It's been so long since I've written a substantive post here that if we've only been keeping in touch via this blog, there's no way to really catch up. The list of people this applies to is woefully long: friends, relatives, there are many folks whom I've been negligent in keeping in touch. Of course, those folks also know that this is nothing new, that I've a pattern of falling off the map with tide-like regularity.
Also, I have a half-hour, well 25 minutes now actually, before the Dark Mistress comes home and we go out to eat. We're celebrating the passing of my winter break. In the next, uh, 23 minutes, I hope to sum up what I've been up to lately.
As my previous post alluded to, I sent in all the needed materials for my MFA applications on December 8th, the deadline I'd set for myself. Ahh! I just spilled corn husker's lotion all over myself! 21 minutes!
On the beginning of my last day of work December 18th actually, I decided to pop into the English building, having seen my Professor's car in the lot. He happened to be in, and I learned that he and his wife suffered a horrible personal loss, which is why he was so hard to get a hold of this semester.
Over the course of the nest few weeks I'd get various notices from schools that they hadn't received the letters of recommendation from my professors. As of last week, I've sent 5 or 6 emails out to them (the professors), and I'm done. They're adults, they're professionals, and if emailing them doesn't work, what else can I do? It's break, so it's not like I can track them down in their offices.
After work ended, I hung up my hat for some serious and long needed decompression. It actually began with a bit of depression. Applying to MFA programs had been my sole purpose since the summer. It was incredibly stressful, but it also shut up that little voice in the back of my head that always says things like "what you're doing isn't important", "how is this bettering yourself in any way?", "you're going to end up a boring nobody that no-one cares about unless you get off the couch". (Those voices, by the way, are counter-productive)
Shit! 11 Minutes.
Well, anyway, I got through the slump by working on a craft project and ended up coming to a sense of calm and accomplishment. One of my biggest sources of anxiety in my post-college life was how hard it is to find the time to do the things that are important to me, the things that make me feel like I am doing something important. Well, for one, applying to MFA programs involved a lot of research, reading, and writing. I had to do it while also helping the Dark Mistress move in, cooking, and cleaning (though not as much as I suppose I should), and working. My life wasn't in a good balance necessarily, but I managed to find the time to do it. And it was much, much harder than doing those things I like to do, like writing.
Second, I came to appreciate how much I really do love writing and why. I won't go into it here, but it feels like the past several years of my life have I slowly worked towards realizing that I'm happiest with life, and myself, when I'm being creative. When I'm trying to make something beautiful or striking or at least fun. It's something that seems pretty obvious to my friends, I don't know why it took me so long to figure out.
Lets see, 6 minutes. Other highlights from break:
The house is driving the Mistress and I nuts. It's so cluttered. We've simply run out of room to put things, and that means there's a lot still unpacked. We've made some great progress though. The living room is slowly becoming a nice place to be, and just today I cleaned up the Middle bedroom, which was a re-god-dammed-diculous disaster, rivaled only by those people with mental illnesses who can't manage to throw anything away.
The Mistress and I watched The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Into the Wild, and finished the series Six Feet Under, the finale of which had us both sobbing for what felt like a half hour. Assholes. I cut up my first whole chicken to make a crock pot recipe that was basically chicken, spices, zucchini, and broth. (It was delicious).
AHH! I'm out of time! We had an awesome new years, I played many video games, drank a fair amount of liquor, saw old friends, and ate out perhaps a little too much, but hey, it was winter break, man.
Maybe there'll be a part II tomorrow, maybe not.
Showing posts with label The House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The House. Show all posts
Monday, January 12, 2009
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Oh, and By the Way
The Mistress moved in about, oh, two weeks ago. She brings with her Katia, age 18
and Nova, age 10
And this, here, is the door we to put up to keep them all separated after Nova got a piece of Starbuck's nose.
They're both okay, but we're clearly going to have to do this the hard way.
and Nova, age 10
And this, here, is the door we to put up to keep them all separated after Nova got a piece of Starbuck's nose.
They're both okay, but we're clearly going to have to do this the hard way.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Fall
It's nights again. 2-11 again. It's only been a week, but it already feels as if it's been a year. I haven't had time to read. I haven't had time to search for schools. I've been focusing only on getting various parts of the house in practical functioning. There is more than too much to do at work, and I feel overwhelmed. It's all I can do not to let thoughts of unfinished business creep into my home time. Especially at night, as I try to sleep. Or first thing in the morning, when I want to plan my day.
Even at home there's no peace, and I suspect there will be little for some time, as every task feels immediate, urgent, and just barely manageable. I feel tired, run down, and it's the first week of the semester. The only thing worse than the chaos is knowing it's not going to end for a long time.
What I miss most though is coming home from work, popping open a Corona, and cooking. I think it was the best part of summer. Cooking dinner foods first thing in the morning somehow lacks appeal, and I haven't sunk low enough to start drinking at 10am.
Even at home there's no peace, and I suspect there will be little for some time, as every task feels immediate, urgent, and just barely manageable. I feel tired, run down, and it's the first week of the semester. The only thing worse than the chaos is knowing it's not going to end for a long time.
What I miss most though is coming home from work, popping open a Corona, and cooking. I think it was the best part of summer. Cooking dinner foods first thing in the morning somehow lacks appeal, and I haven't sunk low enough to start drinking at 10am.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
I Quit My Job and I'm Moving
Kind of, and not really.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday we had a staff retreat, and it was there that I realized I had get out, that I didn't want to be there any longer, and that I had to tell my supervisor. I really wasn't looking forward to it. I know how crazy work was before they filled my position, and I hated the thought of leaving her in that spot again. I ended up finally breaking the news Thursday, telling her that I want to go to school again, and that I intend to send out applications so that I can start in the fall.
I expected her to be understanding but disappointed. As I said the words, I watched her face for that initial reaction, any momentary frown, but none came. She was excited, and wanted to hear all about my plans. Though she said she's not happy about losing me, she's glad I found a direction I want to take that I'm passionate about. She also said she's thrilled I'd given her 10 months, not two weeks, to prepare a search.
I am thrilled to have finally told her. It's not only a relief, but it's nice to have finally committed to this direction in such a big way.
As far as moving goes, Dark Mistress Hawthorn and her room mate have lived in their apartment for over a year now, and though we'd talked about moving in together at some point, they'd agreed to stay there for another year and I thought that was that. Until two weekends ago, that is. Her room mate let her know she's moving back home in mid September, and as they're on a month to month lease, DMH would either need a new room mate or to leave come October. The rent is just too much to go solo. So, we're about to become roomies.
The question is where. We gave ourselves a week to figure out if I was going to move in with her of if she would move in with me. There are pros and cons to numerous to list, but the major factors ended up being money and convenience. It'll be $200 cheaper to live here, but there's also so much to do. For the first time in my life I realized that I've been living like a bachelor. This is no place to be comfortable. This is a place to drink beer, eat burritos, and watch Futurama re-runs. Plus, still no bathroom.
So of course we're going to stay here for the money. I'm not looking forward to more towel showering, but then again, there's way worse ways to live.
Last Tuesday and Wednesday we had a staff retreat, and it was there that I realized I had get out, that I didn't want to be there any longer, and that I had to tell my supervisor. I really wasn't looking forward to it. I know how crazy work was before they filled my position, and I hated the thought of leaving her in that spot again. I ended up finally breaking the news Thursday, telling her that I want to go to school again, and that I intend to send out applications so that I can start in the fall.
I expected her to be understanding but disappointed. As I said the words, I watched her face for that initial reaction, any momentary frown, but none came. She was excited, and wanted to hear all about my plans. Though she said she's not happy about losing me, she's glad I found a direction I want to take that I'm passionate about. She also said she's thrilled I'd given her 10 months, not two weeks, to prepare a search.
I am thrilled to have finally told her. It's not only a relief, but it's nice to have finally committed to this direction in such a big way.
As far as moving goes, Dark Mistress Hawthorn and her room mate have lived in their apartment for over a year now, and though we'd talked about moving in together at some point, they'd agreed to stay there for another year and I thought that was that. Until two weekends ago, that is. Her room mate let her know she's moving back home in mid September, and as they're on a month to month lease, DMH would either need a new room mate or to leave come October. The rent is just too much to go solo. So, we're about to become roomies.
The question is where. We gave ourselves a week to figure out if I was going to move in with her of if she would move in with me. There are pros and cons to numerous to list, but the major factors ended up being money and convenience. It'll be $200 cheaper to live here, but there's also so much to do. For the first time in my life I realized that I've been living like a bachelor. This is no place to be comfortable. This is a place to drink beer, eat burritos, and watch Futurama re-runs. Plus, still no bathroom.
So of course we're going to stay here for the money. I'm not looking forward to more towel showering, but then again, there's way worse ways to live.
Friday, July 18, 2008
How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation
I think I have a serious problem, for only a troubled soul could turn five weeks off of work into something to stress about. I'm currently rounding out week three of five, and I've come to terms with my vacation time. I enjoyed my winter month off well enough, and last summer, this time, I found myself very busy. I visited my fabulous aunt Laurie, and spent time with my wonderful aunt, uncle, and cousins out in Illinois. I'm sad I couldn't make it again this year, but alas, the monies.
My problem, heading into these off periods, is I always set some lofty goals for myself which I somehow never manage to achieve. This July, my goal was to submit some poems out for publication, prepare for and take the GREs, and to finish the Mistress's theremin. Well, I'm registered to take the GREs in a couple of weeks, and I should be ready to send some work out soon. The theremin, slowly but surely, is coming along. However, I haven't spent as much time as I'd like writing, looking up information on schools, and preparing a critical writing sample, as I've been effectively sidetracked by computers not working.
I could go into a long drawn out story of all the things I've tried to get my computer working, but I won't, because really, who cares.
R.E.M. was amazing
Still no shower in my house
My garden is still growing
Really, I don't know what else to say. Anymore, I only spend time on the internet to hunt for answers to computer questions I have. I haven't kept up on people's blogs, of really, with people in general. Anyhow, you'll probably hear from me again after I'm back to work.
My problem, heading into these off periods, is I always set some lofty goals for myself which I somehow never manage to achieve. This July, my goal was to submit some poems out for publication, prepare for and take the GREs, and to finish the Mistress's theremin. Well, I'm registered to take the GREs in a couple of weeks, and I should be ready to send some work out soon. The theremin, slowly but surely, is coming along. However, I haven't spent as much time as I'd like writing, looking up information on schools, and preparing a critical writing sample, as I've been effectively sidetracked by computers not working.
I could go into a long drawn out story of all the things I've tried to get my computer working, but I won't, because really, who cares.
R.E.M. was amazing
Still no shower in my house
My garden is still growing
Really, I don't know what else to say. Anymore, I only spend time on the internet to hunt for answers to computer questions I have. I haven't kept up on people's blogs, of really, with people in general. Anyhow, you'll probably hear from me again after I'm back to work.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Excitement
Though Excitement is the title of this post, I have to say, I feel pretty even keel at the moment, though I have several reasons to be excited:
I'm gonna make 'em so tight
I'm making my burritos tonight
One bite will make your life alright
Take my hand! I'm going to show you
Burrito land, where the winds will blow you
through the sands, over the hills
wear your head band, the sweat will chill you
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Hot burrito fits like a glove
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Just one bite and you'll join the club!
I'm making my burritos tonight
I'm gonna make 'em oh so tight
I'm making my love-ritos tonight
Just take a bite and it'll set you right
Take my hand! I'm gonna show you
Burrito land, where the kings will know you
and the bands will blow out for you
Take my hand, take my hand!
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Hot burrito tastes like God's love
Hot burrito, hot hot spice
Take a bite and you'll be in the vice, yeah!
Take a bite and you will feel so nice, yeah!
Take a bite and you'll be seeing Christ, yeah!
Take a bite it's made with parboiled...
...riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
- My car is now legal to drive. All it cost was over nine hundred dollars and a lot of time.
- I have a toilet that flushes now, a bathroom window that opens, and a bathroom light that turns on. Tell the neighbors, ma!
- In two days, I will see my favorite band live for the first time.
- I just wrote a song about what I plan to make for dinner. It took about three minutes. I imagine it as a B-52's tune:
I'm gonna make 'em so tight
I'm making my burritos tonight
One bite will make your life alright
Take my hand! I'm going to show you
Burrito land, where the winds will blow you
through the sands, over the hills
wear your head band, the sweat will chill you
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Hot burrito fits like a glove
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Just one bite and you'll join the club!
I'm making my burritos tonight
I'm gonna make 'em oh so tight
I'm making my love-ritos tonight
Just take a bite and it'll set you right
Take my hand! I'm gonna show you
Burrito land, where the kings will know you
and the bands will blow out for you
Take my hand, take my hand!
Hot burrito, hot hot love
Hot burrito tastes like God's love
Hot burrito, hot hot spice
Take a bite and you'll be in the vice, yeah!
Take a bite and you will feel so nice, yeah!
Take a bite and you'll be seeing Christ, yeah!
Take a bite it's made with parboiled...
...riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
Hot burrito, hot hot love (x6)
Hot burrito, I think I love you.
Hot burrito, I think I love you.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
I'm Sleepy, So Blog Post Will Be the Title of this Blog Post
It's freaking hot out. I spent the weekend at D.M.H's place, which thankfully has air conditioning. Saturday I took my car in to Meineke for an emissions recheck. I'd driven 702 miles since my last visit two weeks ago, so I crossed my fingers hoping the computers had gathered enough data.
A couple hours later I got a call. It hadn't. It still read as unable to provide emissions data. I've got an appointment to take it into a Ford dealership on Wednesday, which will be a pain to work out. Plus, god knows how much this will cost.
The rest of Saturday after that was fun, as we threw a surprise party for the D.M.H.'s roommate. Lots of fun and food and drink.
Today I took a ride back home. No Slim Jim this weekend, so my bathroom's in the same condition. Last Monday he was on his way when his serpentine belt broke. I can only assume more car troubles, though I don't know cause he never got back to me. At least I got the yard mowed, and my plants seem to be doing well.
A couple hours later I got a call. It hadn't. It still read as unable to provide emissions data. I've got an appointment to take it into a Ford dealership on Wednesday, which will be a pain to work out. Plus, god knows how much this will cost.
The rest of Saturday after that was fun, as we threw a surprise party for the D.M.H.'s roommate. Lots of fun and food and drink.
Today I took a ride back home. No Slim Jim this weekend, so my bathroom's in the same condition. Last Monday he was on his way when his serpentine belt broke. I can only assume more car troubles, though I don't know cause he never got back to me. At least I got the yard mowed, and my plants seem to be doing well.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Digging in the Dirt
Monday I slept in my own bed for the first time in eleven days. The bathroom is an empty shell save for a toilet that drains, but does not flush. The rest of the house is a mix of supplies, tools, and my own displaced clutter. The only room left untouched is my bedroom, which feels like a sanctuary away from craziness. Yesterday I spent a couple hours replacing the dryer belt, which broke a week ago. If I thought it would have been difficult, I be surprised at how easy it was. Instead, I thought it would be easy, so of course it kicked my ass.
Last Friday the girlfriend and I took a trip to her home for the holiday weekend. It was nice to see her family again. Actually, it was more than nice. The Mistress showed me about the leavings of her past, and there's little I revere more than our personal childhood mythologies. She also continued in her lessons on how to shoot an SLR camera. Like, you know, a real film camera. I had a blast, and I can't wait to get the pictures back.
We got in late Monday night, and I had taken Tuesday off so I could get my car inspected at the place around the corner from D.M.H.'s house. I knew the tires were iffy, but I was hoping that they might pass and I would have a bit of time to shop around for a new set of skins. If they didn't, I figured it'd be a "hey, go buy some tire and bring it back to get your sticker." Instead I got "you failed on tires, and we couldn't get an emissions reading because the computer says there's not enough data. You'll have to drive the car around for a while until it resets. When you bring it back we'll have to re-inspect the car. That'll be $90."
I had my Monday all planned. I would drop the car off, then enjoy a quiet day to sit and write. A day with nothing going on and no one around. A day unlike any I've had in longer than I can remember. Instead, I figured I'd better try to get my car legal, so I ended up at Wal-Mart, where the cheapest tires were $70. For $75 they had some discounted performance tires, so I went with those. Two hours in Wal-Mart, then Three in the Meineke up the street to get an alignment and another inspection. At least inspection and emissions only ran you $50 there. At one point the guy working on my car came in with a concerned look, the kind you don't want your mechanic to have, and asked me if I just got my car inspected recently. I told him my story up to this point, and he said they should have explained to me that I have 30 days to come back and get my emissions re-checked free of charge. The first place didn't tell me this, even though I explained that I moved from a county where emissions checks aren't required, so I therefore didn't know how things worked. Assholes.
My choice at that point was to drive around and bring the car back on Saturday, hoping the computer gathered enough data, or keep driving it after the inspection ran out to give it more time. I chose for the latter, not wanting to waste any more money. I've never been pulled over, and I don't intend to start now. I'll see if I can get in this Saturday or Monday, and until then, cross my fingers. I will cross them also in the hope that my car's computer's got all the emissions data it needs, and that I don't need to take my car to Ford to have the computer diagnosed at a presumably high cost. Or, that my car fails emissions, which would also suck tons.
Somewhere in there my upstairs computer, the one do all my writing and audio stuff on, crashed. Could not find the operating system. This means hard drive difficulties. I've rescued my writing, but one hard drive is down permanently and the other still won't boot. Props go to my Linux booting iMac for being able to grab my writing from my crippled Linux hard drive, albeit at a turtle's pace.
I feel I've lost the past two weeks. It's exhausting, and I'm overwhelmed. On the exciting side, mom gave me some flowers, three pepper plants, and a tomato plant. I put them in the ground Monday, and it was kind of crazy. I didn't expect to have such a powerful experience, and I still don't understand it, but there was something about seeing all the critters, all the roots, the rusted bolts and pieces of glass hidden buried and forgotten half a foot below my yard that made me feel connected to this place in a way I haven't known. Every morning and afternoon on my way in and out I stop and check on my plants, more excited than I should be.
Last Friday the girlfriend and I took a trip to her home for the holiday weekend. It was nice to see her family again. Actually, it was more than nice. The Mistress showed me about the leavings of her past, and there's little I revere more than our personal childhood mythologies. She also continued in her lessons on how to shoot an SLR camera. Like, you know, a real film camera. I had a blast, and I can't wait to get the pictures back.
We got in late Monday night, and I had taken Tuesday off so I could get my car inspected at the place around the corner from D.M.H.'s house. I knew the tires were iffy, but I was hoping that they might pass and I would have a bit of time to shop around for a new set of skins. If they didn't, I figured it'd be a "hey, go buy some tire and bring it back to get your sticker." Instead I got "you failed on tires, and we couldn't get an emissions reading because the computer says there's not enough data. You'll have to drive the car around for a while until it resets. When you bring it back we'll have to re-inspect the car. That'll be $90."
I had my Monday all planned. I would drop the car off, then enjoy a quiet day to sit and write. A day with nothing going on and no one around. A day unlike any I've had in longer than I can remember. Instead, I figured I'd better try to get my car legal, so I ended up at Wal-Mart, where the cheapest tires were $70. For $75 they had some discounted performance tires, so I went with those. Two hours in Wal-Mart, then Three in the Meineke up the street to get an alignment and another inspection. At least inspection and emissions only ran you $50 there. At one point the guy working on my car came in with a concerned look, the kind you don't want your mechanic to have, and asked me if I just got my car inspected recently. I told him my story up to this point, and he said they should have explained to me that I have 30 days to come back and get my emissions re-checked free of charge. The first place didn't tell me this, even though I explained that I moved from a county where emissions checks aren't required, so I therefore didn't know how things worked. Assholes.
My choice at that point was to drive around and bring the car back on Saturday, hoping the computer gathered enough data, or keep driving it after the inspection ran out to give it more time. I chose for the latter, not wanting to waste any more money. I've never been pulled over, and I don't intend to start now. I'll see if I can get in this Saturday or Monday, and until then, cross my fingers. I will cross them also in the hope that my car's computer's got all the emissions data it needs, and that I don't need to take my car to Ford to have the computer diagnosed at a presumably high cost. Or, that my car fails emissions, which would also suck tons.
Somewhere in there my upstairs computer, the one do all my writing and audio stuff on, crashed. Could not find the operating system. This means hard drive difficulties. I've rescued my writing, but one hard drive is down permanently and the other still won't boot. Props go to my Linux booting iMac for being able to grab my writing from my crippled Linux hard drive, albeit at a turtle's pace.
I feel I've lost the past two weeks. It's exhausting, and I'm overwhelmed. On the exciting side, mom gave me some flowers, three pepper plants, and a tomato plant. I put them in the ground Monday, and it was kind of crazy. I didn't expect to have such a powerful experience, and I still don't understand it, but there was something about seeing all the critters, all the roots, the rusted bolts and pieces of glass hidden buried and forgotten half a foot below my yard that made me feel connected to this place in a way I haven't known. Every morning and afternoon on my way in and out I stop and check on my plants, more excited than I should be.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Bathroom Report, Day 4
I was certain I'd published day two, but I guess I hadn't.
Tuesday night Slim Jim caught some plaster to the ear and I encouraged him to go to the hospital after I saw some ear meat. Nothing serious, just cosmetic. If he hadn't gone to get stiches he would have had some crazy cool ear scar. He was upset about all this though because of lost time.
Apparently a group of our old friends were at the hospital due to someone else's finger injury and they all met up and hung out. Wednesday I got in early after having taken a half day to get my windshield fixed, and all those folks showed up at around five or six. It was nice to see them all, but I felt a little stressed making everyone dinner in addition to the fact that work stopped when they arrived.
Thursday the crew (Slim had recruited) tore out quite a bit. Demolition's pretty much done, so I'm pissing in jars for the time being. Check it out:
I'm off to the Mistresses' home town for the weekend, so we'll see what's next. Slim's going home tonight or tomorrow I think, so I'm guessing I'll be staying at the Mistresses' for a while.
Tuesday night Slim Jim caught some plaster to the ear and I encouraged him to go to the hospital after I saw some ear meat. Nothing serious, just cosmetic. If he hadn't gone to get stiches he would have had some crazy cool ear scar. He was upset about all this though because of lost time.
Apparently a group of our old friends were at the hospital due to someone else's finger injury and they all met up and hung out. Wednesday I got in early after having taken a half day to get my windshield fixed, and all those folks showed up at around five or six. It was nice to see them all, but I felt a little stressed making everyone dinner in addition to the fact that work stopped when they arrived.
Thursday the crew (Slim had recruited) tore out quite a bit. Demolition's pretty much done, so I'm pissing in jars for the time being. Check it out:
I'm off to the Mistresses' home town for the weekend, so we'll see what's next. Slim's going home tonight or tomorrow I think, so I'm guessing I'll be staying at the Mistresses' for a while.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Ain't it a Mother
I figured that, for Mother's day, I'd invite my folks over and cook dinner for them. You know, kind of a good faith role reversing thank you: a meal for all the years of meals and laundry and money and time and who knows what other parental sacrifices else. Hungover and running late, by the time I ran out of the house to buy groceries, my folks had already started their drive. Unfortunately, when I ran out, I was missing a crucial component to my plans: keys. I'm usually very good about this, and being of the paranoid sort, I had never considered leaving a spare set outside. Dark Mistress Hawthorne has keys to my house, but she was halfway across the state, driving out to visit her injured father. Slim Jim, my friend/landlord has keys, but he lives hours away. I gave my parents a set as well, but by the time I called them about it, they were practically around the corner. And besides that, they don't remember me giving them a set anyway.
The most obvious way into the house would have been through the bathroom window, which I'd left open. Because I like my stuff, I keep all the ground floor windows locked. The bathroom window sits right above the porch roof, which wasn't too far off the ground, but far enough to make me nervous. I considered how I could climb up there: the stack of miscellaneous lawn chairs, the plastic bins 'o' plenty, perhaps the carpet roll in conjunction with the unassembled bed loft kit. Have I mentioned that though I live in an urban area, I have a back porch fitting of any cunnerman shack? Oh, I could go on: Two old grills: gas and charcoal. Two antique sleds. Two old air conditioners. Two electric weed trimmers. It's like my porch is an a Noah's Arc for garage sale items.
I did not suffer for lack of stackable items. It was just that the thought of hoisting my frame up on that pitched roof was too much for my dizzy hangover addled constitution, so I set about a safer method of entry.
Now, the principle behind picking locks is simple, and the practice of doing so is less difficult than it is time consuming and kind of boring. I suppose with proper tools and a bit more experience it would become a more efficient ordeal, but lock picking is definitely more about the ends than the means. Now, if you were to ask me about lock picking, or if we happened to be hanging out and the topic came up, I would probably come across sounding like a bit of an expert. This is because I know vaguely how locks work, and I'm a bit of an ass who likes to sound smarter than he is. In reality, I've successfully picked locks two and a half times. Two counts come from the old metal office desk I have in the home whose drawers were stuck shut after I moved. I figured the locks had somehow engaged themselves with all the bumping and tipping and what not. Using a thumbtack and a bent paper clip I successfully got both locks to spin. I then realized that the drawers weren't locked, they just got jammed somehow, and I had just picked my locks closed.
The half count comes from college, when my friend, Slim Jim actually, had explained to me how locks work and, in turn, how they could be picked. I was studying at the Humanities Center where they have old, nice, wooden desks. I got bored and saw there was a lock for the desk drawer right in front of me. Using, again, a thumb tack and a paper clip, I fidgeted with the thing until I got the lock to close. Luckily I had sense enough to have the drawer open at the time, because I was never able to pick the lock back open. To this day, if you try to close the drawer flush, it stops against that stuck lock tab.
But that was then, and I felt pretty confident in my ability to tackle this lock. All I needed was the proper tools. Unfortunately, I was far away from my office supplies, so I had to settle for whatever I could find in the junkyard of my porch. My first try involved an antique pair of scissors, some copper wire, and a metal tooth broken from a rake. Even though I was excited at how easy it was to use these black weathered scissors to cut and strip the copper wire, that method was fruitless. The wire proved to soft, no matter how I bent and twisted. My next try involved cutting a square of aluminum from a soda can, which I folded and pressed into a bar. This might have worked, but when I made them small enough to fit the lock, they were too weak and bent.
Finally my parents arrived. I had hoped to have dinner going by the time they got there and here I was, filthy, trying to break into my own house. We decided the bathroom window really was the way to go, but I could only get as far as standing on the trash can before I lost my nerve. Dad jumped up there easy, crawled inside, and unlocked the door.
Mom stayed behind as we went grocery shopping. He helped me pick out the ground beef, he picked out the cole slaw. He picked out the onion rolls that mom likes. By the time we got back, mom was there washing the last of my large pile plastic containers. I hate washing those, and I had a few month collection stacked in one half of the sink. I yelled at her for it, but she said she just couldn't stand it.
Dad made cocktails, showed me his hamburger making technique while mom made the instant pasta salad. It all turned out delicious, even if it wasn't really the reversal I'd planned. It wasn't the fancy dinner I had in mind from the start, it wasn't ready by the time they got there, they ended up doing most of the work, and that was after they came to the rescue and got me into my own damn house. We all had a good time though, and at least I got this dumb blog post out of it.
The most obvious way into the house would have been through the bathroom window, which I'd left open. Because I like my stuff, I keep all the ground floor windows locked. The bathroom window sits right above the porch roof, which wasn't too far off the ground, but far enough to make me nervous. I considered how I could climb up there: the stack of miscellaneous lawn chairs, the plastic bins 'o' plenty, perhaps the carpet roll in conjunction with the unassembled bed loft kit. Have I mentioned that though I live in an urban area, I have a back porch fitting of any cunnerman shack? Oh, I could go on: Two old grills: gas and charcoal. Two antique sleds. Two old air conditioners. Two electric weed trimmers. It's like my porch is an a Noah's Arc for garage sale items.
I did not suffer for lack of stackable items. It was just that the thought of hoisting my frame up on that pitched roof was too much for my dizzy hangover addled constitution, so I set about a safer method of entry.
Now, the principle behind picking locks is simple, and the practice of doing so is less difficult than it is time consuming and kind of boring. I suppose with proper tools and a bit more experience it would become a more efficient ordeal, but lock picking is definitely more about the ends than the means. Now, if you were to ask me about lock picking, or if we happened to be hanging out and the topic came up, I would probably come across sounding like a bit of an expert. This is because I know vaguely how locks work, and I'm a bit of an ass who likes to sound smarter than he is. In reality, I've successfully picked locks two and a half times. Two counts come from the old metal office desk I have in the home whose drawers were stuck shut after I moved. I figured the locks had somehow engaged themselves with all the bumping and tipping and what not. Using a thumbtack and a bent paper clip I successfully got both locks to spin. I then realized that the drawers weren't locked, they just got jammed somehow, and I had just picked my locks closed.
The half count comes from college, when my friend, Slim Jim actually, had explained to me how locks work and, in turn, how they could be picked. I was studying at the Humanities Center where they have old, nice, wooden desks. I got bored and saw there was a lock for the desk drawer right in front of me. Using, again, a thumb tack and a paper clip, I fidgeted with the thing until I got the lock to close. Luckily I had sense enough to have the drawer open at the time, because I was never able to pick the lock back open. To this day, if you try to close the drawer flush, it stops against that stuck lock tab.
But that was then, and I felt pretty confident in my ability to tackle this lock. All I needed was the proper tools. Unfortunately, I was far away from my office supplies, so I had to settle for whatever I could find in the junkyard of my porch. My first try involved an antique pair of scissors, some copper wire, and a metal tooth broken from a rake. Even though I was excited at how easy it was to use these black weathered scissors to cut and strip the copper wire, that method was fruitless. The wire proved to soft, no matter how I bent and twisted. My next try involved cutting a square of aluminum from a soda can, which I folded and pressed into a bar. This might have worked, but when I made them small enough to fit the lock, they were too weak and bent.
Finally my parents arrived. I had hoped to have dinner going by the time they got there and here I was, filthy, trying to break into my own house. We decided the bathroom window really was the way to go, but I could only get as far as standing on the trash can before I lost my nerve. Dad jumped up there easy, crawled inside, and unlocked the door.
Mom stayed behind as we went grocery shopping. He helped me pick out the ground beef, he picked out the cole slaw. He picked out the onion rolls that mom likes. By the time we got back, mom was there washing the last of my large pile plastic containers. I hate washing those, and I had a few month collection stacked in one half of the sink. I yelled at her for it, but she said she just couldn't stand it.
Dad made cocktails, showed me his hamburger making technique while mom made the instant pasta salad. It all turned out delicious, even if it wasn't really the reversal I'd planned. It wasn't the fancy dinner I had in mind from the start, it wasn't ready by the time they got there, they ended up doing most of the work, and that was after they came to the rescue and got me into my own damn house. We all had a good time though, and at least I got this dumb blog post out of it.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Neighbors: Can't Live With Them, Can't Hate Who You Live Next To Without Them
Oh, doddering Mrs. Fussnpuss, how life has brought you here I dare not know. Were you always ornery, easily irritated by each passing fellow, judging safely from the slit you pry in your mini blinds? Or has years of taking shit made you who you are? Toughened you beyond an empathetic point of view. Is this what I have in store: a world that tasks me more as years slip by, no one to listen to my complaints, my perspective, my existence less valued than treated as a nuisance?
Trash gets picked up Monday morning, but because I usually stay at Dark Mistress Hawthorne's Sunday night, my empty can will set on the curb. Usually, by the time I get home, it's already been dragged to my back porch. The first few weeks this happened I was somewhat irked. I could only imagine that it bothered Fussnpuss so much that she was compelled to drag this huge can, which just about comes to her chin, all the way around my house. She'd do this, but she wouldn't leave a note, or knock, and this in turn bothered me. For crying out, I'm talking about the can setting there no later than noon after the trash was picked up.
One day I came home and saw her waddling her way backwards down my walk, plastic bin hidden in front of her. She said something like "Oh hi there. I see your can sitting there and I always figure I'd bring it back for you, I hope you don't mind." "Not at all" I said, smiling, lying. Well, half lying. I did mind, when I thought she did it because she was bothered to. Now, though, it seemed she was just being neighborly. Looking out for the nice young man next door.
Our trash day changed this week from Sunday to Thursday. This excited me because I'd finally be around to pick my can up. (Plus, I'm usually home Wednesday nights, making it more likely I'd remember to take the trash out after work.) Seriously, ask D.M.H. I don't think I ever told her why, but I know I mentioned New Trash Day day to her numerous excited times.
Thursday morning, on my way to (the final) class (of the semester!) the trash wasn't picked up. Wasn't picked up on my way back at 11 either. I didn't hear the truck come before I went to work at 2, so I left it. Apparently they did come. Apparently Mrs. Fussnpuss moved my can to the back yard again. And, apparently one of the college students that lives in the other house next to mine helped her move my can to my back yard, all the while listening to her complain about "the college kid who lives here and never bothers to take his can in."
How life has brought us here I dare not know.
Trash gets picked up Monday morning, but because I usually stay at Dark Mistress Hawthorne's Sunday night, my empty can will set on the curb. Usually, by the time I get home, it's already been dragged to my back porch. The first few weeks this happened I was somewhat irked. I could only imagine that it bothered Fussnpuss so much that she was compelled to drag this huge can, which just about comes to her chin, all the way around my house. She'd do this, but she wouldn't leave a note, or knock, and this in turn bothered me. For crying out, I'm talking about the can setting there no later than noon after the trash was picked up.
One day I came home and saw her waddling her way backwards down my walk, plastic bin hidden in front of her. She said something like "Oh hi there. I see your can sitting there and I always figure I'd bring it back for you, I hope you don't mind." "Not at all" I said, smiling, lying. Well, half lying. I did mind, when I thought she did it because she was bothered to. Now, though, it seemed she was just being neighborly. Looking out for the nice young man next door.
Our trash day changed this week from Sunday to Thursday. This excited me because I'd finally be around to pick my can up. (Plus, I'm usually home Wednesday nights, making it more likely I'd remember to take the trash out after work.) Seriously, ask D.M.H. I don't think I ever told her why, but I know I mentioned New Trash Day day to her numerous excited times.
Thursday morning, on my way to (the final) class (of the semester!) the trash wasn't picked up. Wasn't picked up on my way back at 11 either. I didn't hear the truck come before I went to work at 2, so I left it. Apparently they did come. Apparently Mrs. Fussnpuss moved my can to the back yard again. And, apparently one of the college students that lives in the other house next to mine helped her move my can to my back yard, all the while listening to her complain about "the college kid who lives here and never bothers to take his can in."
How life has brought us here I dare not know.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
What the Bread, Man?
As I walked through my yard to my car on Tuesday, something on the fence caught my eye. It was bread. More specifically, about a third or a half of a hot dog bun, either bitten or torn off and crumbled up. It was pressed on top of one of the chain link fence posts that separates my yard from my parking spots, and the back alley behind. I swatted it off the fence, not having time to throw it in my trash. I swatted it off because I now have a theory. A paranoid theory, perhaps, and one based on wild speculation. Really though, aren't those the most fun?
This is the fourth time I've found fragments of foodstuffs left around the exterior of my house. When I moved in, there was a half eaten cupcake on top of my mailbox. At the time I simply chalked this up to the weirdass menagerie of previous tenants. The same menagerie that left closets full of clothes, half eaten calzones to bake for months in garbage bag ovens warmed by the sun, and pins stuck through the miniblind strings so that when I drew them I was rewarded with a constellation of bloody spots across my palm.
The mailbox half cupcake was the only non bread item I've found. A few months later there was another baked good on my mailbox; this time a piece of hot dog bun. I promptly threw it away. Then, this winter while shoveling the sidewalk between my house and the neighbors', I found another piece of bun balanced on my windowsill. This was the one that made me wonder.
I mentioned it to Slim Jim, and he said “yeah, the neighborhood kids are always leaving treats around.” I live in a semi urban area. Post industrial, with row-homes galore. Most of my street is duplexes or row-homes build a hundred years ago or more from brick. The population here is a mix of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, old White people, and White undergraduate college students. As you could imagine, there are some tensions. Pretty much between the college students and everyone else.
I used to live in the house next door back in my college days. I remember the thing back then was the neighborhood kids, mostly not yet high school age, would congregate on someone's porch hang out there for hours. The porch would almost always belong to a house full of college students, such as ourselves. I remember I would hear them on the porch and I'd feel uncomfortable. I had to go to class, or out to the store. What should I say? What did they want? I decided on “hey, what's up”, and kept walking, otherwise ignoring them.
One day I brought home a tray of leftover cookies from my work study job. Shortly thereafter, Johnny Blue Jeans, who lived there as well, came home from class and mentioned the kids were out there. He took the tray of cookies out and offered them, and they accepted. A little after that they stopped coming back. A month or two later there was an editorial in the school paper about student-community relations written by a young man whose house was also on our street. Neighborhood kids, he said, were always hanging out on their porch, and no about of pleading, yelling, or badgering would get them to leave.
So I have to wonder: has a new group of children seen my parking tag and taken to setting these gifts about my house in an attempt to rile me? Are the pieces left behind as markers of some sort, and if so, for what intent? Are they part of a test to see how often I'm home or how frequently I check the exterior of my house? Is there a drunk old man who buys a pack of hot dog rolls and eats them while wandering past my house? Is it one of my old college friends playing a sort of long term prank/participating in a sort of personal flux art performance, the very kind of thing I delight in doing to others?
I propose a Thursday toast: to mystery.
This is the fourth time I've found fragments of foodstuffs left around the exterior of my house. When I moved in, there was a half eaten cupcake on top of my mailbox. At the time I simply chalked this up to the weirdass menagerie of previous tenants. The same menagerie that left closets full of clothes, half eaten calzones to bake for months in garbage bag ovens warmed by the sun, and pins stuck through the miniblind strings so that when I drew them I was rewarded with a constellation of bloody spots across my palm.
The mailbox half cupcake was the only non bread item I've found. A few months later there was another baked good on my mailbox; this time a piece of hot dog bun. I promptly threw it away. Then, this winter while shoveling the sidewalk between my house and the neighbors', I found another piece of bun balanced on my windowsill. This was the one that made me wonder.
I mentioned it to Slim Jim, and he said “yeah, the neighborhood kids are always leaving treats around.” I live in a semi urban area. Post industrial, with row-homes galore. Most of my street is duplexes or row-homes build a hundred years ago or more from brick. The population here is a mix of Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, old White people, and White undergraduate college students. As you could imagine, there are some tensions. Pretty much between the college students and everyone else.
I used to live in the house next door back in my college days. I remember the thing back then was the neighborhood kids, mostly not yet high school age, would congregate on someone's porch hang out there for hours. The porch would almost always belong to a house full of college students, such as ourselves. I remember I would hear them on the porch and I'd feel uncomfortable. I had to go to class, or out to the store. What should I say? What did they want? I decided on “hey, what's up”, and kept walking, otherwise ignoring them.
One day I brought home a tray of leftover cookies from my work study job. Shortly thereafter, Johnny Blue Jeans, who lived there as well, came home from class and mentioned the kids were out there. He took the tray of cookies out and offered them, and they accepted. A little after that they stopped coming back. A month or two later there was an editorial in the school paper about student-community relations written by a young man whose house was also on our street. Neighborhood kids, he said, were always hanging out on their porch, and no about of pleading, yelling, or badgering would get them to leave.
So I have to wonder: has a new group of children seen my parking tag and taken to setting these gifts about my house in an attempt to rile me? Are the pieces left behind as markers of some sort, and if so, for what intent? Are they part of a test to see how often I'm home or how frequently I check the exterior of my house? Is there a drunk old man who buys a pack of hot dog rolls and eats them while wandering past my house? Is it one of my old college friends playing a sort of long term prank/participating in a sort of personal flux art performance, the very kind of thing I delight in doing to others?
I propose a Thursday toast: to mystery.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Holiday Vacation SuperPost!
Back to work with me. I started yesterday, though I had a retreat to attend Monday. At first I thought it wasn’t too bad. I thought that if I could clear my head and stay aware of who I was and why I was here, I could better handle the stresses of work. That plan worked until I got on the phone with my boss. She’s high strung, and understandably so, but the moment I heard her voice darting from crisis to crisis I felt my blood pressure rise. Other people’s problems becomes her crisis which then I have to adopt. Week in, week out, until summer. Assessment: work is going to continue to blow.
I’ve wanted to post all during break, but it felt too daunting of a task, as each day brought more to share. Last post I wrote before break I mentioned I wanted to do something creative each day. What I had in mind was to write each day, if just for a little bit. No dice. I wrote word zero all break. What really sucks was I was working on a longer story on which I was making quite a bit of progress back in October, but in November something happened and I stopped making time to write. When I went to try during break, nothing was coming to me because I became foreign to that world I created. I got frustrated, bowed to the page, and gave up. I didn’t have time to mull on that for long as Christmas was coming and Santa had some business to attend to.
Back before the Dark Mistress and I were a “thing”, she once asked me, upon my mention of previous electronics experience, if I would be able to build a Theremin. I replied that yes, it’d be possible to purchase and build a Theremin kit, I imagine. The topic came up again a month or two ago, and apparently she’s always wanted one.
I remembered this six days before Christmas, and thus began my five day obsession with building my love a Theremin.
A quick google search revealed several kits online, but they were all fairly expensive. Then I came across a site that promised I could build my own for about $75, which was still more than I was willing to spend, but I couldn’t resist how awesome a project it could be.
Now what is a Theremin? If Wikipedia hasn’t told you by now, it’s a music instrument that is played without touching it. Traditionally there is a vertical antenna and a horizontal loop antenna. The distance between your right hand and the vertical antenna controls pitch, the distance between your left hand and the horizontal antenna controls volume.
The principle involves two oscillators, which are circuits that produce a waveform. (think of ripples in water… a rolling up and down wave like that) A Theremin uses two oscillators built and fine tuned to create identical waveforms. They are attached to the pitch antenna in such a way that the distortion of the electromagnetic field put out by the antenna by your hand throws the oscillators out of sync. If one oscillator is oscillating at 1100khz, and the other is oscillating at 1540khz, the difference between the two would create a tone at 440hz, which would be an A.
I knew very little of this going in. I had to start from scratch. I started Thursday when I etched my own pc board by printing his track layout on glossy photo paper and ironing it on, then soaking it in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid. It was messier than I expected, and I didn’t feel quite right the rest of the night. By Saturday I had the first set of components in and tested.
The circuit is built so it oscillates around the frequencies of AM radio, so each oscillator it is tested by tapping on the coils and tuning the radio until you can hear it. This happened for me on Friday night, I believe, and was cause for much celebration. I'm pretty sure I ate a whole box of Runts. It was around this time Slim Jim stopped by.
I told Slim Jim of my Christmas Theremin project, and he ended up being a huge help. Though he wasn't able to directly solve any of my problems, he knows a thing or two about electronics, and just being able to explain a problem to someone is enough sometimes to clear a mental blockage. One of the problems I was running into in trying to get it working was there are a few parts that dangle loose whose position is essential cool noise production, so I set about mounting the project in a case before I went any further.
I recognized in one of the examples on dude's site a DVD shelf in which he mounted one of his Theremins. I happen to have two of those exact shelves: one in use, one in the basement. (One used to be Leggolamb's. Random Fact!) In the name of Love and Science, I cut into that mother. It was then that my long term vision crystallized: not just to build a working Theremin, but to build a case it could be packed up into and transported. What's the point in building this cool as hell thing if you can't take it to parties, right? Would I seriously give her a mess of boards and wires, when I could give her a hinged plywood masterpiece? It's without Slim Jim that I would have failed here, as he showed me some wood working basics needed so as not to look like a damn chimp tossing around Samsonite.
Once mounted to the shelf, it “came to life” for the first time. (Okay, once I mounted it to the shelf, realized I reversed polarity on a component or two, then remounted it. I was under the gun!) What had been a faint whistle earlier became a full bodied... louder whistle. Again, I was giddy. If I had another box of Runts...
It is just about one of the coolest things to experience for the first time. I have no idea why. Perhaps there's something fundamentally spooky about a speaker's whistling in response to how close I slip my hand towards and antenna. The interaction becomes intuitive very quickly, and every time I hook it up, twenty minutes of my life inexplicably disappears.
If Christmas is anything, it's a chance for those of us who get off on withholding to taunt and torture the hell out of our loved ones. In this case, it was the Mistress, who knew I was doing something related to a gift for her. By some miracle, she had no clue what was keeping me up nights and exposing me to Chlorine gas. My lie became “playing Half-Life”, which of course didn't hold water, but didn't tell her anything either. I never managed to finish the doors for the case, the wiring for the panel, or the volume control circuitry, yet it was all more than worth it to see the look on her face when she pushed her hand into the sweet field of radiation and heard a sweeping whistle come through a pair of computer speakers.
Christmas for me was a little strange. On one hand, it's the first time I've had to drive any distance to my folks place for Christmas. (Last year was the first time I wasn't staying there for some extended period of time, and that was disturbing enough.) It just made things feel different, more adult. On the other hand, my folks got me an XBOX 360, which I did not see coming at all. It was the first time in a long time I felt like a kid at Christmas: barely being able to wait to pry into my new toys. I'd wanted one for two years now, but I would probably never buy one. I could never justify it, and by the time I could, the next generation of consoles would already be out.
This is the first video game console I've ever had during the prime of it's run. I was given a Playstation year after the PS2 came out, and an Atari 2600 at the dawn of the age of Nintendo. Not that I'm complaining. I think it's for the best, as I know my attention span and I needed all the focus I could get. I'm just trying to express how much I enjoy its presence.
The time between Christmas and New Years is, frankly, a blur. D.M.H. and I hung out almost all the time and it was wonderful. I didn't get to play 360 as much as I wanted to, say, Christmas day, but D.M.H. was very accommodating. We were both really spoiled by seeing each other every day though.
For New Years, we stopped by Spanky and Zanzibar's place for some Taboo, then some Scene-It. Dark Mistress Hawthorne was billed as top seed against a mysterious figure with ties to the past. Named Skidmark. We played in teams, and D.M.H. was my (drunk) partner. I was so proud of myself when she didn't know the first question we were asked but I did. (Trading Spaces, thank you.) I, however, did not answer one answer correctly for the remainder of the three games we played, while our team went on to win every one. I have to say, we had Skidmark uncomfortably close to our tails most of the time. The Dark Mistress is, apparently, a half crazed movie trivia machine.
Shortly after that, she went back to work, and I turned my focus on the house. And the XBOX. Well, first the XBOX, then the house. Two weekends ago we visited Slim Jim and got to catch up with one of my favorite people from college, The Blue Zipper, whom I hadn't seen in over a year. It was fantastic to see her again. It was also super cool to visit Slim Jim for once and to see what it's like where he lives. Before we left, he gave us a video projector to try hooking up to the iMac. He'd picked it up at some point but had no use for it at the time.
So the remainder of my break was spent on three projects: cleaning the laundry room, turning the kitchen out, and setting up this projector. And wouldn't you know it, I somehow got all three done! My clothes are off the floor for the first time in months, for the first time since I've moved in I know what is in every drawer and every cupboard in my kitchen, and finally, I have to say there's no joy greater than getting lost in the mountainous crags of Commander Adama's four foot high cheek.
I'd post you some wonderful pictures, but at the moment I am sans camera, which isn't nearly as cool as being Santana, but you gotta go with what you know.
I’ve wanted to post all during break, but it felt too daunting of a task, as each day brought more to share. Last post I wrote before break I mentioned I wanted to do something creative each day. What I had in mind was to write each day, if just for a little bit. No dice. I wrote word zero all break. What really sucks was I was working on a longer story on which I was making quite a bit of progress back in October, but in November something happened and I stopped making time to write. When I went to try during break, nothing was coming to me because I became foreign to that world I created. I got frustrated, bowed to the page, and gave up. I didn’t have time to mull on that for long as Christmas was coming and Santa had some business to attend to.
Back before the Dark Mistress and I were a “thing”, she once asked me, upon my mention of previous electronics experience, if I would be able to build a Theremin. I replied that yes, it’d be possible to purchase and build a Theremin kit, I imagine. The topic came up again a month or two ago, and apparently she’s always wanted one.
I remembered this six days before Christmas, and thus began my five day obsession with building my love a Theremin.
A quick google search revealed several kits online, but they were all fairly expensive. Then I came across a site that promised I could build my own for about $75, which was still more than I was willing to spend, but I couldn’t resist how awesome a project it could be.
Now what is a Theremin? If Wikipedia hasn’t told you by now, it’s a music instrument that is played without touching it. Traditionally there is a vertical antenna and a horizontal loop antenna. The distance between your right hand and the vertical antenna controls pitch, the distance between your left hand and the horizontal antenna controls volume.
The principle involves two oscillators, which are circuits that produce a waveform. (think of ripples in water… a rolling up and down wave like that) A Theremin uses two oscillators built and fine tuned to create identical waveforms. They are attached to the pitch antenna in such a way that the distortion of the electromagnetic field put out by the antenna by your hand throws the oscillators out of sync. If one oscillator is oscillating at 1100khz, and the other is oscillating at 1540khz, the difference between the two would create a tone at 440hz, which would be an A.
I knew very little of this going in. I had to start from scratch. I started Thursday when I etched my own pc board by printing his track layout on glossy photo paper and ironing it on, then soaking it in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and hydrochloric acid. It was messier than I expected, and I didn’t feel quite right the rest of the night. By Saturday I had the first set of components in and tested.
The circuit is built so it oscillates around the frequencies of AM radio, so each oscillator it is tested by tapping on the coils and tuning the radio until you can hear it. This happened for me on Friday night, I believe, and was cause for much celebration. I'm pretty sure I ate a whole box of Runts. It was around this time Slim Jim stopped by.
I told Slim Jim of my Christmas Theremin project, and he ended up being a huge help. Though he wasn't able to directly solve any of my problems, he knows a thing or two about electronics, and just being able to explain a problem to someone is enough sometimes to clear a mental blockage. One of the problems I was running into in trying to get it working was there are a few parts that dangle loose whose position is essential cool noise production, so I set about mounting the project in a case before I went any further.
I recognized in one of the examples on dude's site a DVD shelf in which he mounted one of his Theremins. I happen to have two of those exact shelves: one in use, one in the basement. (One used to be Leggolamb's. Random Fact!) In the name of Love and Science, I cut into that mother. It was then that my long term vision crystallized: not just to build a working Theremin, but to build a case it could be packed up into and transported. What's the point in building this cool as hell thing if you can't take it to parties, right? Would I seriously give her a mess of boards and wires, when I could give her a hinged plywood masterpiece? It's without Slim Jim that I would have failed here, as he showed me some wood working basics needed so as not to look like a damn chimp tossing around Samsonite.
Once mounted to the shelf, it “came to life” for the first time. (Okay, once I mounted it to the shelf, realized I reversed polarity on a component or two, then remounted it. I was under the gun!) What had been a faint whistle earlier became a full bodied... louder whistle. Again, I was giddy. If I had another box of Runts...
It is just about one of the coolest things to experience for the first time. I have no idea why. Perhaps there's something fundamentally spooky about a speaker's whistling in response to how close I slip my hand towards and antenna. The interaction becomes intuitive very quickly, and every time I hook it up, twenty minutes of my life inexplicably disappears.
If Christmas is anything, it's a chance for those of us who get off on withholding to taunt and torture the hell out of our loved ones. In this case, it was the Mistress, who knew I was doing something related to a gift for her. By some miracle, she had no clue what was keeping me up nights and exposing me to Chlorine gas. My lie became “playing Half-Life”, which of course didn't hold water, but didn't tell her anything either. I never managed to finish the doors for the case, the wiring for the panel, or the volume control circuitry, yet it was all more than worth it to see the look on her face when she pushed her hand into the sweet field of radiation and heard a sweeping whistle come through a pair of computer speakers.
Christmas for me was a little strange. On one hand, it's the first time I've had to drive any distance to my folks place for Christmas. (Last year was the first time I wasn't staying there for some extended period of time, and that was disturbing enough.) It just made things feel different, more adult. On the other hand, my folks got me an XBOX 360, which I did not see coming at all. It was the first time in a long time I felt like a kid at Christmas: barely being able to wait to pry into my new toys. I'd wanted one for two years now, but I would probably never buy one. I could never justify it, and by the time I could, the next generation of consoles would already be out.
This is the first video game console I've ever had during the prime of it's run. I was given a Playstation year after the PS2 came out, and an Atari 2600 at the dawn of the age of Nintendo. Not that I'm complaining. I think it's for the best, as I know my attention span and I needed all the focus I could get. I'm just trying to express how much I enjoy its presence.
The time between Christmas and New Years is, frankly, a blur. D.M.H. and I hung out almost all the time and it was wonderful. I didn't get to play 360 as much as I wanted to, say, Christmas day, but D.M.H. was very accommodating. We were both really spoiled by seeing each other every day though.
For New Years, we stopped by Spanky and Zanzibar's place for some Taboo, then some Scene-It. Dark Mistress Hawthorne was billed as top seed against a mysterious figure with ties to the past. Named Skidmark. We played in teams, and D.M.H. was my (drunk) partner. I was so proud of myself when she didn't know the first question we were asked but I did. (Trading Spaces, thank you.) I, however, did not answer one answer correctly for the remainder of the three games we played, while our team went on to win every one. I have to say, we had Skidmark uncomfortably close to our tails most of the time. The Dark Mistress is, apparently, a half crazed movie trivia machine.
Shortly after that, she went back to work, and I turned my focus on the house. And the XBOX. Well, first the XBOX, then the house. Two weekends ago we visited Slim Jim and got to catch up with one of my favorite people from college, The Blue Zipper, whom I hadn't seen in over a year. It was fantastic to see her again. It was also super cool to visit Slim Jim for once and to see what it's like where he lives. Before we left, he gave us a video projector to try hooking up to the iMac. He'd picked it up at some point but had no use for it at the time.
So the remainder of my break was spent on three projects: cleaning the laundry room, turning the kitchen out, and setting up this projector. And wouldn't you know it, I somehow got all three done! My clothes are off the floor for the first time in months, for the first time since I've moved in I know what is in every drawer and every cupboard in my kitchen, and finally, I have to say there's no joy greater than getting lost in the mountainous crags of Commander Adama's four foot high cheek.
I'd post you some wonderful pictures, but at the moment I am sans camera, which isn't nearly as cool as being Santana, but you gotta go with what you know.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Weekendery
As I said, Bixby and The Tzar were in town to visit. Not me specifically, but to make their way around town in general. Friday night, another college friend and former housemate Leggolamb was in town. She was meeting up with friends and wanted to see who was around and if we were interested in going out.
I got out of work early and just in time to welcome Bixby and The Tzar. We got them set up in the attic suite. The were understandably tired and went to bed shortly thereafter. I was feeling bad about leaving Starbuck, and I was feeling tired, so I called up Leggo and declined her offer. Then I poured myself a stiff Soy Russian (because my real milk expired) and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Next day I woke up at noon, missing my company but catching up on much needed sleep I'd gypped myself on all week. Went to work, which sucked almost all around. Got out late, again missing my company. Leggolamb's plans fell through though, so she, Slim Jim, and I stayed up talking for a bit. Then we all went to sleep.
I only slept till 11:30 or so this morning, which again, was glorious. However, I missed the departure of Bixby and The Tzar, which made me feel like a bit of a jerk. If I hadn't stayed up late cleaning all week, I might have seen more of them. But then I'd have been embarrassed about the house.
There's a lesson in here somewhere. Unfortunately the genius of Kubrick is sucking up my reflective energies, so shrugs all around.
When Leggolamb's ride came I saw that it was snowing! The first snow of the year! This always excites me. Way more than it should.
Stankfoot came to town and he, Slim Jim, and I went to Taco Bell and kicked around. It was lovely.
While waiting for Stankfoot, Slim Jim and I tracked down and fixed some electrical gremlins. The light at the top of the basement stairs was out and it wasn't the bulb. Turned out to be a weak wire nut in the box the switch was in. Then, the plug my computer's getting power from has no ground. Plus, it was really touchy. Slim replaced the outlet and we tracked down the open ground to a box in the basement. There were five or six ground wires not really touching each other.
The guy who wired this place wasn't very thorough. As I said, all the smoke alarms have fresh batteries.
The big downer is there's blood on Starbuck's stiches. It could be from when I took her cone off and started biting at them. I stopped her right away but she still got at them a few times. Or, maybe it's from when she was playing and jumping around yesterday. She's getting awful punchy, being so full of energy but confined to one room. If only I had a door to the upstairs or something, so I could at least give her a whole floor.
I can't wait for this to be over and her to be all healed up.
The Dark Mistress just walked in! With a cornbread muffin! She's been away all weekend, helping her friend on a school project. I am off to eat this muffin.
Delicious.
I got out of work early and just in time to welcome Bixby and The Tzar. We got them set up in the attic suite. The were understandably tired and went to bed shortly thereafter. I was feeling bad about leaving Starbuck, and I was feeling tired, so I called up Leggo and declined her offer. Then I poured myself a stiff Soy Russian (because my real milk expired) and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Next day I woke up at noon, missing my company but catching up on much needed sleep I'd gypped myself on all week. Went to work, which sucked almost all around. Got out late, again missing my company. Leggolamb's plans fell through though, so she, Slim Jim, and I stayed up talking for a bit. Then we all went to sleep.
I only slept till 11:30 or so this morning, which again, was glorious. However, I missed the departure of Bixby and The Tzar, which made me feel like a bit of a jerk. If I hadn't stayed up late cleaning all week, I might have seen more of them. But then I'd have been embarrassed about the house.
There's a lesson in here somewhere. Unfortunately the genius of Kubrick is sucking up my reflective energies, so shrugs all around.
When Leggolamb's ride came I saw that it was snowing! The first snow of the year! This always excites me. Way more than it should.
Stankfoot came to town and he, Slim Jim, and I went to Taco Bell and kicked around. It was lovely.
While waiting for Stankfoot, Slim Jim and I tracked down and fixed some electrical gremlins. The light at the top of the basement stairs was out and it wasn't the bulb. Turned out to be a weak wire nut in the box the switch was in. Then, the plug my computer's getting power from has no ground. Plus, it was really touchy. Slim replaced the outlet and we tracked down the open ground to a box in the basement. There were five or six ground wires not really touching each other.
The guy who wired this place wasn't very thorough. As I said, all the smoke alarms have fresh batteries.
The big downer is there's blood on Starbuck's stiches. It could be from when I took her cone off and started biting at them. I stopped her right away but she still got at them a few times. Or, maybe it's from when she was playing and jumping around yesterday. She's getting awful punchy, being so full of energy but confined to one room. If only I had a door to the upstairs or something, so I could at least give her a whole floor.
I can't wait for this to be over and her to be all healed up.
The Dark Mistress just walked in! With a cornbread muffin! She's been away all weekend, helping her friend on a school project. I am off to eat this muffin.
Delicious.
Friday, November 16, 2007
A Post That's Not About My Cat?!
This week I've gone through several stages of tired. If I felt I could rely on my current state of mind, I would classify this list as comprehensive. I've been damn tired. I've been stupid mistakes tired. I've been cranky tired. I've been angry tired. I've been confused tired. I've been hopeless tired. I've been giggly tired.
This weekend my friends Bixby, her boyfriend The Tzar, and Slim Jim will all take up lodging here. Bixby reserved two spaces way back in August. So of course I forgot. Even though I wrote it down in my calendar. It was there, in my brain, in some form or capacity. Certainly not a useful one. It occurred to me in a very real way this Tuesday that I would actually have people in my house this weekend. This necessitated some emergency cleaning like nobody's dirty business.
So Tuesday I was up until 2:30 after work cleaning the bathroom, which I haven't done since I moved in. Wednesday I put in 15 hours, so I didn't do much of anything house related. Yesterday was laundry, and this morning was more laundry, straightening up my creativity room, sweeping the creativity room, installing new batteries in all the smoke alarms, straightening up the living room, vacuuming the living room, vacuuming the upstairs hall and stairs, doing dishes, making two chicken, cheddar cheese, mayo, and Cholula burritos, eating two chicken, cheddar cheese, mayo, and Cholula burritos, and petting my cat.
It was a very stressful week. What's nice though is when people visit, it's like a kick in the ass to get all these I've wanted to do done. Check it out: for the first time since moving in, I have an honest to god living room:
Also, I finally set up something I've wanted to have since I knew I was moving here:
This weekend my friends Bixby, her boyfriend The Tzar, and Slim Jim will all take up lodging here. Bixby reserved two spaces way back in August. So of course I forgot. Even though I wrote it down in my calendar. It was there, in my brain, in some form or capacity. Certainly not a useful one. It occurred to me in a very real way this Tuesday that I would actually have people in my house this weekend. This necessitated some emergency cleaning like nobody's dirty business.
So Tuesday I was up until 2:30 after work cleaning the bathroom, which I haven't done since I moved in. Wednesday I put in 15 hours, so I didn't do much of anything house related. Yesterday was laundry, and this morning was more laundry, straightening up my creativity room, sweeping the creativity room, installing new batteries in all the smoke alarms, straightening up the living room, vacuuming the living room, vacuuming the upstairs hall and stairs, doing dishes, making two chicken, cheddar cheese, mayo, and Cholula burritos, eating two chicken, cheddar cheese, mayo, and Cholula burritos, and petting my cat.
It was a very stressful week. What's nice though is when people visit, it's like a kick in the ass to get all these I've wanted to do done. Check it out: for the first time since moving in, I have an honest to god living room:
Also, I finally set up something I've wanted to have since I knew I was moving here:
Monday, November 12, 2007
Big Day for Starbuck
This weekend almost felt like a holiday, considering last weekend I only had one day off, and I felt lucky to get even that. Plus, this week is the last full week until Thanksgiving Break, and that means good things for everyone. And by everyone I mean me, because I'm like that.
Saturday saw a productive day at work, which always feels great. Sunday the Mistress and I continued our mission to cross educate each other on our favorite shows. She's currently showing me the second season of The Office and the first/last season of Freaks and Geeks. I've got her a third of the way through season one of Battlestar Galactica. Then we visited my folks and our friends Bozzie and Mudskipper.
Then there's today. Today was to be my day. I'd been looking forward to it all week. My plans were insane in scope: I figured I could reorganize the entire kitchen, rearrange my bedrooms, reclaim my entire living room, or perhaps all three if I were focused enough. Really though, I was afforded this day because I had to stay in town, as today was the day Starbuck got her itty bitty kitty bits snipped.
I knew I was going to hit Taco Bell with my good friend Stankfoot, but after that, the day was wide open. Project one was setting up the 5.1 system I was gifted (thanks Stank). This involved running wires across the room via the drop tile ceiling, which was messy and tedious. I have been rewarded, however, with the aural fruits of six speaker sound first time in my life.
After that I ran some boxes down to the basement (other people's crap that was taking up space), then it was off to pick up Starbuck.
She was an ornery cuss, hissing at everyone except me from behind the slits of her carrier. I was comforting her when I got my shock: the bill was $336.
Now, I was expecting at least $150. And I was prepared for maybe $200. But I wanted to cry when I heard $336. I'm not exaggerating. I didn't know how to react, except to give the young lady my credit card, because I couldn't afford to take that out of my account.
I ran my credit card up when I was unemployed, and I've been struggling to pay it off ever since. I was damn this summer I could taste it until some shit went down with my old house, which I had to put on my card because I couldn't afford it. This vet bill more than doubles what I had left on my one card, which may not sound like a lot, but to me it is. I get paid once a month on the first. I have to guess how tight I'll be for the month in order to decide how much to put towards my cards because they are both due early in the month. On months I know I have a bit more leniency I put $100 towards each, which leaves me with a couple hundred after bills for gas and groceries for the month. Not having that burden would be such a relief, and I think I'm going to have a stiff drink to celebrate the day it happens. If it ever does happen.
But back to Starbuck, who had some real problems, having been cut open and what not. She was still obviously very sedated when I let her out of her carrier, as her whole rear end would list to one side or the other as she tried to walk a straight line. In addition to failing her roadside, she couldn't manage to cover her waste when going to the litter box. What she was good at doing, though, was licking at her sutures. No amount of yelling, clapping, or pulling her head away was persuading her. It was 7:57, the vet closed at 8, and I was on the phone asking if I could run over to get a cone. They stayed to give me one (though it was only 8:05 when I got there), but when I got home to put it on her, she was about to have a nap. I hope I don't have to use it. I don't want her to end up like this poor soul:
The rest of the night Starbuck slept and I set upon the kitchen with the fury of a madman so that I might have something to feel good about before I sleep tonight. I didn't get as far as I thought I could. I certainly didn't turn the whole thing out, but I did make a bit of progress though, and I think by the end of the week, if I'm diligent, I may be able to claim this kitchen as my own. I already reclaimed the posting area. This used to be covered with postcards and notes from past tenants/friends:
The numbers are calendar dates. When I get a bill, I plan on sticking it up there under the approximate time of month it's due, thus raising my awareness of when I gotta pay the man. This should be an improvement over my current I should check what's collected under my keyboard method. Yes, I know it's off center, but I didn't have scissors or tape, and I was on the phone when I made it.
Saturday saw a productive day at work, which always feels great. Sunday the Mistress and I continued our mission to cross educate each other on our favorite shows. She's currently showing me the second season of The Office and the first/last season of Freaks and Geeks. I've got her a third of the way through season one of Battlestar Galactica. Then we visited my folks and our friends Bozzie and Mudskipper.
Then there's today. Today was to be my day. I'd been looking forward to it all week. My plans were insane in scope: I figured I could reorganize the entire kitchen, rearrange my bedrooms, reclaim my entire living room, or perhaps all three if I were focused enough. Really though, I was afforded this day because I had to stay in town, as today was the day Starbuck got her itty bitty kitty bits snipped.
I knew I was going to hit Taco Bell with my good friend Stankfoot, but after that, the day was wide open. Project one was setting up the 5.1 system I was gifted (thanks Stank). This involved running wires across the room via the drop tile ceiling, which was messy and tedious. I have been rewarded, however, with the aural fruits of six speaker sound first time in my life.After that I ran some boxes down to the basement (other people's crap that was taking up space), then it was off to pick up Starbuck.
She was an ornery cuss, hissing at everyone except me from behind the slits of her carrier. I was comforting her when I got my shock: the bill was $336.
Now, I was expecting at least $150. And I was prepared for maybe $200. But I wanted to cry when I heard $336. I'm not exaggerating. I didn't know how to react, except to give the young lady my credit card, because I couldn't afford to take that out of my account.
I ran my credit card up when I was unemployed, and I've been struggling to pay it off ever since. I was damn this summer I could taste it until some shit went down with my old house, which I had to put on my card because I couldn't afford it. This vet bill more than doubles what I had left on my one card, which may not sound like a lot, but to me it is. I get paid once a month on the first. I have to guess how tight I'll be for the month in order to decide how much to put towards my cards because they are both due early in the month. On months I know I have a bit more leniency I put $100 towards each, which leaves me with a couple hundred after bills for gas and groceries for the month. Not having that burden would be such a relief, and I think I'm going to have a stiff drink to celebrate the day it happens. If it ever does happen.
But back to Starbuck, who had some real problems, having been cut open and what not. She was still obviously very sedated when I let her out of her carrier, as her whole rear end would list to one side or the other as she tried to walk a straight line. In addition to failing her roadside, she couldn't manage to cover her waste when going to the litter box. What she was good at doing, though, was licking at her sutures. No amount of yelling, clapping, or pulling her head away was persuading her. It was 7:57, the vet closed at 8, and I was on the phone asking if I could run over to get a cone. They stayed to give me one (though it was only 8:05 when I got there), but when I got home to put it on her, she was about to have a nap. I hope I don't have to use it. I don't want her to end up like this poor soul:
The rest of the night Starbuck slept and I set upon the kitchen with the fury of a madman so that I might have something to feel good about before I sleep tonight. I didn't get as far as I thought I could. I certainly didn't turn the whole thing out, but I did make a bit of progress though, and I think by the end of the week, if I'm diligent, I may be able to claim this kitchen as my own. I already reclaimed the posting area. This used to be covered with postcards and notes from past tenants/friends:
The numbers are calendar dates. When I get a bill, I plan on sticking it up there under the approximate time of month it's due, thus raising my awareness of when I gotta pay the man. This should be an improvement over my current I should check what's collected under my keyboard method. Yes, I know it's off center, but I didn't have scissors or tape, and I was on the phone when I made it.
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