Just Dreaming |
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Thursday, November 22, 2001
Christmas Is Coming Yes it is. I love Christmas. Jesus and all.. I really love the music of the season. So, why wait until a couple weeks before to listen to it? Sheesh, the time is way too limited as it is. You only get weeks for Christmas music... I don't care if it's barely Thanksgiving, Christmas is coming. I love the music!!! I can never get enough. I'm always seeking just one more, or just a dozen more, very special renditions, from 77 years ago, or from this year. Usually in between. Christmas music is so timeless. Mmmmm, well it's not Christmas, but this brings to mind last visit here at my parents' house. We went in to Saturday night mass, and there was this really warm, excellent Italian substitute priest there. He's great. If I could see him every time, I think I'd go to mass every week. Anyway, one of the songs the people sang that night was "Amazing Grace." How very cool.. I've always loved that song, and rarely heard it live. Yes, I have many versions sitting on my PC, and a few more on CDs. But to be there, in a place of faith, and hear people I went to high school with, and their parents, sing it....When I was growing up, we never sang "Amazing Grace." It was a Protestant song, I guess. Now, man, they're opening up, and discovering some of the joys of Protestant-hood! Ha. I have the most wonderful Protestant friend too, a lovely girl with a strong faith... ;-) Now, due to conditions beyond my control, my own children are being raised in that tradition... It's not so bad, at all. (Maybe they'll convert, later. ;-)) Of course, I give them a strong dose of my own faith. It is real. It's really nice not having to fake it. The Internet Damm, sometimes I just love the internet. Here I am way out in the country for the holiday, in the middle of the night, no one's awake but me. I go here, turn this machine on, and zappo, I can do things, I can see things. So, I'm catching up on the latest at the BBC. Yes, I do that at home too, but it feels kind of extra special out here in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, the internet gets boring. I mean, staring at a screen. Then other times, man, this is cool! Oooo, it's so windy outside. I keep wondering if the power will hold out. I can hear things flapping outside... It's nice and gusty. {Hmm, thinking back to an earlier theme... Is it shy or simply not particularly prone to action? Maybe both. Or, shy at times, and not prone to action at others, and out of practice when neither of those applies. Man I like this keyboard!!! Dell is pretty good! :-)} The funny thing about my parents, well one of the many, is their paper. They live some 18 miles outside of a smallish city (and four outside their little town.) So, they get the paper. I've seen their paper many times. Why is it, they get more ads in their paper than I do in the Portland paper? They get all these interesting sales, and we have a jillion more stores in Portland, but they have so many more ads with neat sales in them. Even, or especially the national chains. They get a million sale flyers, and I get maybe half what they do. What's up with that? Foreign PC I'm off at my parents' place overnight, getting a little visit, or I was, before the crowd arrives in the morning. My parents just finally got a PC very recently, and it's so strange and cool to be able to write email, which I just did, and post to this bloggy thing, at a foreign PC. Mmm, I like their foreign PC. They got a Dell, and I really like this keyboard. It's so strange though. You get used to a certain way of things. "Here, there is no PC." Well, now there is! Strange! What I miss, being at a strange PC, is access to my images. Well, photos I've taken, things I can scan, and image files I've found in the past, which I might want to use on my blog. What good's a blog without images!!!? I even prefer books with images. Not that I can't read. Just that, I like the images too, preferably interesting ones.... Hmmm, I brought a couple of my current twenty-something books with me, maybe I'll read myself back to sleep. I'm sure glad someone else, my sister-in-law, is in charge of the cooking for Thanksgiving. She's a really good cook. I feel a little scared, in that she's not my mom, who knows how to do the stuffing and things perfectly. Tandy did it last year too though, and she does quite nicely with the stuffing herself. Nothing ruins Thanksgiving like poor stuffing!! I really should learn to do it right myself, just in case. Ahhhh, excited kids, when I get back up. Two of theirs, and two of mine, running around all excited. Joy. ;-) Oh well. My son's so wonderful to hang out with... Luxurious Quiet Since I've moved to my new place, and especially recently, a few times I have thought to myself, "It's so quiet in here..." Now here I am off away for Thanksgiving, luxuriously up at just past 3:00AM, and no one else in this house is conscious. So I've got this PC to myself, and it's so nice and quiet.... The last two days before Thanksgiving break, something happened. Or something didn't happen, depending on how one looks at it. Twice I found myself in a personal sort of situation there, and twice I found myself shy. Or, was that merely inactive? It's true, I've seen it. I'm shy in spades. Wednesday afternoon, back at home, doing my wash and getting ready to go, I turned on the TV in the background, and on came "Kids In The Hall." They sure do a lot of gay and guys in drag jokes there. In one skit, a new guy starts to work in an office. All the ladies in the office are trying to figure out if he's gay, or not. Finally he tells them he is not gay. They rejoice. (It wasn't particularly funny, or maybe it's just me.) Am I gay? No. Divorced? Yes. (I don't have a good descriptive here right now.) Now, the quiet before the huge marauding crowd arrives later....What shall I do? Wednesday, November 21, 2001
First Two Presents! Boy, I sure am rantful today!! Actually, I am quite chipper, looking forward to days and days of my own time, for projects, or (hopefully not really) doing not much of anything... I did get my first two Christmas presents yesterday though!! :-) I had intended to go over to Costco. They get some nice winter shirts in sometimes, so I was thinking, just maybe... However, there was a huge traffic jam to get into that place! Ugh, I hate Costco! They don't have enough stores, they make you pay to shop there, they check your ID to get in, and they make you feel like a criminal going out. I mean, what's the use of checking your stupid Costco receipt at the door, when you have just gone through the checker and paid? Bad, very bad! They should use those two extra people as extra help checking people out, to reduce the vexing lines. Still I go there, now and then. But I hate that place. They treat their customers like cattle. Ha, end of rant. The good thing was, I chose to exercise my freedom and drove right past them. I ended up at another store I'd never been to before, and had fun looking around, finding my first two Christmas presents. One quite unexpected for someone I wasn't planning to actually buy something for... Yes, it's great to get started!! Sometimes, it's really fun shopping for Christmas, if I can get in the mood! :-) Concert For NYC Oh man, I **love** it being the last day before Thanksgiving!!! Short day for me. This morning, I watched more of the Concert For NYC, which I taped and am watching pieces of now and then. I'm up to just after Eric Clapton's two song performance, (or were the Backstreet Boys after him?).. Clapton was the musical highlight so far. Jagger, McCartney and the others will come later. The two NYC films shown so far have been quite good. Lots of flavor of the place. The worst part of the whole thing so far has been the "humour." Well, some of it was pretty good. But a couple guys were really off-colour, and not in the least funny. With all kinds of kids there, what were they thinking? Stupid. The worst one so far, was followed by a family with three young children on stage. Very, very poor taste, and it detracted a lot from the occasion. I really don't care to know about the comedian's description of the state of his private parts. Damm, I love to laugh, but that was lousy. On the bright side, presenter Christy Turlington looked really good. Harrison Ford was bumbley, but it was good to see him there. Oregon Rant Sometimes I'm embarrassed to live in Oregon! Well, actually, I love it. It's very green most of the time. The hippies and former hippies lend a lot of spice here, and contribute a lot to the culture, especially musically. I've often thought the hippie-ness of this area really helped make it a good place for reggae, back when I used to chase those records. The hippie types would sell their obscure LPs, and I'd buy them... Ahhh, the good old days!! But, sometimes, Oregon just makes the news for the stupidest things. Now it's, "we have a right to kill ourselves, dammit, and no federal government is going to tell us otherwise!" Sheesh. What an issue to be known by. "We are Oregon, and we encourage our citizens to kill themselves." Ak! Well I don't and I hate that "they" do. Suicide is not a good thing. Hey, I can rant on my blog!!! ;-) Actually, there are a lot of other stupid things which have come out of this state, but I'll spare you. I do love it here, all in all. Ok, well one more little thing, this a small quote from today's NY Times: "The Portland, Ore., police will not cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation..." Typical. Someone should fix this town! Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Promo Teaser  I like this promo teaser, from Star Wars - The Love Story, er, Episode II... On a related note, sort of, I can't believe I had a dream with her in it... She looks kind of scary here. Models I've been checking out some fashion models lately. No particular reason, just something to do. A *few* of them are nice looking, even though they're generally taller than the average woman. Now, tall women can be attractive, but that isn't a plus or anything. I think I should start a fashion design house. Only women, hmm, 5'5" and shorter would be my models. We'd show 'em! I can think of a lovely or three who I would love to have as my models too! Of course two of them are married, and I don't know if the other one would really want to do it either. They'd be great though!! Oh well, in the mean time, this young woman, who I haven't been able to detect the name of, but who modelled for the UK designer Tracy Boyd, is one of my favourites... Reason To Live A little followup from this morning... After my sub-3:00AM get up, my day went fine! Much better than I ever expected. Hehee, in fact I got some little accolades, just doing my job, wanting to get things done before the holiday weekend... I guess that's one reason to live, to find out what's going to happen. Sometimes, it turns out a lot better than you could ever expect!  Nix Meetings One thing I like about my boss... I think he likes section meetings about as much as I do. ;-) We have them scheduled regularly, just that we don't actually conduct them very often. Something else, he's cool about approving my vacation requests without hassling me. Hmm, now if they would just institute paid long term sabbaticals. I must be in line for one of about a year's duration. Tippy I woke up some time before 3:00AM this morning, three plus hours too early. I was wondering how this might effect me today. I got to my desk, filled my cold pop cup with ice, then knocked it over! So, I gathered up my ice, then somehow knocked over my pen and pencil holder, splat! That was at least kind of interesting. I found from there: -4 rulers; 1 black, 1 white, 1 orange, 1 brushed metal -8 pencils, mechanical and wooden, 3 black, 2 blue, 1 red, 1 purple, and one green. I used to have a white lead pencil, but eventually I took it out. It was amusing, but completely useless. -15 pens, including highlighters, fat tips, and various colours My next thought... I hate dealing with stupid people, especially when they don't really know they're stupid. Honestly, the ones who do know they're not very bright can be very charming. I don't mind them a bit.... Stupid, slightly aggressive, and clueless as to their condition.. *Those* types drive me crazy!!! Not to be confused with really sharp, charming people - that's different. Just that dumb people can be charming too. But stupid people who don't realize they're dull brained are almost never charming. Sunday, November 18, 2001
338! Well, we did pretty well for the city.. It was quiet when we first arrived over at Gabriel Park, for the �meteor storm.� It didn't seem like anyone else was going to come to the big park this time.. "Maybe it's too cold for most people?" In 2.5 hours, we counted 338 shooting stars! Ha, we blasted my personal record of 100 and something out of the water! :-) It was really cool. Quite a few big, impressive ones, and lots of smaller ones. We got there before 1:00AM, and most of the other people seemed to show up closer to 2:00AM, some with dogs. I think we were about the only ones with blankets and sleeping bags to lay on, which is the way to do it. Some little girl came sort of near, and asked her parents, kind of worried like, �What is it?!� Meaning us, laying there, on one of the grassy hills. Then, their dog came over to walk on us a little! Luckily it was a nice dog. It didn�t do anything ruder than that. Thank God it didn�t lick my face. Yes, 338 shooting stars! It was breezy and freezing, but hey! It's Happening!! This time, there really are shooting stars!! It's still about an hour and a half before the peak, but I went out to take a peak anyway.. Wow! This is pretty much in the middle of the city, but in 3 or 4 minutes, I saw 3 really good ones, and the final one was spectacular!! Yes!! Man, it's about 40 below out there though. Cold and windy! Nice and clear though!! Go outside! Wow... |
