts) and June (51). Not surprisingly, that was right after I got my new camera and my computer at home.

My anniversary celebration will continue all month so get ready to share your POV and post lots of comments.

Weaver to Seattle

My favorite pitcher Jeff Weaver is headed to Seattle though he didn't look too happy at the press conference (ha, ha). I'm pretty happy he's back in the AL West. I might have to go to some more A's game this season. Let's see ... the M's are in town April 25–26, just when I get back to town. What good timing! We'll see if Jeff pitches either of those games. I might have to wait until the first weekend in July. Anyone want to go with?

Sunny California

Most of my family live in cold weather climes. They're getting to experience some fun weather right now so a weather report email thread has developed over the last couple days with (paraphrased) comments like these:

Western Lower Michigan: "The weather is so bad they've called off church. The library was closed and the line at the video store was 20 deep. The snow has drifted two feet up against our sliding glass door."

Minnesota #1: "It's -16º here."

Illinois (outside St. Louis): "It's 20º with 20 mph winds."

Indiana: "It's been below 15º with windchills between -5º and -15º for the last couple days."

Pennsylvania: "Our temps are normal: highs in the single digits. We have about 6–8 inches of snow on the ground."

Northwestern Lower Michigan: "Our low overnight was 0º and it's now 1º. We had our lot snow-plowed four times this last week. It takes me about 20 minutes to clean off the cars."

Western Lower Michigan: "It's 2º here now. The snowblower was only up to doing half the driveway. It's resting now. It was crazy on the road last night. I was stuck in the street but I made it out. I left my cell phone on in the car so they could know how my progress was getting home."

Minnesota #2: "We'll get close to the record of 84 hours below 0º. They're expecting windchills of -30º today."

Minnesota #1: "We made it to -18º this morning."

Western Lower Michigan: "The kids' school just cancelled. Snow is blowing around again."

Pennsylvania: "Wind is howling and blowing snow. School is on a two-hour delay. The TV is listing 95 delays or cancellations."

Minnesota #1: "It was -11º with a windchill of 120 (must be a typo!) when the school bus came on Friday. Windchills were below -30º on Saturday night."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I so so want to reply to all these emails but what would I say? "It's 60º here at 8:00pm with a high of 65º for tomorrow. Guess I won't be needing my jacket." My family would kill me.

Q&A

Today we had our monthly staff meeting. Near the end of each meeting we have check-ins where everyone has the opportunity to share things others might need to know about what they're doing and if they are going to be out of the office. As we went around the circle none of the other adminstrative and finance staff had anything to share and had passed so when it came to me I didn't want us to have a big goose egg on the check-in scoreboard so I said, "Instead of passing, I'm going to open it up for a one minute Q&A." There was a tiny moment of stunned silence then people started to laugh, and ask questions.

Our Executive Director, knowing I had a vacation planned: "Where are you going in April?"
Me: "Oh, I'm just going to visit family in Michigan."

Our Founder: "What book are you currently reading?"
Me, fumbling: "Uh, I haven't started it yet but some historical novel that takes place in the UK by some guy whose name I can't remember." (It's actually The Last Kingdom, a ninth-century adventure by Bernard Cornwell. I didn't want the mention the horrid book I had just finished, Don't Look Down by Jennifer Crusie. And her stuff is usually so much fun.)

My Boss: "How old are you going to be on April 1st?"
Me: "The big 4-0!"
Everyone applauds.
Me: "But that's two months away and there's plenty of time to plan a big party!"

Dinner: Impossible

Have you watched Dinner: Impossible on the Food Network yet? Tonight I caught an episode where the chef had to cook a dinner for 200 on a Maine island in 8 hours with two sous-chefs and a handful of volunteers. He had one tiny kitchen and one barely working oven. Right now there's 2 hours left and he hasn't raised his voice to anyone except to call for progress reports from his guys in the next room. All the food they're making looks really great too. Lobster mac & cheese? Yes, please.

Tax Experiment

Every year my taxes are so easy. I always file the EZ forms online. This year was no different. I filed both federal and state in a matter of an hour or so. Yea!

I usually get a few hundred dollars back mostly because I have my 403b contribution deducted from my paycheck before taxes are taken out while still using the same old withholding status. Last year after doing my taxes I decided to change it to S-02 so less would be withheld each month. I was very curious to see how it would affect my refund. Would I owe the government money this time?

I'm claiming an undeniable success. I owe the feds only $43!

I can't remember if I changed my state withholding to S-02. I don't think so because I'm getting $85 back from the state. So I'm going to get a combined net $42 refund. That might just about pay for my dim sum lunch today.

Dr. Bashir on 24?

As I was watching the four-hour season premiere of 24, I couldn't stop thinking that the possibly former terrorist who Jack saved from being blown to smithereens looked really really really familiar. So tonight I looked up who's playing Assad and it's Alexander Siddig (aka Siddig El Fadil) who was Doctor Julian Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Now that was a great show. Worf. Dax. Kira. The list goes on.

Turns out he's also in Kingdom of Heaven which I had just watched on Saturday. No wonder he seemed so familiar!

Check out his birthname: Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi. I'm not joking. Poor kid.

Movie Report: Kingdom of Heaven

Sal doesn't like pretty boys (like me) but she said she liked Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven so I put it on my queue and watched it last weekend. I was afraid it would be one of those "brown" movies that I can't watch because everything is sepia-colored as if the audience has to be reminded it's a historical picture. Luckily it wasn't. I thought it was beautifully filmed and acted. I enjoyed it a lot.

Kingdom is the story of Balian, the bastard son of a medieval knight of the crusades. After his wife and son die in England, he follows his father's path to the Holy Lands to serve the Christian king of Jerusalem. Part of me wished I knew more of the history of the setting, but I later read some reviews that said the movie didn't stick very close to actual people and events. So it was probably better for my enjoyment of the story not to know much. Next time I get it I might run the pilgrim audio commentary track to see what the movie producers have to say about the history the movie was set in.

As far as Orlando went, even with big muscles and facial hair, it was impossible for him to not be pretty. Mmmhmm.

A Rainbow of Phlegm

I can't get over how much phlegm (is snot in the phlegm family?) my body is producing. And in such interesting viscosities and colors. But just a continuous, never-ending river of the white/greenish/red-streaked-yellow stuff. Amazing.

I'm fairly certain I'm developing calluses on my nostrils from all the nose-blowing and tissue-wiping activities from the past week. I think I need some salve.

Gmail-Jackin'

Some dude (with my same initials) changed the email address for his Amazon account to my Gmail address. Oops!

I now know what he's been ordering (ink cartridges and an estate planning CD-ROM) and where he lives (Oregon). I graciously forwarded all the emails I've received so far to his old address. We'll see if he emails me back.

ETA: Just heard back from him and he changed it back. He was very pleasant about it too. I could've just made a new friend.

24

All I can say about the new season of 24 is OMGWTF!


For a translation of the above acronym, go to your local UrbanDictionary. Rated R.

Melodrama to the Max

I've been neglecting my NetFlix recently so when I woke up early on Saturday I decided to watch the two movies that have been sitting around here for awhile: Elizabethtown and Billy Elliot. I really enjoyed Billy Elliot though the disc was damaged and I missed a couple really important scenes including the "Dance of Defiance" when Billy kinda comes out to his dad showing him how good he can really dance. Maybe someday I'll get to see it. I saw part of the Dance by watching the special features. That's how I know about it at all.

I thought Elizabethtown was going to be a romantic comedy but it wasn't really funny and it really wasn't that romantic. I liked it but I think my expectations going in ruined it a little for me. Maybe I just liked it cuz it was Ooo, Ooo, Orlando the entire movie. I kinda like him juuust a little bit. Which may explain moving Troy and Kingdom of Heaven to the top of my queue. They were both in my mailbox tonight so I decided to watch Troy. That's where the melodrama comes in, not necessarily in this order.

First there was the heaving, desperate romance of the beautiful Paris and Helen. Then there was the angsty, brotherly confrontation between the beautiful Paris and Hector on the boat leaving Sparta. Then there was the supernatural Achilles taking down a muuch bigger man with a single stroke. Then there was the yummy Odysseus trying to persuade a petulant Achilles to go to war with Troy. Then there was the saccharine reunion of Hector and his wife and son. Oh the longing glances. Oh the manly shoulders. Oh the flowing locks of gold.

Oh, then there was the petulant disregard of kingly orders. Then there was the bloody sacking of Apollo's temple. Then there was them thar fighting words. Then there was the heaving, desperate romance of Achilles and that dark-haired girl. Then there was the brave self-sacrifice then the cowardly self-preservation of the beautiful Paris. Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. (Did you know that even when fast-forwarding, if you have the subtitles on, they still show up? Ducky for me!)

Then there was the great big burning balls of fire!! Oooo! Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. Then there was the stupid bravery of Achilles' cousin and the aching self-doubt of Hector. Oh, the teary, kohl-lined eyes. Oh, the cute rosy baby. Then there was the heaving, desperate call of "Hector!" "Hector!" "Hector!" (not what you're thinking!) and then the fiercest, coolest, fight between men in skirts you ever did see. Then there was the dragging through the sand. Then there was the old man crying. Then there was the satisfying redemption of a soul.

Then there was the wily yummy Odysseus and the big black horse. Then there was the smart, beautiful Paris saying "Burn it" and the foolish old men saying "It's a present. Let's take it into our impenetrably walled city and dance around it!' Then there was lots and lots and lots of fighting which I fast-forwarded through. Then there was heaving, desperate running and running and running and oh just a little more running. Oh, the sad parting words! Oh, the beautiful Paris and his bow! Oh, an arrow through Achilles' Achilles' heel!

Whoo. I'm tired from all that heaving and running and fighting. I think I need some popcorn.

Yuck

I saw vomit on the stairs at the BART station on my way home. I'm not thinking I really need to eat supper tonight. Maybe some popcorn later. Maybe.

I Love Wiki

Wikipedia.org has a random article link that takes you to...you got it, a random article. It's cool like that. So follow along as I click "Random article" repeatedly.

Centennial (miniseries): a TV series from the late '70s based on the Michener novel that takes place in Colorado. I don't remember this show. It was probably a bit too mature for someone my age at that time. It starred lots of famous actors including Richard Chamberlain, Mark Harmon and Andy Griffith.

Happiness (film): a Cannes Film Festival award-winning black comedy from 1998, starring Lara Flynn Boyle, Jon Lovitz and Philip Seymour Hoffman, among others. I have to say I never heard of this film. I bet you have though.

Wisdom (surname): the names listed are Jack, John, John Minor, Norman, Olli, Peter and Robert Wisdom. Oh, man, I'm so tempted to click on the Olli Wisdom link but I will not. I'm on to the next Random Article!

Sensory neuroscience: which studies the behavior of neurons in our sensory systems in order to understand more about how the brain works. Cool.

S/2004 S 11: one of the satellites (moons) of Saturn. It's about 6 kilometers in diameter which doesn't sound very big in the scheme of things. Did you know that moons have an eccentricity as well as an inclination?

Landsbankadeild 2006: the elite football (soccer) league in Iceland in 2006. Included in the article are the top goal scorers. My favorite names from the list are: Tryggvi, Guðmundur, Sævar, and of course the winner, Björgólfur.

Hematon: part of the process of making blood cells. Other fun words in the article are: preadiposcytes, mesenchymal, megakaryocyte and haematopoiesis. Yea for science!

Dimocarpus: a genus of flowering plants in southeast Asia that includes longan fruit. Something else I've never heard of but I bet I'll be seeing longan fruit everywhere from now on.

Annemarie Moser-Pröll: an Alpine skier (downhill, giant slalom, combined) from Austria who won gold in the Lake Placid Olympic Games in 1980. She also got two silvers in Sapporo in 1972 not to mention lots of World Cup titles. She is now a grandmother and runs a café. Sounds like she's had a good life.

Karl-Maria Kerbeny: a 19th-century Hungarian journalist who came up with the word "homosexual" and wrote at least 25 books. He was inspired to argue for gay rights by a friend who was being blackmailed and then comitted suicide. Wow, so much information here. I could spend loads of time following all the links in this article. But onward...

Metaflow Technologies: a microprocessor design company in California. Not well-known to the general public. It was owned at one time by Hyundai.

WHIM (AM): a Florida radio station known as "Christian Heritage Radio" broadcasting since 1998.

Uses of podcasting: a list of reasons why you might want to create a podcast, including being subversive and communicating from space.

--oOo--

Well, that was probably too many pages of stuff. But it sure shows the variety of information on the great resource that is Wikipedia. Go Wiki!

BART Book: Break No Bones

Break No Bones
Kathy Reichs, 2006
ninth in the Temperance Brennan series
Kathy's site

After not really enjoying Cross Bones, the previous book in this series, I was curious to see if things got back on track with the latest Temperance Brennan story, Break No Bones. I was not disappointed. I loved this book. There's a great balance between Tempe's personal struggles in her relationships (estranged husband Pete, boyfriend Ryan, friend Emma) and her investigation into the mysterious forensic evidence found on the bodies of some missing persons in South Carolina. What she discovers is not what anyone expected.

Favorite part: I really liked the development of Pete's character in this book. We've seen him a few other times but we really got to spend some time with him as did Tempe, of course, which led to part of the tension that helped to make this book so good.
Least favorite part: There were a couple times that the story got bogged down in long explanations, especially at the end when the sheriff was reporting back to Tempe and Pete.

Next BART Book: ummm, haven't picked one yet
Previous BART Book: Four to Score, Janet Evanovich

Books on the Shelf:
The Family Tree, Carole Cadwalladr
One Good Knight, Mercedes Lackey
Hard Day's Knight, Katie MacAlister
Sins and Needles, Monica Ferris
Angel's Fall, Nora Roberts
Virgin Earth, Philippa Gregory
Books on Hold:
Mistral's Kiss, Laurell K. Hamilton

BART Book: Four to Score

Four to Score
Janet Evanovich, 1998
fourth in the Stephanie Plum series
Janet's site

Since I had so much fun re-reading Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone alphabet series, I decided to try the ever-entertaining Stephanie Plum books again. I got as far as the fourth book, Four to Score, and decided to stop. I just wasn't in the mood for the hijinks of Stephanie, Lula, Grandma Mazur and, new in Four, Stephanie's new puzzle-solving, transvestite friend, Sally Sweet. Even an appearance by her evil nemesis, Joyce Barnhardt, couldn't keep my interest. The whole series is hilarious though so the next time I'm ready for some comedic reading, I'll be sure to pick up with High Five.

Favorite part: eveyone in the neighbor thinking Stephanie is preggers
Least favorite part: that someone got scalped. Youch!

Next BART Book: Break No Bones, Kathy Reichs
Previous BART Book: Splintered Icon, Bill Napier

Books on the Shelf:
The Family Tree, Carole Cadwalladr
One Good Knight, Mercedes Lackey
Hard Day's Knight, Katie MacAlister (a trend in the making?)
Sins and Needles, Monica Ferris
Angel's Fall, Nora Roberts
Virgin Earth, Philippa Gregory
Books on Hold:
Mistral's Kiss, Laurell K. Hamilton