@Wudan07

So on Saturday, around noonish, an army of good friends descended upon what used to be a dated basement room, which until about a month ago or so was just storage for Sukie’s excess fish junk. She has been working up to this remodel, first by reorganizing the garage, then by moving all her fish junk to the garage (which she then sold at huge losses), and then we ripped the room down to the studs, which was laborious, involved a trip to the dump to dispose of the waste, and finally we did some wiring and drywall hanging (last weekend)

So this weekend was *more* drywall hanging madness, window replacing, vent-box-cover-building, furring strip hanging, in a 12+ hour blitz that wouldn’t have happened at all without the help of really great friends. Oh yeah, we also replaced a basement window, which is just about the craziest thing I have EVER replaced in a house (well, the guts of the water heater was a pretty insane job, too.) Oh, and at like 1am I also got wireless working on Striker’s laptop.

I have been dreading a lot of the stuff that we got done yesterday, as I dread many things that seem beyond my capability or understanding. I’m not a handy guy, damnit. Take furring strips – I’d just write some code to handle it:

for xpos < ceiling_width: tack_strip(xpos) xpos += 16

But actually fastening a board to the ceiling is an insane task, hammering through a 2x2 and then in to a joist, potentially through a knot in the wood (note: breed trees without knots), is just asking for issues. Did I mention we got the kind of nails that have a friction-activated glue on them, so when you are driving one in you can't stop half-ways? We did get it and now everything from here on in gets attached with screws - well, except for the closet overhang thing.

We're still at <$1000 for the project, however, having just bought wood, drywall, screws, nails, a window, and the flooring (and Sukie bought mud and tape and stuff yesterday), so the room coming together like it has is starting to have it's benefits, chiefly being the sense of accomplishment, and knowing that it's shaping up to be a great room that the family can utilize for it's PC and study needs. I even ran power to the 'closet' because that's where I'll stick the router and wireless gateway. CRAZY, right? It won't just be in a pile next to my PC? It really wouldn't be happening so quickly without great friends, and my beautiful wife of over 10 years.

My Love is from a run down part of town where the kids may not be nice to each other, the parents might be too busy working but if you really understood the thing that is human survival you would understand the thing that is everything here, among the broken down, happy but not rich denizens of this sprawling concrete pile, is Love. In a sad, cosmically and comically unpleasant sort of buzzing in the back of ones head, these people might not quite see that it is all Love, but will all be touched by it, by the pure fact that after you have boiled down our relation to one another from anything else, Love is what these people have to live with, eat with, breathe with.

My Love might not get you flowers, or write you letters, but will think of you always and fondly recall the way you do these things for me. My Love appreciates your Love.

My Love is tougher than steel-plated-toughness and is known to withstand nuclear blasts. After the fools of man have had their way with this planet, this people, and the Love of a dying world, the survivors will be; cockroaches, Twinkies, and My Love.

My Love sees the miracles in life, sees the world as a child sees it, and seeks out Pure Joy wherever it might be lurking. They were roommates at university, so things can get a little crazy when they’re together.

My Love is always sad to see you go; always happy to be with you.

My Love doesn’t need, doesn’t want, doesn’t understand, and can’t be told no. It doesn’t ask to be felt, it simply pervades like street lamp light. It is not the bulb, not the pole, it is the thing that you are seeing when you are seeing but contains none of the properties of the thing you observe and encompasses all of them with a soft, lulling glow. I just hope it’s not one of those god-awful orange street lights. Some times it might be, and I guess that’s okay because it is better to see than not to see; better to Love than not Love, and even when the light is off the Love would still be there – maybe scared but maybe not? I’ve been in the dark before and the Love felt fine to me so I guess it really isn’t scared at all, but like an observed particle the acknowledgment, salutation, and ‘how do you do?’ of Love will only happen to result in a measurement unpredictable and most certainly not the same as an unmeasured unobserved un-intruded upon particle and I am certain that I have not yet found a method of observation that did not yield an unpredictable result which leads me to believe that there is magic in this world because after all the years of scientific progress a quantifiable entity such as the thing that I am can not begin to quantify the nothing that is everything to me; Love.

My Love hopes you don’t mind that I wrote this at 5am.

So on Saturday Sukie, the Boy, and myself headed down to Sandy for a birthday party. We ate awesome pulled pork sandwiches and watched Kung Fu Panda, the latter of which was projected on to the side of a bouncy castle.

So while I was sitting there with Lucas, we observed our friend’s son (4 or 5 years old) watching over his new, two-week old sister, talking to her and trying to soothe her.

I told him what a good job he was doing and then asked Lucas if he’s going to be a good brother when Sukie and I have another one. His response is proof that I have raised a cold, calculating supervillain:

“Are you going to be a good older brother?”

“It depends”

“Depends on what?”

“Certain factors.”

“Like what?”

“I choose not to reveal them at this time.”

He was being 100% deadpan serious, no grins. I love that kid.

Last weekend Sukie and I fixed up the garage. And now she’s sorting out her fish treasures for a yard sale, out here in the garage. If you’re a fish nerd, I suggest you stop by and check it out. She has tanks, lights, timers, all kinds of stuff. You could actually probably have a whole set up for under 20 bucks.

Anyway, she had me bring her laptop out here and wanted to know if the wireless would reach out here. It does.

One thing that’s been on my mind today (cause I read it today) is Dracula and Wolfman’s Used Games Emporium. You can read the news of the day for the story behind the name, but it’s a name Gabe just tossed out when asked for a name. It just strikes me as one of those casually brilliant things, and I respect it for the hard work that went in to it. I definitely want Penny Arcade to produce a T-Shirt for said business, which I would definitely buy.

I’m sad that Moab is over and there won’t be any more adventures for like 2 months.

I guess I’ll just go wait in the car. With the windows up.

(No, I won’t, Sukie did relay the message that Shinobi is playing video games tonight. I hope his support crew is keeping him refreshed!)

Well, there you go, blogged from the garage.

Before we’d gone to Raft for the Cure, Sukie’d already planned for a second trip to Moab, on the 4th of July weekend. As I’d mentioned in my last post, it could have been rained out, but Sukie and Guildy made it happen anyway. I’ll spoil it and say that it only rained on the 4th of July, only for a little bit, and we were able to get a fire going anyway, during the worst of it.

We left on Thursday night, but got to Moab before sundown. We were energized by the return trip, played some Fill or Bust until way late, which Sam prevented Lucas from winning, but we never finished the game anyway. There were more ‘Vengeance 2500’ cards played in that game than I’ve ever seen before. Almost everyone got Vengeanced, some people got hit twice by it’s mighty score destroying powers.

Friday morning, and I’d love to have pictures to prove it, we hiked to Delicate Arch. The boy, who is in no way an experienced hiker, kept zipping out ahead of everyone, then getting exhausted, and then resting too much. He did get in to a rhythm eventually, but it wasn’t until we were almost to the arch. Just before the arch, there’s a little arch you can climb up to (go go gadget calves!) and I made the initial trek with Shinobi, I brought a camera and I was fiddling with it while there was a couple resting in the shade nearby, and I was there for like 45 seconds before I looked up and saw the Delicate Arch for the first time ever. I was shocked, I said, “Wait, that’s it, right?” to which the couple behind me laughed, and confirmed the arch. Hell, I’d never seen it before. The damn license plates do it no justice. There’s something to be said about the scale around the arch, even the crows are bigger than elsewhere, the rocks seem really big, and the arch itself might as well be a skyscraper. It made me feel small, really small, so I was intimidated by it. The thin ribbon of rock you could traverse to get to the arch was actually at least two car lanes across, but I didn’t make the trek out to it, Striker, Sukie, and the boy did. Did I mention how much more energy the boy had when we got to the arch? He and Striker hiked out together, well ahead of the rest of the group.

I don’t remember if that was the day we started to play Bohnanza, but whenever it was, Guildy just dominated at that game. Because the game involves cunning and trading, I can’t win. I will always, without fail, give a friend the upper hand in a trade, unless it is very clear to me that doing so will lose the game for me. Because we don’t count coins until the end, I never know how close I am to utter defeat. Oh well, I had fun anyway, and even tied for second once. Though, usually I just suck at it.

We went hiking at Arches on the 4th of July, also, and did the first couple of Arches on the Devil’s Garden hike. It was fun, but none of them topped Delicate Arch. The boy became a Junior Ranger. We were pretty spent then as well. We hiked across Moab itself to get to the 4th of July festivities, which were not as much fun as the Caliente 4th of July party (mostly because it was just a bunch of booths, and there just wasn’t much else to it.) The fireworks we watched from the High School bleachers behind the campsite, which was pretty cool, about the right length for a fireworks show, but the sound of the explosions reverberating throughout the valley was just awesome.

We were all pretty burnt out on being in Moab at about the time the fireworks ended and there was some debate of just getting out of Dodge that night, we all decided there was no reason not to get a little rest beforehand.

All in all, I’d love to go back to Moab again, for a night hike at Delicate Arch. There’s something unpleasant, however, about being at such a beautiful place and then leaving.

I should also say that we brought in our own food, and that on the first day, after returning from Delicate Arch, we found a pile of raisins and a shredded up bag of trail mix. Apparently a squirrel had clawed his way in to our screened-in porch and got picky with the trail mix, which was Striker’s. I didn’t realize it was his until after I’d made several jokes about how our nuts got owned, but really it was Striker’s nuts that were owned. I wish I could tell you that I lightened up after learning of the nut’s origins, but I am a small and petty man, and Striker often is the benefactor of my poorer nature.

Ah well, I hated to wait so long after the trip to blog, but I really wanted to see my photos from the trip (which we left in Guildy’s bag) first. I’ll blog, photos later.

Last year Sukie referred Guildy and Shinobi to an event in Moab, Utah, called Raft for the Cure, a rafting and eating expedition where half of the proceeds benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure Salt Lake City.

Well, they went, and had ridiculous amounts of fun. Which made us ridiculously sad that we were not able to go 🙁 But we all have times in our lives where other things need the funds, and so the funds go to other things.

This year, we went, we saw, and we had a blast.

By blast, I mean, I would definitely go again! The rapids were not as rapid as the ones I went through on the Snake river up north in Idaho, but I was excited to go down the Colorado, spend some outside time with friends, and remember how much the sun hates me.

Wear sunscreen. Also, remember that sunscreen is going to be washed off when you jump in to the friggin river. I just couldn’t resist.

However, maybe I should have waited until after I’d lost 40 pounds. Except that probably wouldn’t have happened while on the boat, so I went for it anyway. The details of getting back in the boat for a 230 pound man are a subject of extreme hilarity. Like 2 people pulling and 1 person pushing. I very much blame my poor fitting life-jacket, which, though i could adequately tighten it around my large belly, also expected me to have rather large man-boobs to go with it, which sadly, I am not there … yet.

So I get on the boat and I’m just tired because it took a lot of effort to get in, and so Shinobi goes to pull his wife in and of course he must have just ratched up all the Ninja strength he has because she is lifted out of the water so easily that they both just topple over and there’s now three people floppin around in an unsteady boat and it’s just comical.

So I’m totally motivated to lose the poundage now, with a new target of 185-195 pounds. I don’t like to be tied to a number, but it’s gotta be lower than what I am now. Sheesh. So we got pulled pork sandwiches for dinner (though I could have eaten a lot more of those tasty burgers we had for lunch) and listened to three musical acts. The first was a girl whose music sounded a lot like Alanis Morisette or Jewel but wasn’t quite there and involved a lot of girlish self-doubt lyrics and being upset and you get the picture. Chicks, man. The next two acts were incrementally better, High Water and then a bluegrass band who absolutely rocked, but we just couldn’t stay for the 10 minute video at the end because we were wiped out. I slept the whole night in the tent on the mattress, I woke up a couple of times (twice, I looked over and the boy was sitting straight up. The second time I noticed that he was off the mattress and clearly not awake enough to realize that the reason he was sitting up was to get back on the mattress.)

So on the day we were leaving (yes, this blog is very non-linear) Sukie tells me that Guildy doesn’t want to go back to Moab next weekend (for the 4th!) because it will be raining. As I’ve recently been through a rainy camping trip I can tell you, this is brutal, and I was getting sold on the idea. So with me and Guildy in the ‘not going to Moab on the 4th of July’ group I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be going. However, half an hour before Sukie and I arrived in Moab (Guildy, Shinobi, and Guildy’s coworkers J and R arrived two hours before us), Guildy and Sukie talked and Guildy said ‘now that I’m here we’re totally coming back next weekend’ (that was to me from Sukie so it may not be 100% correct.) So now I was on the outs, but I’m good with that. One man against one woman is already an uphill battle, but you can’t win against two of thems.

Favorite moment:
“Ally’s boat is ready”
me to Shinbi: “but what about Ally’s sister’s boat”
“come back Ally’s boat! come back Ally’s Sister’s boat!”
*high fives*

eh, it was funny when we were standing around on a dock, waiting to leave. Our guide, Leland, had us ready to rock and roll well before any of the other boats but because of the order the boats were tied up we had to wait a long time while other people got to go. Lameness!

At Deseret Industries a few weeks ago I found an NES control deck and two of the classic NES controllers featured on my wallet for about 14 bucks total (NES:$8 Controller:$3/ea) so of course I snapped it up even though it had the wrong wall wart (13AC instead of 9AC) and God only knows the condition inside.

A few days later I bought the repair parts at nintendorepairshop.com – the part that was the magic bullet was the 72 pin connector at the back of the NES where the cartridge meets the road (so to speak). We’d tried the NES before at Frik’s house and it was flashy red lights. Red lights might mean bad to you but it means a lot of the system actually is working. I am not good with component repair (i.e., would be at a loss if I had to break out a soldering iron, though I can spot a popped capacitor, thanks to Dell for a bad string of PCs) so it was a boon to this process to know that the brains of the operation was fine, but that it was failing to read the cartridges.

When I got my fixin’ parts I busted open the NES to find that it is in deed a very very clean system. I blew it out with a can of air anyway, though. It may have only been in service for a while, and put away to rot in a far away bin, safe from dust bunnies. Or, probably just as likely, someone else has attempted repair of this NES before.

So I dropped in the new parts, put it all back together and fired up The Legend of Zelda. A few points of note, after playing a few games. Most emulators are just garbage – my favorite one actually runs too fast. My fancy Logitech controller does shit for D-Pad controls, when compared to my NES controllers (which I have yet to open up and clean out.) What is neatest about owning the actual cartridges is now I have the right to own ROM versions of those games!

Did you know the NES has it’s own protection against pirated games and whatnot? It needs to communicate to a chip in the cartridge or else you get blinky reds (the system fails to read it and resets itself.) I would bet that’s the deal with our copy of ‘Yo Noid’, because once when booting it I actually got a little music and saw a title.

Anyway, at my surprising party I got several NES games and I got the games my brother couldn’t sell (because they were non-working at the store) when he sold the NES. All of them work ‘cept for old Noid. I’m getting a bit to open up the cartridges and really clean them up soon.

Of course, now Sukie has discovered the Virtual Console on our Wii, so my NES collecting days are numbered. I will have to build a suitable display for my cartridges 🙂

You guys got me good.

I suspected a surprise party on Wednesday. However, several friends conspired to squash that idea from my head. Instead, we decided to go to the movies as a family.

There were so many things that stand out now, knowing how it all turned up. As we went to the movies, Sukie said she had invited some friends of ours, but that they couldn’t make it. This should have been a dead giveaway but I was so lost in my own world that I did not process it until after the fact. If she had in deed been dead set on not hanging out with anyone, why would she invite friends?

The night before we baby-sat for some other friends of ours – and then hung out, playing Ticket to Ride afterwards – I should have seen it coming.

Most telling, I should have listened to my gut, telling me something was up, early on.

So, after ‘Up’ when I got home and smelled smoke in the house (but not outside, necessarily) I was freaking out a little bit, thinking there was an electrical fire. I went and checked the fish tank immediately, but it was not there. Then I went around to the top of the stairs and Sukie said the dog had gotten out, which was puzzling since we have a solid door and walls holding the dog in. She’s old but resourceful, so I ran down. I was going to stop short in the door to the family room and had my hand up in a pointing gesture to say something about how it didn’t smell like the dog did something bad, but instead the lights went up and I saw more people than have ever been in my basement.

Oh, I am loved.

Well, that, and people love a good surprise. So I was dumbfounded, barely processing anything that was said, I know Guildy was talking to me and Shinobi was there and beyond that it is all just a big blur of people. Lucas walked by and said something, and I was just like … whoa. People filed out of the basement all saying something to me, probably mostly ‘Happy Birthdays’ but even today, days later, I am in total shock.

The party was awesome, with Bouncy Castles and presents and rad cakes and I don’t recall the last time I’ve had such a good day.

More on the Nintendo and yesterday’s activities later.

Saturday’s Ticket-Europe score. Same basic win as last time, lots of routes, one station, none of the 6 or 8 routes, just good old railin through Europe. One thing I’m particularly proud of is I clashed with another player and burnt up turns just making them ‘go around’ my routes.

Because you’re only allowed to do one thing on each turn in Ticket to Ride, I call this an ‘Economy of Turns’, each turn needs to be spent doing something that puts you on a direct path to making a route and winning the game. That seems simple, but before I realized this, my games consisted of a lot of card drawing and waiting – we all did it. The first time I consciously made an effort to spend the fewest turns to win, I destroyed my opponents by at least 60 points each. That was the only time the strategy worked that well – from then on it has been a driving force behind each game, and they all are done in about 45 minutes. By spending fewer turns building up cards and building routes, thereby using my trains faster (which are the truly limited resource of the game – 45 in Europe, 40 in Switzerland) the game reaches it’s conclusion faster. If you are lucky enough to outpace your opponents, they may have incomplete routes, and curse your name at night.

So, that was a blast. The other thing that was a blast is that when y’all went and left town to go to wedding receptions, my readership dropped sharply! But I’m glad you’re all back and I’ll try to get back to regular posting.

This morning I’m going to a neighborhood garage sale. I’m looking forward to it, because I almost always find something awesome. I would like to get some kind of stereo or home theater receiver that takes RCA input, but for cheap. I’ve got a few good speakers (well, cheap, at least) that I’d like to rig up to a MAME box.

Speaking of, the boy and I went to an arcade yesterday just to look at the games, and … is it me, or are there no great games at arcades anymore? The technology in them looks just barely above N64 level. Well, I guess it’s just a money pit anyway, but I fondly remember the days I’d walk to the Seven Eleven with my friend Miguel to play Street Fighter 2 and watch others play it. The arcade was much better than it was on SNES (which we didn’t have at my house until after we had an N64 – which is the source of some of my fondest memories of my teenage years, but that is a post for another day.) I was never particularly good at fighting games anyway, but it was always fun to test one’s mettle against some random stranger.