I'm pretty sure I've forgotten to take my antidepressant this morning, and this has been an unusually difficult week. I feel really messed up right now. My usual emergency support is a few hours away (and working), so that's no good. I think I need a little help in the form of some virtual comfort while the pill I've just taken gets traction over the next hour.

I think I really need to hear about some good days. Tell me about yours?

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Good days?

Went to an awesome performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (and Baltimore Choral Society) last Thursday, a subsequent (and much more expensive) performance of which got a rave review in the Washington Post, which hardly ever has positive reviews of anything.

Today's been pretty quiet, though I did accomplish something this morning that I'd allowed myself all week to do. So I'm not very stressed right at the moment.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

I just came back from my annual camping vacation, in which I meet a bunch of friends in the wilds of the Keweenaw Peninsula (that's the northernmost part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan). The place was the center of a copper boom in the 1800s, and there are a lot of leftover mining towns, tailings piles, and ruins from that era. If you find the right place -- tailings piles that are regularly used by quadbikers -- you can find copper nuggets lying on the ground. Use a metal detector to find bigger chunks.

I spent a week up there. I spent the first few days geocaching, and had probably 75% success. I wandered some ruins. I sat on the shore of Lake Superior and watched the sun set. I got a luscious (and huge) cupcake from the Jam Pot.

One of us owns 40-some acres of stamp sand (gravel left over from the stamping process, in which large hammers pound the rock off of the metallic copper). The best things about stamp sand are (a) nothing grows in it, and (b) it doesn't burn. So it's a great place to play with some maybe-not-quite-legal fireworks like homemade thermite, flash powder, and black powder. We made a thermite volcano and a magnesium bonfire. We launched a bowling ball (just one this year). Bowling balls are great. They make an eerie hooting noise as they come down. We blew up and burned several Barneys and Jar-Jar Binkses, to great cheering. We used LOX to make ice cream and makeshift hybrid rocket engines.

I had a great time, got sunburned on my arms and neck, and collected several bug bites. I checked out my own land (10 acres of cedar swamp). I talked with my friends and got some wonderful sunset photos.

And after driving home (10 hours striaght), taking the next day off, and the first full day at work, I'm feeling fine, despite the 90+ degree weather.

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

I think I may be getting past the worst of it. I'm still feeling a little zombified, but no longer like I'm in any danger of urgently needing someone to sit on me. Thanks guys. I really appreciate it.

I'd still like to hear about some good days, though, so please keep the sunshine coming.

Fred, that sounds like a blast (literally). That would have been neat to see from a safe distance. I'm curious, though. How did you come to own 10 acres of cedar swamp? (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Heh. )

Oh, and I forgot to mention: ToSeek, I would have loved to hear that performance. I've only rarely had the opportunity to watch symphonies at work. (Although I did have the opportunity to see Symphony Nova Scotia once, I think. Nowhere near enough in my mind.)

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Glad to hear you're feeling better, Moose.

The fellow who owns the stamp sands is an old friend, and when the land to the south of the sands went up for sale, he couldn't afford it all. So he talked 5-6 of us into buying 10-acre parcels at $1000/acre.

The land is mostly on a slope, north-facing, looking out toward Lake Superior. The hardwood was lumbered off some years ago, so it's mostly cedar and poplar. The soil is thin, and the bedrock is close to the surface. I probably won't build anything there (Keweenaw winters are fierce, and it's really remote).

Fred

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"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

I had one of those days that stick in your memory and make you appreciate the little things, just last Sunday.

My son loves playing basketball (can't imagine where he gets that from! ) and his team played their final game of the Under 12's representative season against the top ranked side. My son's team had failed to make the finals, so the game was relatively meaningless to them. Making things worse is that the team was decimated by flu and tonsillitis (including the team's leading scorer) so only 5 players could suit up - i.e. they would be playing the game without subs.

Despite that, the boys played their hearts out against a far better team. They never gave up, they never stopped running and by the final buzzer they had absolutely given their all. At the end of the game, despite having lost by 25 points, my son and his team-mates went up to the other team with their heads up, shook their hands and wished them well in the finals, before gathering in a circle to give the opposition three cheers.

Such a simple thing. Yet, the determination and courage they showed, the dignity and grace in defeat and the sportsmanship they displayed at the end, really had an impact on me. It reminded me that there can be such qualities to be found, even in the most mundane of events.

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

I got a call yesterday from one of the bidders on the NASA CEV (the next launch vehicle) asking me if I was interesting in working for them if they won the contract.

Nowhereman are you a MTU grad?

I was offered (and accepted) a job at the sixth grade center teaching the students how to use computers. I'll be helping them with projects like power point presentations, writing newsletters, creating spread sheets and data bases. I'll also be learnign how to troubleshoot and fix the new Apple computers. It is going to be a great year of learning...for me!

We went out to eat for my birthday at the Gristmill Restaurant on the beautiful Gaudalupe River in Historic Gruene, Texas. Take a picture tour and check out the rest of Gruene. We took a nice little walk around the area before heading home.

Quite a nice day.

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

Does finding out that you're not responsible for tripping a nulcear reactor a few hours prior to peak demand when power market prices were approaching insane levels thus causing your company to have to interrupt power to industries (that were contractually obligated to have their power cut on high demand days) and is now causing the company to initiate an emergency power curtailment program (e.g. no overhead lights, HVAC setpoints bumped up to just below sweltering, and other such measures) count?

Although the rumored fireball that shot out of the generator would have been a sight to behold.

Edit (hit submit before I was done with my thought and Baut hung on me):
One of my projects is nearing the end and is about to be issued. These are always happy days as there is a visible end to the drudgery and you can finally start feeling satisfaction that everything is complete and as near perfect as you can make it.

And then another recent happy day was when I qualified as fireman for the railroad museum I'm a member of. Now I'm solely responsible for maintaining a 100-ton, hand-fed, 200 psig boiler on wheels carrying coaches with a couple hundred passengers onboard.

The day I found out I was going to get to go on meds in the first place?

Actually, I've got a few good days coming up this month, as my big ren faire starts this weekend. Even when I'm under a lot of stress, the faire is a lot of fun. I'm just kind of disappointed that they don't play movies on the side of a tent anymore. I saw Ladyhawke and Sword in the Stone that way five years or so ago. As we were watching one, I got to talking to the person next to me about A Knight's Tale, which had just come out that year. I mentioned that I'd written a review of it in my college's school newspaper, and it turned out she'd read it. It was very cool.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

OOH, gives me goosebumps. I coach little girls basketball and can totally relate. Those are moments that can really add to character. You can't foresee them or make them up. They just happen and they are magic. Wonderful stuff.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

In the All-Things-Must-Pass-So-You-Might-As-Well-Do-It-In-Style category; said goodbye to a friend Monday evening. As he wished, no funeral, no formal service, no rules. Just a gathering of friends and family to celebrate the life of a gentlemen's gentle man.

It started quiet, somber and very emotional; and built thru the evening to loud, laughing and very emotional. It was the best send-off I've ever experienced.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Oh Tinaa ....Happy Birthday for yesterday!!

i was about to post....got side-tracked...and didn't get round to it, until got home, when it was too late....(can't post from home...looking into it)

sounds like a fun celebration..
....and Tinaa, best of luck with your IT teaching...


and Moose...dear friend, hope you are feeling better and have a really nice everyday

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clear skies

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. CARL SAGAN

Ya, shure, yu betcha.

Fred

__________________
"For shame, gentlemen, pack your evidence a little better against another time."
-- John Dryden, "The Vindication of The Duke of Guise" 1684

Hey Moose, how are doing this morning? I bet things are more comfortable in The Maritimes, then down here in the hot US. Just hanging out in BAUT always makes me happy, much better than the work I should be doing.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009

I'm feeling a lot better, Swift. The morning has gone reasonably smoothly. And I definitely remembered to take my "happy pill" this morning.

Things are going to be quiet for the next few days at work (which is somewhat of a relief right now, let me tell you), and I've got an extra long weekend coming up. (Plus, I get to have my goddaughter over the week afterwards. She's such a sweetie, and even at 9 months, she loves playing with console controllers. A proto-gamer! My kind of kid. )

What's going to be even better is next week when I get my breathing device for sleep apnea which is apparently the physiological component of how bad I've been feeling over the past couple of years. The sleep study showed my airway collapses an average of 70 times an hour, preventing me from getting any sort of deep recuperative sleep. It'll be good to get some real rest for a change, even though I'm going to look and sound like Moose Vader while sleeping.

__________________
In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

\deep voice\
USE THE ANTLERS MOOSE

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009