Last!

Ah, the last day of the year... Where does the time go? Where does the time come from, that's really the better question.

Deep, eh?

Sue and I did our traditional pizza on the last day of the year, but instead of going to Pizza Hut, our normal place to go on this fake holiday, we decided to go to Pizzeria Uno's, to at least have some quality. It wasn't bad, but their pizza generally feels good before you eat it, and then when you're done, it's a bit much. But, it was fun.

Sue's asleep now, she's not really a night person. I'm still up, but not because of the new year, it's just because I'm generally up. I've never been that big into New Years as a holiday. I've had some good times on this night, for sure, but it's generally just an excuse to have a party. I say, just have the party!

Good new years are all in Boston, in general. For the Y2K event, my friend Bill had a party, that was fun. A few years before that, some of us did one of those, "Pay $85 for the entire evening, food and drink" events, that was fun also. When I was a kid, I never stayed up for new years. It wasn't until I was in my teens, I think, that I actually stayed awake for a transition into a new year. Looking back on it, I realize I should have been a bit more willing to stay up and do family stuff when I was little, but I can't change it, so there you have it.

I've been going through a collection of letters between my fraternal grandparents from during World War II, when my grandfather was in the Pacific. They wrote multiple letters to each other on a pretty close to daily basis, so it's a great look into their world of big events (the war), and little events (paying bills, working with money, etc). Also, my dad was a little boy of 1-2 years old, so there's lots of news of his early events, which is great to see.

I'm trying to not be too voyeuristic in reading these, as I realize that they didn't write these letters with the intention of them being read 60 years later. However, they were writing knowing that wartime censors would review the letters, at least the ones my grandfather sent, so that nothing too, well, "sensitive" is in the letters. Generally, I'm looking for mentions of other relatives, to see what the family relations were like, for my genealogy research. It's fun, but like I said, I'm approaching it with a fair level of respect for their privacy.

Tomorrow, we have no real plans, but then it's back to work on Tuesday. Ah well, all good things must come to an end. When can I retire?

NP: Moody Blues - House of Four Doors

Books!

Sue and I had a nice day out today, but unfortunately now her stomach is bothering her, so she's off to bed. Hopefully, she'll be feeling better tomorrow...

Here's some photos of our day out!

Sue with NYC in the background, at a park on the riverfront in Hoboken...

Hey, this looks like our Christmas Card!

I think this guy was practicing for something, or he was just waiting for a big gust of wind to come along and take him away...

With my loss of hair, I think I'm going to just start combing it straight back...

We hit a restaurant called The Pita Grill for a late lunch. It's a natural food place that we haven't been to before. I found it ironic that the natural food place had Z100, a top 40 radio station cranked WAY up, so we could listen to music with no human/natural interaction in it.

Then, we hit Barnes & Nobles in Hoboken. It's a smallish store, but not that bad. I had a $50 gift card from my mom, so I knew it was time to load up on a few pounds of book. Here's what I got... (with links to the books on Amazon, a delicious irony!)

• Redemption Ark, by Alastair Reynolds. A good SF writer I've gotten into recently. I hope to enjoy this one...


• Cell, by Stephen King. I'm always up for a good zombie book... And yes, Brian, it's now out in paperback!


• Spider Kiss, by Harlan Ellison. An old novel that's just back in print from a really terrific writer.


• The Planets, by Dava Sobel. In my look at the Science section of the store, this one jumped out at me. I've heard good things about it, and I recall enjoying "Longitude," one of Sobel's previous books.


• The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova. Recommended to me by a reader of this very blog! Honest! Don't tell me I never listen to you all!


• The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. A non-fiction book about a cholera outbreak in London in the 1850's. It seemed interesting to me, I'm always looking for some good non-fiction out there.


• Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman. A collection of short stories and other work, by a writer of uncommon goodness. I recommend pretty much anything he's written for those of you out there who are looking for good writing.

I also got World Changing: A User's Guide for the 21st Century from Sue for Christmas. I have been breezing through it, and it's a good book to read for a few minutes and then put down. It's a compendium of ideas on how individuals can take action to make the 21st Century a better place to live for us and our descendants. I think it'll be my gift of choice for people coming up during this year...

And, I'm reading World War Z, by Max Brooks right now (also a gift from Sue!). It's a fictionalized (HA!) account of the War against the Zombies that happened back, oh, back then! Don't you remember it? It's a good read so far, I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy it...

But, let me recap the last week or so. We did Christmas dinner here with Sue's family and my mom. It went quite well, Sue was really the driving force behind the dinner, so full kudos to her for that work. On Christmas Eve, I was over at my Dad and stepmother's place for the traditional gathering there.

We had gotten some bad news, that John Grant, one of our family friends, and an old neighbor of ours, had passed away earlier in the day. He had had MS for at least 24 years or so, so he hadn't been healthy for awhile. John was a good guy, who I always enjoyed talking to. I mowed his lawn when I was in junior high/high school for some money, and looked forward to our chats afterwards. He'll be missed by us, and by many of those who he connected with throughout his life.

Yesterday, I went to the NJ State Archives in Trenton, and got some more info on some of the side branches of my family tree. It's harder now to find information on my direct ancestors, as I've tapped most of the "easy" sources of facts. I'll have to keep digging though, and see what turns up with these side lines, the siblings and descendants of my direct ancestors. It continues to be fun, so that's really what it's all about. I found information on my Coulson, Jameson, Graves, Riepe, and other relatives. I was trying to make a connection with some ancestors on my mom's side, but my guesses on what to follow up on that side have been coming up zeros recently. Gotta keep plugging away.

The day after Christmas (I'm jumping around a lot here, I know), Sue and I went down to see my family who we hadn't seen together on Christmas Eve or Day. It was a good time with everyone, visiting my grandmother, my Dad and stepmother, and my Mom. Then, we met up with my friend Brian for some good Chick-Fil-A eats, and a movie (Night at the Museum, a fun movie for kids).

I even have a photo to prove it!

Don't worry, Sue's not eating chicken, she got a salad!

After the movie, we went back to Brian's house for a bit to hang out with him and his sister In. A good time was had by all.

I should also mention that Sue got me the Clerks II DVD, and we watched it on Wednesday night. Good times.

NP: Magma - Theusz Haamtaak

Cookies!

Today, I made some of the Lord (although it may be Partridge or Nixon, I think Nixon family) traditional Christmas holiday cookies, merengue cookies. Very tasty stuff. And quite easy to make, although everyone thinks they're hard to make. It's just three egg whites, a ton of sugar, a bit of baking powder, some vanilla extract, and stick 'em in the oven. Easy peasy.

Well, there's a bit more to the prep than that, but I can't give all my baking secrets away, can I?

This is also about the 5 year mark of me doing research into my genealogy. Here's a status report, a "now" versus "then" (or actually, "then" vs. "now") list of how I've pushed the generations back in those years:

• Lord: Before, I only knew to John Lord, my G3-GF. Now, I know to Robert Lord, my G4-GF. Not a great push, but oddly enough, the Lord line has been a tough nut to crack. Also, I know more about the Lang family, Jane Lang married John Lord

• Sanecki: I was topping out at my great-grandfather, Josef Sanecki before, now I know to my G3-GF, Marcin Sanecki, from Poland.

• Partridge: I knew to William Partridge, my G2-GF, and now I know to Thomas Partridge, my G5-GF. It's a bit of guesswork when it gets that far back in Ireland, but it's not bad.

• Moskwa: I knew to Wojciech "George" Moskwa, my great-grandfather, and now I know his father's name, Anton Moskwa, and his wife, Annie Furgas. I'm not 100% on that last name spelling of Furgas, but that's what I'm going with for now, until I can get some real info from Poland on the Moskwa's.

• Nixon: No direct relation to the President, thankfully! I knew to my G2-GF, Robert Nixon, and now I know to my G4-GF, Robert Nixon. There's a lot of repeat of names in those old families.

So, you get the picture. I also know of a whole bunch more last names in my direct genealogy that I didn't even know about when I started, including: Fegan, Smith, Zimna, Kawa, Flaga, Maslak, Drozd, Stachura, Dziki, Obuch, Zlotek, Ruszala, Kluska, Blackwood, Houston, Crawford, Lindsay, Dyer, Barr, Kirkwood, Gibb, Laird, Taylor, Fleming, Love, Rodger, Scott, Cunningham, McLeod, Rosebotham, Alderdice, Marcker, Hafner, and Shield.

I also know so much more about the offshoots of the family, I've gotten in touch with some great distant relations who are into genealogy, and have been happy to share info. I'm hoping in the new year to find some more connections, I'd really like to crack open some stuff on the Polish side, and get a bit further with the Lord name itself...

We shall see what the future holds.

NP: Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Forget Me Not

Mail!

Today, I had to go to the Post Office, to send off about 20 packages.

I had a very good e-bay weekend.

However, when about the 16th package was weighed and postage printed, my postal worker's computer crashed.

I've never had this happen at the Post Office before, so I figured the computer would reboot, there might be some inputting of old postage that had been printed already, and we'd continue on our merry way.

Not so.

What happened was this: The computer took at least 5 minutes to reboot. Then, the Postal Worker had to rip off all the old postage that was already done, and reweigh/reprint all the postage that had already been done.

I'm actually amazed that there is no way that the old postage can't be scanned or input back into the system in a case like this.

The Postal Worker was a real trooper through all of this. I would have been drop-kicking the computer out the door, but she just plugged away at it. I made a comment to her about the situation, I can't remember exactly what, that gave her a big smile, and that made me feel better for her about it.

On the second round of scanning, I thought of asking about halfway through if she wanted me to pay for what had been scanned already, in case her computer went south again, but I didn't want to tempt the Postal Computer Gods.

Needless to say, we had no further problems, and the mail was successfully posted. However, that ate up most of my lunch hour, so I had to grab some quick pizza at a local pizza place, and head right back to work. Not the most restful lunch ever, but it was okay.

I sold a bunch of my old Yes Magazines, a fan magazine from the late 80's through the 1990's. I was hoping to get a bit more than I got for them, but that's life. I have a bunch of old Babylon 5 magazines I was looking to sell, but they're big, and there's not a lot of buyers for them, from what I saw on e-bay. So, I was going to chuck them out today, but when push came to shove, I couldn't do it. I'm going to try again later, but they may end up back in a trunk for a period of time. Perhaps they'll go up in value? Maybe?

Sue and I are both going to do some serious weeding of stuff during the winter break from work. It'll be good to do a big purge. I'll continue to weed through CDs I have, I'm getting ruthless at culling stuff now, especially since I can have the music without the actual disc, if you get my drift.

Memories, I'm talking about memories here! I'd *never* illegally copy music.

NP: John Williams - City in the Clouds (Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back)

Libary!

Yes, I misspelled it on purpose.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading to the Elizabeth Library to do some more genealogy research. For those of you who don't know, genealogy is one of my big hobbies, that I got into in late 2001, and have been addicted to ever since. On my dad's side, I've pushed various lines back into the mid-1700's, in Scotland. On my mom's side, I've pushed the dates back to the mid-early 1800's, which is impressive since I didn't know *anything* past my great-grandparents on that side at all when I started this.

My mission for tomorrow is to start going through the 1895 NJ Census, most likely in Jersey City, looking for direct ancestors with the last name of Coulson, and some side ancestors with the names of Jameson, Sutcliffe, and Graves. I'll also do some quick checks of newspapers in Elizabeth for some relatives on my mom's side, and some old city directory information.

It truly is an addiction, this work. I'll think of some side line of research to do, and just find a way of trying to track it down. If I could get paid regularly to do this, I'd probably seriously consider it as an option. But, genealogists generally aren't professional, although there are some certifying boards out there that allow you to be "professional." Perhaps some day I'll do that for fun...

Once I get my library fix done, probably between 12pm and 2pm tomorrow, Sue and I will figure out what to do with our time. We'll probably hit the movies at some point, and food shopping is in the future. Whatever else we do, it'll be fun and relaxing.

If any of you out there would like me to take a look at your background, let me know. I'm happy to do some preliminary digging, to see what's out there. It'll also get me thinking about how to track down leads of people that I don't know the family background of. I've learned a lot about my family since doing this, so I generally know which leads are more likely to pan out (although it's never a guarantee). With others, I'd have to figure out what questions to ask, what are the gaps that I'd need to fill, etc.

Could be fun...

NP: Nick's Eef & Be Ho - Jam on But Not Yours

PS-Nick's Eef & Be Ho was a band I was in post-college.

Wrapping!

I wrapped a grand total of one gift today. It was one for Sue. I'll be wrapping more over the weekend. I'm waiting for a box or two to arrive from Amazon, but I should be all done with stuff by early next week. Shopping is all done, right on time for payday tomorrow, so I can pay it all off...

We're getting closer and closer to the end of the semester here, and all the students leaving for vacation. I always enjoy it when no one is around, as it gets quite quiet in the building and on campus. We also get the week between Christmas and New Years off from work, without having to take vacation, which is kind of nice...

I still haven't started a book yet, but, I do have a new one to read, if I feel like it. It's "World War Z," by Max Brooks, author of "The Zombie Survival Guide," a gripping read. WWZ chronicles the recent Zombie War. Perhaps you remember it? In any case, I'm looking forward to reading people's gripping tales of survival during this recent altercation between us and the undead. Sue got it for me for Christmas, we usually do one gift before the holidays really begin.

I'm also enjoying watching my e-bay sales continue to go up. I have 44 items listed, and 32 are selling. And of the 12 not selling, only 5 do not have at least one watcher monitoring their progress.

If anything doesn't sell, I'm not going to relist the item right away, as if I did, it would sell right before, on, or after Christmas. And no one is really going to be doing e-bay that much around then. People will be on holiday, and while there may be some people trolling e-bay, there won't be as many possible bidders. So, I'll wait until early in the new year before listing anything.

Is anyone else besides me shocked that we're at 2007 already?

NP: Pat Boone - Enter Sandman

Cards!

I'm almost done with writing my Christmas/holiday/New Years/whatever cards for this year. Sue and I have some cute photos on the card for this year. There's actually three photos in one card, for all of you parents out there looking for ways to work yourself into your kid's shots.

I know you're out there! And I know you're thinking about it...

I was reminded by Jen in a comment on yesterday's blog that as a kid, in my house in Wanamassa, NJ, that we always taped up our cards on the stair bannister. Maybe that's why I like taping cards up nowadays in different locations. We have no bannister here, but there are plenty of doorframes or other places to tape up cards. Once we get a critical mass, I'll take a photo and post it up here.

The labels I was using for the cards, my computer printer messed up some of them, so if you get a handwritten envelope, it just means your extra special. Really.

I have a bunch of stuff I'm selling on e-bay now. It seems that a lot of it is going, which is great! Keep looking, buy early and buy often! I'm continuing to try to weed things out of my life that I don't really need anymore. Some old magazines, CD's I'm getting remastered versions of, some DVD's, and other random things.

I will also attempt to complete my Christmas shopping tonight. We'll see how that goes...

I feel all over the place, blogging tonight. I did just finish exercising, maybe that's affecting my brain. Who knows...

NP: Pete Townshend - Behind Blue Eyes (demo)

Holidays!

Today, Sue and I put up a bunch of our Christmas decorations. For some reason, I always (for the past few years at least) get depressed putting up the decorations. I don't recall if this happened when I was younger, but it happens in spades now.

There's nothing tangible causing the depression, and once they're up, I'm glad they're there. I just get very down when they're actually going up. It's strange, I know...

In general, I do enjoy the Christmas holidays. I like seeing family, friends, and just having the time off. There's no great religious piece for the holidays to me, but I do look at this time as a period of reflection on the year gone by, and the upcoming year/years. I *don't* do new years resolutions or anything like that. I actually think of New Years as a pretty fake holiday. If friends are doing a party or getting together, or hanging out, I'm happy to do that, but I'm not really that into the whole New Years idea.

It's been hard this year to get into the whole Christmas gift giving spirit, as I'm not really sure what to get people. I also tend to get people things that I think they'd like, or that I think they *should* like. That's one reason why I like to actually spend time with people around the holidays, versus having to do the whole gift exchange thing, I'd rather build experiences and friendships/relationships with people, versus just handing over a gift.

Also, I haven't been able to think up some really good gifts this year. I think I've been kind of consumed with the move down here and the new job, so it's been hard to get out of my own head, and into a space to think about others as much as I'd like to at this time of year.

As a kid, I think it was Christmas of 1974, we were on a family vacation down to Florida/DisneyWorld. (It may have been Christmas of 1975, I'm not exactly sure, but if I had to bet money, I'd bet on '74). I remember coming back to the hotel room, and there were two wrapped gifts on the bed, one for me and one for my brother. I remember being so surprised that Santa knew where to come down to deliver our gifts to us. I got a Lego set, your basic building blocks to build a small house. I had those for quite a long time, and I remember that as a very fun, happy Christmas.

For being so young, I actually do remember bits and pieces of that vacation. I also remember getting chicken-pox in the January after getting back. My brother got them first, then I got them. I vaguely remember him getting them, but I have no real memory of me having them. I've probably blocked that out!

So, for this holiday, I hope I get to see a lot of people. It'll be nice to actually be in NJ, and not have to do the big drive from New Hampshire down here.

I'm not quite sure if this entry is what Queenie was looking for in her blog, but it's what I came up with...

Enjoy! More to come...

NP: Bill Bruford's Earthworks - Original Sin (23/24 June 2001)

Maniacs!

So, I use Windows Media Player to play my mp3's on my computer, often when I'm on this computer. Typing up blogs, working on genealogy, whatever I happen to be doing.

I like WMP, because it's very easy to track what has been playing, and how many times a song has been played. I have about 1501 hours of music on here, and I have it on random play. I like that anything can come up at any time. Music, comedy, opera, talk, whatever.

However, for some reason, one song comes up more often than any other. My number one played song at random is "What's the Matter Here?" by 10,000 Maniacs.

A good song, but not one I would choose to listen to 12 times. That's how many times it's come up on WMP since I've been using this for music. The next closest high number is 5 times (for numerous songs). I mean, I do like the song (it's from before 10K Maniacs became a bit too precious for my tastes), but it comes up first a lot of times. Computer error?

Weird, I know, and does it deserve a blog? Well, it just happened, so I had to write about it.

Coming up tomorrow: My thoughts on Christmas/Holiday spirit.

NP: Lewis Black - Leave a Tip

Link!

You know, I'm a fairly open, friendly person. Sometimes though, someone just rubs me the wrong way, and I never really get close to people who are friends of friends, or people I see on a semi-regular basis. Sometimes it's just personality differences, or generally, I don't see a need to try to get to know someone.

I have some friends from college who I'm close to, and in that circle, there's one or two people who I never really initiate any contact with. However, one of those people, over time, has gotten to be not as annoying as they were when I first met them.

That sounds like they're still annoying now, but they're really not. I'm just operating on residual annoyance when I say that. The last few times I've seen this person, he actually hasn't been annoying at all. In fact, we've had some decent conversations, which is good. I like to like the people I hang out with, even if they're still not someone I'd initiate contact with on my own.

So, where is this all going? A few days ago, I noticed a link to this person's blog type site on one of my friend's blogs. I clicked on it, just to see what was up. After reviewing some of his writing, I noticed that this little blog was actually listed amongst the 4 or 5 other blogs of friends he had listed.

I was oddly touched by this. Here's someone who honestly, over the 12 years or so I've known him, I've barely given the time of day to (in my own way, never being actively nasty, just not really engaging in anything), who made the effort to put me on his blog. It may seem like a minor thing, but it did, again, make me rethink how I've been towards this person over the last years. I have been having better conversations with him over time, and this has made me think about how I do interact with people who I have tended to write off at different times of my life.

Granted, I'm honest enough with myself that I know we're not going to be best buddies or something, but I can approach our meetings with a different view now. So, in some way, perhaps me knowing this person who I thought I had no use for, has made me in a small way, a better person for having my own faults and assumptions reflected back on me.

So, there's your deepness for today. Enjoy!

In other news, I got my first photo Christmas card of this season in the mail today. I'll repeat my rant from last year, where I find it annoying that my friends who have kids, only send out photos of their kids in their cards, never of themselves! I enjoy that my friends have kids, but I want to see the kids *with* their parents! I know the parents better than I know the kids, and I want to see them all together. The one I got today was of the two kids outside, hanging out on a beach. It'd be easy enough to get the parents in the shot! Heck, just Photoshop them into the picture, it doesn't even have to be real!

I miss seeing my friends, and I'd at least like to see them in a photo, if not in real life!

So, parents, I plead with you! Include yourself in your photos! Your kids are great, I'm sure, but I want to see you all in one photo! Or, it's easy enough with these photo cards nowadays to have multiple shots on the card. That's what Sue and I did (watch your mailboxes, folks!), and it's great! Have a big shot of the kids, make it the main one, and put a little one of the parents on the side. If it's small enough, it'll hide the bags under your eyes from losing all that sleep from "the kids" keeping you up!

NP: Genesis - Your Own Special Way

Books!

I'm glad to see my book blog from yesterday getting a good reaction. Jen, I'll take a look at that book that you mention, and Queenie, Stephen King is usually worth a good re-read.

I've read The Stand numerous times, and have really enjoyed it. I did read "Everything's Eventual" earlier this year, as I went through one of my King kicks I go through every 10 years or so... I tend to burn out on King, and then save up a bunch of his stuff to read, and then get into reading them all at once. This most recent kick started out after finishing The Dark Tower series (made me cry, by the way). I picked up "Insomnia," and even though I recall it getting some poor reviews, I actually really liked it.

Lou, one of my college friends, tends to think that many of King's books don't have really good endings, and I can agree with him on that. Some do have the whole "deus ex machina," let's pull a rabbit out of the hat conclusions. The Stand is actually kind of like that, but since the subject of the book is all about good, evil, God, and mystical forces, I can see where it comes from there.

I also enjoyed Desperation/The Regulators when I read them both in a row. Desperation was the better novel, but having the same cast of characters in two very different novels was an intriguing experiement. Bag of Bones, I read a few years ago, and thought it was a good return to form for King. Next time I'm in a bookstore, I may have to pick up some of his newer paperbacks that I haven't read, to finish off the tail end of my 10 year kick.

I do have to give honorable mention to King's short story, "The Boogeyman," in the Night Shift collection. If you haven't ever read this story, I recommend you to go out and find the book in your local bookstore/library, and read it. I believe it's the second story in the book, and when I first read it as a youth, it really got me. I mean, it got me good. I mean, I was frightened to sleep. I mean, I couldn't not think about the story for quite a long time. I mean, it freaked me out, MAN!!!!

Sorry, a bit of a flashback there...

The Harry Potter books were also suggested as a possible re-read. I could definintely do that at some point, but I really just started reading them all late last year, so it's a bit too soon for a re-read. Looking through my bookshelves today, I noted Kim Stanley Robinson's "Mars" trilogy of books. They're worth a re-read, but I last re-read them (for the first time) right before I got married back in 2004, so like with Potter, it's a bit too soon to jump into them again.

I got strange looks at lunch today when I mentioned that I had re-read the Lord of the Rings trilogy perhaps 10 times in my life. Perhaps it's more like 8 or so, but I don't think, for work that good, that that's too many times... Although if I go the Tolkien route with my next read, I very well might pull out The Simirillion instead of LOTR. It's a tougher read, but I think I'm still getting more content out of reading that at this point. It's dense, like reading a novel with no dialogue, but very rewarding for the depth of the story. And it sets up all the sadness that happens in LOTR, giving the entire world of Middle Earth the context of what happens in the Third Age (when LOTR happens). The Simirillion details the First Age of Middle Earth.

Have I lost the non-geeks out there yet?

With all this being said, I still haven't decided what to re-read yet. King is coming up fast (hrm, perhaps the "Four Past Midnight" collection, I recall enjoying that on the first read...), but there still might be some SF dark horses out there. And, of course, the Tolkien is always a strong option.

NP: Camper Van Beethoven - Shut Us Down

Chapter!

I finished the Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" on Sunday. It's a good read, again, recommended for all regular (and irregular) readers of this blog. However, I have a thing with most non-fiction books.

I have real trouble reading the last chapters of non-fiction books. I don't know what causes it. It's with science books, history books, pretty much any subject that I read non-fiction in.

Sometimes, it feels that the author is just restating what they already made clear in the rest of the book. Other times, they're trying to reach some grandiose conclusion, when I'm not really interested in hearing about it. Other times, I might just be tired of the subject, even if I'm interested in the book itself. I figure that nothing much new is going to be brought up in the last chapter, so I can safely skim or ignore it.

With the Dawkins book, I'll probably try to read the last chapter in a month or so, when I'm a bit more distant from the material.

But, in the meantime, I am now TOTALLY without an unread book in my "to read" pile. This is rare for me. So, I have to decide what I may want to re-read. Here are some options:

• I may jump into a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or the Simirillion. Always worth an extra read.
• The Gunslinger books of Stephen King. Granted, it's a 7 book series, that I just finished reading about a year ago, but it could be interesting to re-read at least the first novel.
• Asimov, Clarke, or Heinlein short stories: I really enjoy the short story as a format, and I cut my teeth reading some of these science fiction master's shorter works in my youth. I'd be interested to see what still stands up, and what doesn't quite cut the mustard anymore.
• I could re-read some of my books from grad school... Oh wait, that sounds like work. Scratch that.
• A variety of my favorite SF authors have books I could re-read. Those authors include David Brin, Gordon Dickson, Gregory Benford, the aforementioned Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, or a variety of others...

So, any opinions? LOTR is an old favorite, which I actually haven't re-read for a few years, so it might be nice to take this opportunity to jump into that world again, but it may also be nice to revisit some other works I haven't thought about in awhile.

Opinions are welcome in the comments section...

NP: Mike Keneally - Dyin' Day

Day!

Today was one of those general "good days" I hear so much about...

Work was generally a positive experience. I met with some students about minor issues, which was fairly straightforward, I did some good work in getting our RA selection process ready for next semester (January-February timeframe), had some good work related conversations, and in general, accomplished what I wanted to do.

And, it's Wednesday already! Only two more days of work until the weekend. I'm not quite sure what's on our agenda yet. Possibly trying out some new restaurants, maybe I'll do some genealogy stuff, and I may have to go on my own to start my Christmas shopping in force. I'd go with Sue, but I may be getting her stuff, and having her around for that generally isn't a good idea if we're going for "surprise." And, we'll probably hit the movies at some point.

One thing that I've realized about myself (I don't know if this is a new realization, or a repeat of an old one), is that I really am a creature of routine. I tend to always blog after exercizing, then I check out some websites, and go to bed by midnight-ish (on weekdays). Sue and I watch the same shows after work (we do like them!) on most days, and our weekends are generally the same. Dinner, movies, finding something to do out of the apartment. Granted, what we do tends to change, but the general pattern is the same.

And, I generally like that. I do like to mix it up a bit, but I also don't go in for a lot of advance planning either. Maybe I should change that... Who knows....

Sue and I may go searching for a particular pancake house this weekend, about half an hour from her. Sue found it on the web, once I get the link, I'll post it up here.

NP: David Bowie - Look Back in Anger (1988 version)

Gift!

So, I bought Sue's first Christmas gift tonight... I have to think of some more stuff soon. I have some ideas, but I'm finding it hard this year to get into the Christmas spirit. It's not that I'm being a Scrooge (Bah Humbug and all that), but I'm drawing a blank on a lot of gift thoughts. I'm sure I'll hit the groove soon, but it just hasn't happened yet.

I got my car back today from AAMCO again. On Thanksgiving, driving back from Monmouth County, the check engine light went on again. In their work on it, the mechanics discovered that one of the sensors they installed was defective. So, there was no real issue with the engine, it just enjoyed lighting up for no real reason. Good to know, and the additional checkups didn't cost me anything, as the company guarantees their work. So, life is good on that front.

NP: Steve Hackett - Firth of Fifth (30 June 2002)

Dream!

I had an odd dream last night.

I was on the storage sets/offices for the old show "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.," which aired on Fox back in 1993-1994. Of course, it starred Bruce Campbell, actor extrodinare. I was walking around, and I ran into Joe Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5, another great TV show from the mid-90's, who, in my dream, was one of the writers on Brisco (he wasn't writing for the show in real life).

I was wandering around, because I might have been a writer on the show, but there was some material on the wall about what the second season of Brisco would have been about. I had to get that info to someone, but I don't know who.

Straczynski wasn't a big part of the dream, he was more like an overseer of the office. I thought it was strange that Brisco still had an extant office, as the show hadn't been produced for 13 years, but Straczynski said that was normal (it's not).

I was outside for a bit of time in the dream, but I forget why. There's more that I'm not remembering (isn't there always?), but that's the basic jist of the story. I did sleep very well last night, maybe that caused my memory of the dream to last a bit longer than normal.

In other news, what am I reading right now? It's called "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins. It examines religion from a scientific/Darwinistic viewpoint, and is an interesting read. Dawkins is a great writer, and always entertaining, even if I wouldn't necessarily phrase some of what he writes in the same way. He is direct, that's for sure. I recommend the book for all thinking people.

NP: Adrian Belew - Tango Zebra

Wedding!

Sue and I attended a wedding at the Hotel Pierre in NYC last night. Quite a nice hotel, I can see why it's one of my mom's favorite places, although we did not get to see the entire place. The wedding setup was on the 2nd floor, in a few large banquet hall rooms. The wedding was a good time, Sue and I met some nice people, although you can never really have a deep conversation with people you don't know already at these things. The food was decent, although I do sometimes think that the more swanky a place is, the smaller the dinner portions actually are.

All in all, a good time, and the bride (Sue's friend) and groom look very happy together!

The wedding ran a bit late, so we didn't get home until a little after 2am. It's very easy to drive out of NYC at that time of night, as there's no wait at all at the Lincoln Tunnel! So, today was a sleepy day. Tomorrow's back to work, but it's now less than a month until the next big vacation break. Good times...

NP: Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (24 Jan 1975)

Correction!

As Brian points out in the comment for last night's entry, I *have* been to a wedding in NYC, his sister's back in November 2001. My apologies to her for forgetting that one! When I was thinking of NYC weddings, I was more thinking of the big hotel weddings, of which this upcoming one is going to be. Brian's sister got married in the Columbia University chapel (a very nice place!), and the reception was in a church hall, which also was a neat setting.

So, consider me corrected!

Turkey!

Ah, the joys of a few days off of work. Heading home to have a meal, see family, and do all that fun stuff. Yes, it's Thanksgiving. Sue and I are going to my mom's for dinner tomorrow. It'll just be the three of us, a nice small meal. I like holidays, but I also like not making a *huge* deal of them. It's a good time to reconnect with family and friends, which is a good life affirming process.

Reflective? Perhaps. I like the small gatherings better than larger ones, although I guess everything has its time and place. I don't dislike large groups, it's just that I have to be in the mood for it. But even then, I generally prefer to hang out with no more than 5-6 people at once, it gives everyone a chance to contribute something.

Both Sue and I got off of work early today. I'm on call for work, so we really couldn't go out and do stuff, but we did order Chinese for dinner, which is always tasty. I went with the Sesame Chicken, and Sue did spicy szchewan (gross misspelling, right!) tofu. And, there's plenty for leftovers...

I'm thinking the drive down to Asbury Park for dinner shouldn't be too bad tomorrow. And if the Turnpike/Parkway are crowded, we can always hop off of there and go on the "back" roads. We'll probably pop into my Dad's after eating at my mom's, to see people over there also. It'll be a fun day.

On Saturday, Sue and I are going to a wedding in NYC for one of her friends from High School. That's a big event that I can usually get into. I've never been to a wedding in NYC, so this will be a good time. The place is up around 61st Street, I believe, and it starts late (7pm or so) on Saturday.

That's about it for now, nothing too deep tonight...

NP: King Crimson - The Letters (16 October 1971)

Hose!

I brought my car to AAMCO this morning, and they fixed it right up for me. There was some sort of hose that was loose, and some transmission fluid had leaked out. They waved the magic car fixing wand over my auto, and all is now well. It's actually driving better than it was on Saturday, I believe. I'll have to bring it back late next week for a quick check, to make sure all is well, but I'm fairly confident it'll be fine. No charge for this morning's work either, since it was their issue with whatever hose had to be replaced that caused it.

In other news, those of you who know me know of my musical tastes, and recent news has been made public that one of my favorite bands, Genesis, will be touring next year. I know Genesis gets kind of a bad rap, being not very fashionable, due mainly to the presence of Phil Collins, but that's okay. Genesis has always been a band that's more than their radio hits, and I'm looking forward to seeing them next year when they tour in the US. I just hope it doesn't conflict with any work committments, but I'm sure the odds of that are small.

The tour initially was supposed to be a "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" show, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett rejoining the band, but Gabriel is still a bit hesitant to commit to such a venture. Give it another year or two, and I think it'll go forward. Genesis, back in the day, was a very "arty" band, and even their more modern albums (released 12 years ago!) weren't just three minute singles. And, you look at the older albums, and there are three minute songs on there also. From their first album of worth, "Trespass," from 1970, to "We Can't Dance" from 1992, there are songs of value on each album. Yeah, "Invisible Touch" was a bit over overkill, but that album was almost an accident of the 1980's. A conjunction of decent songs, with Collins's popularity just propelled the band to another level. There are songs I love on each Genesis album, and there are songs I can live without. Hopefully this upcoming tour (in late summer 2007 in the US) will give me more of the ones I enjoy. All signs are looking good, for now...

NP: George Gershwin - An American In Paris

Comedy!

Something very funny happened today. Sue and I were driving to the supermarket in my car (yes, it's back, more on that later), and on the back of a car in front of us, there was a deer that someone had obviously hunted and killed, strapped on the trunk hood.

Sue doesn't like looking at those types of things (dead animals, etc), so looked away. Unfortunately, the car was in front of us for a few minutes, so it was hard to avoid the gaze of the deceased deer. What made me laugh so much was Sue's line: "Well, she looks like she's just resting on the back of the car, so that's okay."

Of course, I had to point out that few deers would rest on the back of a car in the first place, let alone tied up with their head hanging down the side of the car, but what do I know about wildlife?

But in other non-dead-animal related news, I do have my car back, after it being at AAMCO for a bit of time. It's driving well, the brakes are good, and I'm getting used to the new transmission. However, on the way back from the supermarket this afternoon, the yellow check engine light went on. Yellow is not too bad, if it was red, I'd be really worried. But, I'll have to bring the car back to the mechanic on Monday, to have them check out what's up. It's probably just a loose something or other, but I still want it checked out.

This light has only gone on once before, when I first moved to Vermont back in 1998. At that point, there was an issue with the air filter in the car, so it was replaced very quickly. I think this will be something as minor, but it's still a pain to have to have it taken care of, when I just got the car back.

In other news, what have I been reading recently? I finished, about a week ago, Joseph Ellis's book on Thomas Jefferson, "American Sphinx." It was a good read, but fairly light, compared to other books that I've read on Jefferson. He also skipped over some of the more touchy subjects of Jefferson's life, such as his response to the Aaron Burr affair, and the slavery issue. Ellis did do well with Jefferson's ability to basically say one thing, and believe another. Self deception and Jefferson go hand in hand, and Ellis, perhaps wisely, stayed away from conjecture about Jefferson's interior world. But, that is what makes Jefferson so fascinating. It certainly wasn't a bad read, but I was hoping for a bit better.

Then, I read "Star Wars on Trial," edited by David Brin and some other guy. Brin is one of my favorite SF authors, and he does have a bee in his bonnet about the Star Wars movies. Generally, he feels that public perception of Star Wars=The Entirety of Good Science Fiction is a bit off the mark. I don't necessarily disagree with him about it, but sometimes I felt that the "Prosecution" essays in the book were taking it all a bit too seriously. The "Defense" essays weren't that much better, although all were generally entertaining. I don't know what I was hoping for from this book, but I don't really feel that I got it.

Now, I'm reading Richard Dawkins's "The God Delusion." More reports on that one as I get into it, I'm only about 5 pages in right now.

NP: Phil Collins - I've Forgotten Everything

Car!

Ah, it finally happened. I have had to put a rather large amount of money into my car.

Recently, when stopped at a traffic light or stop sign, I've noticed that when I go to accelerate, sometimes the car would not immediately go after pressing the gas. It'd rev' a bit, and then go, like the gear wasn't catching right away. I've never driven a stick shift, but I imagine it's like when a gear would slip or something like that.

So, I brought it to a national chain repair place, (Beep-Beep), and they diagnosed the trouble as the transmission, which is what I expected. And as you may or may not know, transmissions are fairly expensive to fix.

Now, the car I have is 9 years old, and in those years, I've probably only put about $1200 into it, outside of oil changes and other minor maintenance. So, spending the bucks that we're spending now, over the life of the car, doesn't hurt too much. But, this is the last major money I'm putting into the car. If this can help it last for 2-3 more years, then it'll be worth it.

The car should be ready tomorrow. I'll either pick it up during or after work.

Some people get very emotional about their cars. I'm not one of them. I tried to name the car when I first got it (G'Kar, pretty clever for you B5 nerds out there), but it just felt kinda stupid naming it. So, it's just my car. 97 Chevy Cavalier, I got it while in grad school, and it has served me well.

Yesterday, I took Sue's car down home to see my stepsister's new baby. It was good to see the little guy, and it's fun to be able to make casual visits home, without it being a major production. Both the drive down and the drive back took a little over an hour. Both mother and baby are doing well, although mom is tired from baby, which is to be expected...

NP: Pink Floyd - One Slip (9 Sept 1987)

Cups!

Sue and I went to the movies today, saw "Stranger Than Fiction." Quite good, and more on that later.

While waiting for the movie to start, and drinking my large Cherry-Coke, I was reminded of an idea that Brian had awhile back. It's a brilliant one, and it came to my mind today while reading the vapid, banal blatherings up on the screen from half unknown celebrites in the "E!" series of quotes. Something from Carmen Electra along the lines of "Life's not worth living if there's not a camera around," or some such thing.

Brian's idea was to have McDonalds and other fast food places, instead of just having "YAY MCDONALDS" or whatever they put on their cups or other packaging, have historical facts, interesting educational stuff on their materials. It would be good PR for the companies, and good for the populace who might actually learn something, instead of either being unengaged with the items in their hands, or looking at the latest M logo on the cups. When the companies would do their promotions, sure, they could still make Darth Vader cups, or whatever they wanted, but at other times, they'd be educating the public. It would be cheap, and fun! They're already paying someone to design the logos on their packages, just have a historian or someone on staff also, to bring up interesting facts from the past.

I thought today that another interesting place to do this, with a captive audience, was in movie theaters. I don't truly care what Carmen Electra, Matt Damon, or others have to say about their fleeting fame, why not put some quotes from Jefferson, Washington, Martin Luther King, and others up there? Or, do "History of the Movies," with Charlie Chaplin, or even go back further, get quotes from Edwin Booth up there... Granted, no films were made in the 1800's, but he *was* an actor.

Rant mode off now...

But, one other quick thing. One of the ads before the movie was for a car repair place in Jersey City, and their tag line was "We take the Dents out of Accidents." Clever, and it got me thinking if "dents" is actually derived from "accidents." I'll have to look that up. An answer to this in a future blog.

As for the movie itself, I really enjoyed it. Will Ferrell was understated, which is when I think he's actually at his most funny. The story was fun, although parts did feel a bit underdeveloped, such as Ferrell's relationship with the female lead (Maggie Glynnenhall, or however it's spelled). It would have been nice to see Buster Bluth (Tony Hale) get more screen time too, but I was just happy to see him with two hands. Overall, a good solid recommendation from Sue and myself for the movie.

The idea of a fictional character realizing they're in a fiction isn't original to this movie. I think I first ran across it in novels by Robert Heinlein, specifically in "The Number of the Beast" and "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls." Any other examples out there that you, gentle readers, can think of?

On Friday night, I watched the new Battlestar Galactica. I enjoyed the episode, but thought that the resolution was a bit anti-climatic. However, in the big picture, I am wondering the following about the show:

• It seems like the Galactica, along with the Cylons, are really on the trail of Earth. I think at some point, they will find the lost 13th colony, but when in the show will it happen? Not this season, I predict. Probably not even in the 4th season, should one happen. Also, what era will they find Earth? There's no guarantee that they'll find it during our "present" history. It'd be fun if they stumble upon Earth, and we're still in medieval times, or something like that.
• Will the Cylons kill Baltar? So far, the show hasn't killed off any major characters (Billy doesn't count), so may the B-man be the first to go? I personally don't think so, he's too fun to be around...
• Will Sharon/Athena and Hilo conceive again? I don't see why not. Sooner or later, she'll have to find out that her baby is alive. What are the Cylons doing with the baby anyway?

I think that's all for now... Coming up soon, what is Mike reading?

NP: Genesis - Back In N.Y.C. (15 Apr 1975)

Election!

Ah, politics. It's so nice when things change, and we see the voice of the voters expressed so clearly.

I do have to say that, like many, I thought that the House would go Democrat this election. I thought there was a strong chance of the Senate going Democrat also, but was less willing to put myself out there with that possibility. Turns out I was right.

And, the country got a boost when Rumsfeld was resigned the day after the election. Now, what do you all think out there? Do you think that if Rumsfeld had left, lets say, a week before the election, it would have helped the Republicans at all? Personally, I think it would have, although there would have been talk of it being a political move. Which, of course, it would be.

I must imagine that there are some Republicans out there who are annoyed at the timing of the Rumsfeld decision, thinking that, like I say above, Rumsfeld departure could have been better timed for their electoral benefit.

Now, if the Republicans had held onto both houses of Congress, would Rumsfeld have been kept on?

While I'm happy that the Democrats now have Congress, I'm not expecting us to be out of Iraq tomorrow. What I do expect is that perhaps a bright light can be turned on the events of the past 4-6 years, so that we can begin to learn the truth about the Iraq debacle, and other various and sundry issues. I think we're in for some interesting times.

NP: Jon Anderson - Cafe

Beta!

A quick note to say that I've switched over to Blogger Beta. Don't know if it makes any real difference, but figured I'd say something about it.

That's why I didn't write last night, this was taking all evening to update to Beta. I will write more political stuff tonight...

Cheers!

Mike

Election!

I'd love to hear Anderson Cooper on CNN ask Bill Bennett, "So, if you were a betting man, where would you place the final results tonight?"

It may be in poor taste, but I'd laugh.

I voted early today, with some of the new electronic machines here in NJ. I've never been disenfranchised so efficiently!

Actually, I thought the machine seemed pretty efficient. We still need some sort of paper receipt, which I always thought the old machines should have given also.

Looking pretty good for Democrats now. Lets hope the night continues in this way.

NP: CNN Election coverage

Belt!

I managed one more belt hole in my belt this morning, going the thinner way. So, I guess that's good. There's less of me to go around now.

I need to take more photos to put up on here. I've been a little remiss in doing that recently.

NP: Steve Hackett - Little Cloud (26 Jan 2002)

Sweat!

Just got done exercising a few minutes ago. I've been holding steady at doing about 20 minutes on the elliptical machine each night. Sooner or later, I'll up it to half an hour, and that will be as high as it goes. I've mentioned on here before, I'm not really willing to give up more of my life than that to exercise. 30 minutes is enough to keep me active, get the heart rate up a bit, and sweat off a bit of the poundage.

Although, I have to say, just cutting down on the food intake, I've already lost at least 10 pounds. At Dartmouth, it was very easy to get some ice cream at lunch, and eat other extra stuff. I'm finding here at Saint Peter's, even though the cafeteria is all you can eat, that I'm eating less in general. If that can continue, then maybe I'll even drop into the 175 lbs. area I've been out of since about 1996. I don't think I'll ever get down to my high school weight of 140-145, but I have no real urge to get that light again.

I suppose it's time to start thinking about Christmas, people will start asking what I want. Honestly, there's not a lot of "stuff" out there that I'm looking to get. I enjoy books, music, and getting some DVD's, but I'm trying to cut down on all three, especially the DVD's.

Maybe a donation in my name to the Human Fund is in order...

Of course, I do have to also start thinking about what to get others in my life. It is fun to get people stuff, but it's hard, especially when you don't know what they're looking for, or what they have.

I actually have an idea for a friend's birthday, which I have to order soon... Ack, but I need that friend's new address! Maybe he'll get the hint by reading this blog, and send me his address.

Eh, probably not, I better e-mail him.

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday. Vote early, vote often!

NP: ProjeKct Two - Live Groove (1 June 1998)

Vote!

Ah, November 1st, and thoughts turn to election day this coming November 7th (right?), and our upcoming mid-term elections. I encourage everyone out there to vote, no matter what your political persuasion...

Okay, I'd much prefer if all Republicans stayed home this coming Tuesday, but hey, I have to be equitable, right?

Well, it is my blog, so screw it...

Personally, I think it's important to vote in every election. I remember, in the November 1984 election, my grandfather was in the hospital, and wasn't able to vote. On the way to the hospital, the Saturday following the election, I recall my dad saying that Pop actually had some connections, and found out afterwards they could have got him an absentee ballot, so he wouldn't have missed out voting.

When we were in the hospital room, I mentioned this to Pop, and said something along the lines of, "Well, Reagan won, so missing your vote didn't really change the outcome, he didn't need your vote to win." Pop then looked at me, and said, "You always vote, no matter if you're sure your candidate will win. " I didn't argue with my Pop, so I have always thought that no matter what, you vote.

That was also the last time I saw him alive, as he died, surprisingly, that night in the hospital. He was 68 years old. His health was failing, so if he didn't pass away then, with hindsight, I don't know how much longer he would have lived, but I think that also makes it important for me to vote whenever I can.

Granted, I don't know if Pop would be happy with me voting Democrat most of the time, but you can't win them all. At least I'm voting!

My polling place here in Jersey City is within walking distance, so I'll probably go during lunch on Tuesday. It'll be fun, although there are less local races going on than I thought. It's really only the Senate and House race happening. No state or local candidates on the sample ballot I got. So, it should be pretty quick to get in and out and rock the vote...

In other news, I was glad to see my old friend Geoff make a comment here on the blog... I look forward to more comments!

NP: Queen - Keep Yourself Alive

Halloween!

Yes, it is, of course, Halloween. No dressing up for me today, I never really think about Halloween costumes until it's too late. And usually, it's easier to just treat it like a regular day. I do think I really liked Halloween as a kid, but it was more about getting lots of candy than anything else.

I did see some kids going around, Trick-or-treating with their parents earlier today, which was fun. It really is a kid's holiday, maybe even more so than Christmas or a birthday.

I've got nothing else to really write about now... If I come up with anything else tonight, I'll log back in.

NP: Plant & Page - Nobody's Fault But Mine

Recording!

This weekend, I recorded three quick pieces on my home studio set up. I think only one of them was slightly over a minute. The other two were probably less than 45 seconds. I recorded them as musical bumpers/interludes for Pseudocertainty, recorded by Joe and myself. These bumpers will probably show up on the next episode we record, which should be in maybe 2 weeks time.

One piece is some basic percussion with some keyboards on top of them. The second was a bass piece, just messing around with some delay, and the third one was bass and guitar, very simple and straightforward... Nothing to set the world on fire, but just some good segues from one segment of the show to another.

In other news, on Saturday, I went over to the Elizabeth Public Library to check out some genealogy stuff. I got hard copies of the obituary for one of my Great-grandmothers, Apolonia Sanecki (maiden name Drozd). She died back in 1943, and I had a scan of the obit, but it's good to get the hard copy from microfilm, in case there was anything else near the obit that was relevant.

There wasn't.

But, you don't know until you check.

I also found the obit for a Frank Golda, who died in 1986. I believe, based on what I've been told from some of my Sanecki connections, that Frank was a cousin to my grandfather. I need to verify this, but if it's true, I can try to track down some living Golda's, to see if they know anything about the family.

I also started going through some of the old NJ state censuses. Unfortunately, the state censuses (every 10 years, from 1855 to 1915) are not indexed, so I have to look at each page of the census to try to find relevant people. For some places, like Harrison, NJ, it's not too bad, as the town is maybe 1/3 of an entire microfilm reel. However, Jersey City for 1885 is 5 rolls of microfilm total.

I learned this weekend that I can go through one roll of microfilm, visually scanning each page for recognizable family names, in a little over an hour. Not horrible, but not quick either. The only good thing about this is that once I find the first family connection in these reels, I should find the other Jersey City people fairly quickly, as they all lived very close to each other.

The family names I'm scanning for are Coulson, Jameson, Sutcliffe, and Ferrigan. Fortunately, not the most common of names, although there's always the danger of zoning out and missing a name as it goes by. I try to set the microfilm controls slow enough that I can read all the last names on a page, but fast enough so that I don't get bored sitting there. It's a tricky balance, but not impossible to do.

I do wish that Ancestry.com or some other website would index these State Censuses, but that's too much to ask for right now, I guess.

NP: REM - Saturn Return

Music!

This weekend, I have as my goal to write and record at least 5 short-ish (15-30 seconds) music pieces to use as bumper music for Joe and my Pseudocertainty show. I'm tired of Joe having all the music fun! Also, I think the exercise of my musical muscles will keep me interested in doing some more expansive things.

There are times when I think about recording some covers, just to be doing something with the recording equipment I have. Then, I want to do some of my own things, even if it's re-recording some songs I've already recorded. Of course, all this comes down to really wanting to generate some new material. I actually picked up the acoustic guitar for the first time in awhile tonight, just to start getting into practice playing again, should I use it at all for the recording this weekend. I'll see where the "muse" takes me. It should be fun....

I'm about 80 pages out from finishing the Alastair Reynolds book, "Century Rain," I mentioned a few blogs ago. I continue to enjoy the book, and if I don't finish it tonight, I should get it finished by this weekend.

No real plans for this weekend yet. Saturday should be rainy, so maybe we'll do indoor stuff that day.

NP: The Beatles - Ain't She Sweet

Pseudo!

Joe and I just finished recording a new episode of Pseudocertainty. It went well, and the show should be up on the website in the next few days. These are always fun to do, we work well off of each other, and when we come with material to talk about on the fly.

We really do a minimum of prep for each show, we'll read some articles, find some interesting things on line, or just have some good material to react to. As Joe said recently, we could be the "Car Talk" of aliens...

Dare to dream.

NP: Talking Heads - Heaven

Farscape!

This weekend, I finished watching the Farscape series on DVD, with the TV movie "The Peacekeeper Wars." I had seen the movie when it was originally on, back in 2005 I believe. It was definitely a satisfying conclusion to the series, but I think it did suffer from just having to resolve so much in so short a period of time.

The plot was right where it should be, but over the course of a season we would have seen so many more good character moments. It wasn't that the movie lacked good moments for the cast, but it was just too compressed. But, I still give the move a B+/A-, as it was a solid conclusion to the show. Of course, Ben Browder and Claudia Black are back working together on one of the Stargate shows. A bit of stunt casting, to be sure, but I'm glad they're working.

Just don't make me watch the show...

Tonight's my last night of duty until late in November. Without going into details, it's been a busy week. It wasn't so much the volume of things to deal with, it was that there were odd things, that were a bit off the beaten track for normal residence life stuff. But, that's why I'm paid the moderately low bucks!

I also watched the Japanese-Raymond Burr'less version of the very first Godzilla movie. It's quite good, and a much darker film than the Americanized version was. The American version focuses on the monster aspect, while there's much more of an anti-nuclear (but not anti-American) stance in the Japanese version. It's very well done for basically being a movie where the main character is a person in a dinosaur-monster outfit.

NP: Soundgarten - Spoonman

Remiss!

Of course, as Jen pointed out, I'd be remiss in not also pointing out that my stepsister Holly and her husband Dan just had their very own baby! Of course, Holly did the lion's share of the "birth" work, so really she had the baby, but we got to include the father somehow, right?

Tonight's still a duty night for me, I'll be on call to respond to any campus events until Monday morning at 9am or so. It appears that campus is pretty quiet right now, a lot of students go home for the weekend, or away with friends, so I may not get awoken in the middle of the night. Here's to hope!

I did have to run around a bit tonight, taking care of a few minor issues, so I missed portions of Battlestar Galactica. However, I did get the general idea of the episode. If you watch the show, and haven't seen this week's episode yet, you should stop reading, and come back when you've seen the show.

• It's good to see Baltar finally fall in with the Cylons on a permanent basis, in a similar way to how the original Baltar did in the first series. Not that the process was the same, but now, we'll have a better window into the Cylon world with Baltar with them.
• The image of Galactica coming through the atmosphere was great. As was Adama's final statement to his crew, before the arrival of Pegasus.
• It's sad to see Pegasus go, but I am a sucker for ramming speed. And it's good that a piece of the Pegasus took out another Base Ship...
• Adama the Hero, Tighe the Forgotten...
• I was not surprised to learn that Casey was not actually Starbuck's baby, but I did think that she was a Cylon child. So, to see that she was just another human was a good twist.
• Will Roslyn now be President for Life or something along those lines, or will there be another election?

That's all my thoughts for now. I got another Galactica disc from Netflix today, so that will probably be my viewing for tomorrow.

NP: Emerson Lake & Powell - Still, You Turn Me On... (Summer 1986)

Thursday!

Yes, I've sunk to a new low. I have no other subject for this blog, just the day...

Granted, I don't really take much time coming up with my catchy one word titles. I just go for it. That's the wildman I am on this blog.

I've been thinking about asking for a roll call in the comments here, to see how many "regular" readers I get on this. I know of a few friends/family who check in like clockwork, but I'm curious about who else is out there. But, I wonder if asking people for "attendance" is a bit too much like seeking random affirmation. Your thoughts? Feel free to write comments...

On the reading front, I just started a new science fiction book by Alastair Reynolds, called Century Rain. I have been reading less SF recently, mainly because there's more non-fiction out there that's of interest to me than fiction. However, Reynolds is a newer author who I've found, and he writes stories that aren't just space monster shoot 'em ups. I'm all for a good adventure, but less in reading and more on tv or in movies.

I've just started this book, but it seems to be a sort of murder mystery, beginning in Paris 1959, but there's a future section to it also, taking place at least a couple centuries in the future, when Earth is uninhabitable. I'm assuming the two stories are going to link up at some point, but I'm too early in the narrative to see where it's going. I've enjoyed his previous books, so I'm hoping this one will be a good read.

Other books "on deck" I have are "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, "Star Wars on Trial," edited by David Brin and some other guy, "Abducted," by someone named Clancy, and "American Sphinx" by Joseph Ellis. Having only four books in my on deck area is rare for me, but I haven't found a good bookstore in this area yet. There's a Barnes & Nobles in Hoboken I'll have to check out, and I'm sure there's some other ones around, I just haven't made time to find them yet.

And a hearty congrats to my friend Lou and his wife Sania, they had a baby last week!

NP: Jeff Buckley - Nightmares By The Sea

Stupid!

Have you ever done something really dopey, and spent the a lot of time kicking yourself about it? I just did something like that...

Sue and I opened up new bank accounts two weekends ago, since Citizens, our old bank from NH, doesn't have any branches in this area. On the Tuesday after Columbus Day, I gave our Human Resources office my new direct deposit information for the new bank. They said that the new deposit wouldn't take effect until my November 15th paycheck, so I could expect the October 15th check to go into my old account.

Therefore, when the 15th rolled around, I initiated some bill payments, and debited them from my Citizens account. Granted, I should have checked the Citizens website, to see if my pay had credited...

You see where this is going, don't you?

So, on Monday, I check Citizens on-line, and there's still no sign of my cash. With a sinking feeling, I check my new account, and bingo, there's my money.

Eep.

I do some quick transferring of money from my old Savings into my checking account, and I end up only being overdrafted by a measly 60 cents! Today, I sent a check off to Citizens to cover that small amount. But still, it's been a pain in the butt as I've scurried around on-line, and on the phone, trying to resolve all this. I don't like being overdrawn, but I do realize I should have checked the online accounts thoroughly before initiating payment. Now, I know for the future not to do this...

In happier news, my friend Brian came down to visit this weekend. It's always too short, but when you live a few states away from each other, you take what you can get. We geeked out, talking a lot about nerdy TV stuff, watched some fun movies (Shaun of the Dead, anyone), and just hung out. It was very casual, which was good. In the future, we may do some more NYC/NJ stuff, but for this visit, relaxed was the course of the day.

I'm sure there'll be more visits in the future. Maybe I can take Brian on the cemetery tour, and show him where all my old relatives are buried. Wouldn't that be *fun?*

Wouldn't it?

NP: Frank Zappa - Dental Hygene Dilemma

Rain!

Ah, it's raining a bit now, should be kind of dreary for the next few days. Weather. What can you do?

Can I get any more inane on this thing? Weather talk. If you're really interested in the weather, go to here. Really.

I'm on the verge of finishing the present book I'm reading, "The Pirate Coast," the story of the liberation of about 300 US Navy sailors from Tripoli in the early 1800's. It's one of those events in history that people kind of know about ("...From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..." and all that), but that is really sketchy on the details when pressed. The book focuses on William Eaton, former American consul to Tripoli, and leader of a semi-US sponsored effort to overthrow the government of Tripoli. The book generally does a good job with the story, but the author is really in love with Eaton as a character. Not a real detraction to the book, but it's certainly not a really balanced account of the events. I am glad I read it, though. I have about 10 pages left.

That's the excitement here for now. More to come later, I'm sure...

NP: Adrian Belew - Big Blue Sun

Headstones!

Here are the two headstone photos that should have been in the blog the other day. This first one is for James and Sarah Lang. James died in 1861, and Sarah in 1884.

Below, you'll see the small headstone for John Lord, my G3-GF, who died in 1890. He was born in Ireland, and served in the Civil War for 3 years.

Exercise!

Tonight, I used our new elliptical machine for the first time for exercise (trying it out when it was first put together doesn't count). I exercised for about 14 minutes, and that was good to start. I'll try to increase by 5 minute increments over the next few days, until I'm up to 30 minutes.

That's about as much of my daily life I'm willing to give up to exercise. I have better things to do with my time that that. Like writing here. Or picking belly button lint out of the appropriate places.

Too much?

I had off from work today, while Sue had to work. We spent yesterday in Hoboken, hanging out in a park by the Hudson playing checkers, and then eating outside at a Mexican place. To prove we did all that, here's a picture of a boat on the river.

Ah, now isn't that pretty! Let me take a drink of water, and I will be right back...

Ah! H20.

Today, since Sue had to work, I did what any normal person would do on a beautiful, sunny day. I went to 3 different cemeteries!

My first stop was at Hollywood Cemetery in Union, NJ. I was looking for the plot of Thomas Lord, a cousin of my grandfather. Supposedly, according to another cousin, Thomas is buried right near his parents William and Elizabeth, but on exploring the area, I could not find a headstone for him. When I've asked before, the main office does not have a record for Thomas's burial in their cemetery. Very strange.

I then went to Fairmount Cemetery in Newark. I've been there numerous times before, but I wanted to see if I could find some headstones on Lord plots, that are there according to cemetery records, but may be overgrown. Here's an example of a cleaned up headstone, that was getting covered with grass. (NOTE: Blogger is having trouble with photos, so I will have to see if I can upload them later, perhaps tomorrow morning. The same goes for the John Lord photo mentioned below.)

Of course, for a real comparison, I should have taken a photo before I cleaned it up. Live and learn. The above photo is for the grave of James and Sarah Lang, my great-great-great-great grandparents. They lived in Harrison/East Newark in the 1860's, after having immigrated here from Ireland.

And just to round out that trip, here's a picture of John Lord's headstone, from the same plot. John is my great-great-great grandfather, also born in Ireland, and he married Jane Lang in Newark in 1851. According to the Fairmount records, Jane should have a headstone in the same plot, but it's not there. Seeing how much these were covered with grass in just about a year since my last visit, I could imagine that there are some headstones that are just buried under an inch or two of grass.

I have a 3 foot long dowel that I put a nail into one end, in order to poke around in the ground to see if I would feel the distinctive "stop" of a nail hitting stone. However, I'm not sure if the nail is long enough to reach stones that may be under more than an inch of dirt or grass. I'll have to look for a longer nail.

Or, could there be any metal detector type thing that can find cut stone under dirt? Or would all the coffins and other stuff mess that up? Side scanning sonar? Something? There's got to be money in there for something like that, to have someone invent it, if it's not real already.

Also on the genealogy front, I've dug up a possible second marriage for one of my great-great-great-great-great grandfathers, Alexander Lindsay. Alex's (I am on a first name basis with these people) first marriage was to my G5-grandmother, Marion Dyer. However, based on Scotland census records, I discovered 3 additional children of Alex's, born appreciably after his first batch. And, Marion was nowhere to be seen. Therefore, I thought, the 3 additional kids may be from a second marriage. Today, thanks to the Mormon's, I think I found that second marriage. It would be to a woman named Helen Hosie.

And, in reviewing Alexander's 1841 and 1851 census records, I saw that his neighbors were a family of Hosie's. So, once I can get the official marriage record from Scotland's People, I can possibly confirm this second marriage. My hope would be that the marriage record would say something like, "Alexander Lindsay, widower of Marion Dyer, married..." blah blah blah...

Genealogists live in hope.

In random television news, I watched the premiere of Battlestar Galactica on Friday night. Even though I haven't seen the second half of Season 2 yet (it's next on my Netflix list), I was able to follow along with the plot pretty well. I won't get into a detailed analysis here, but it was quite good. There was a bit at the end, with Starbuck's baby, where I thought that perhaps the baby and the Cylon father were in cahoots, that the accident the child had wasn't "real," but we'll see where that ends up...

NP: Soundgarden - Fell On Black Days

Technology!

Today, we got a call from Sears, about a delivery we're receiving on Wednesday. It was a robot caller, and it left a message on our voice mail, as I was at work, and Sue was enjoying the sunshine down on the Hoboken riverfront.

Now, what just hit me a few minutes ago was that the message left on the voicemail was a complete message. It wasn't cut off at all. Which means that the robot was able to listen to our message, wait for it to conclude, and then leave its own message.

I don't know about you, but that's pretty impressive technology to me. Does the robot wait for silence before doing its thing, or can one robot voicemail somehow communicate with another, so that it knows to wait? Anyone have any answers out there?

In other, non-technology news, I got a genealogy request back in the mail today. Listen to this. I'm trying to get a death record from the state of Iowa, for a James Coulson, who died back in August/September of 1894. Iowa requires that someone who requests a death record should be no further back than a grandson. Other people do not have "permission" to request the record. So, I send a letter with my request for the death record, saying that I'd be the great-great-great-grandson of this James Coulson, but part of the reason I'm requesting the record is to confirm that relationship.

So, I get my request back in the mail today, stating: "Please do more research and when you know your relationship for sure you can re-apply."

I'm basically being told to do more research, to confirm the relationship that I'm trying to determine by requesting this death record from Iowa. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

Come on!

This is one of the frustrations of the modern genealogist. Laws that have been enacted to protect individual privacy (and rightly so), are being applied to records over 100 years old, for records that have nothing of use to identity thieves. Modern records may have cause of death (a private medical issue, which the state of NJ blanks out on their genealogy record requests), Social Security numbers (available through the SSDI-Social Security Death Index), or other information that may be considered private. Old records are generally only of real use to family history researchers, and some states account for this, by putting certain records under more restrictive use.

In NJ, birth records before 1923, and marriage and death records before 1940 are all publicly available at the NJ State Archives. For records after those dates, a person must request them formally from the State Vital Records office. Not a huge hoop to jump through, but it is a way to make sure that the vital record office can redact any private information.

So, I'm a little bitter about the Iowa thing. If I had written that I was certain of the relationship, even though I wasn't, would they have given me the record? Am I being penalized for being honest?

As I said before, COME ON!!!! (In my best Gob Bluth voice...)

NP: Fission Trip - Master

Weekend!

It was a bit of a busy weekend up here in the Lord household. Well, not really, but I can pretend, can't I?

On Saturday, my mom came up to visit our apartment in Jersey City for the first time. She took the train from Allenhurst up to Newark, then the PATH train from Newark to Jersey City. Not a hard trip at all for her, from what she said. For the future, I will probably give her driving directions, now that she knows where she's going. But, if she wants to continue to train it, that's fine also...

We were hoping to get over to Liberty Island to visit the Statue of Liberty, but by that time in the afternoon on Saturday we got there (around 3pm), the weather had turned, and rain was threatening. So, the Statue will have to wait for another day. It was fun visiting Liberty State Park, we got some nice photos, and I was able to point out some parts of the train station there that were relevant for the immigration story of my mom's grandparents, who all came over from Poland between 1900 and 1907. They all passed through the old train station at Liberty State Park on their way to South Amboy and Elizabeth.

Before heading to Liberty State Park, we went out for lunch a little after 1pm to "Rita & Joe's," an Italian restaurant here in Jersey City. It was really quite good, and a place I'll feel free to go back to in the future. I had the Chicken Parmigiana (I'm probably misspelling that...), Sue had a salad, and my mom had pasta with vodka sauce. We all enjoyed our meal, and for three people, I think the total was about $50, which isn't horrible. We'll have to go back for dinner at some point, to see how it is then also, but for now, it gets my thumbs up!

Today, Sue and I went to see "Jackass II," which was really funny, in that "Let's watch idiots do really stupid stuff to themselves and each other" kind of way. For a laughs per minute ratio, it's hard to beat. Of course, you have to like stupid humor, but if you do, more power to you.

What's funny to me is that one of the guys in the Jackass "crew," I think his name is Bam, reminds me a bit of my friend Bill O'Neil, not in behavior (well, maybe a little), but more in looks. It's like they could be cousins or something. Probably not brothers...

On Friday evening, Joe and I did our recording of a new Pseudocertainty show, and it's up on the site, for your listening pleasure. Let me know what you think...

NP: Pink Floyd - Echoes

Oops!

Well, I mentioned on here yesterday that I thought that the year anniversary of this blog was coming up. I have since looked more closely, and I started this blog on 18 September 2005, so the year date has already passed.

Sue me!

I forgot to mention, also, that one of the movies Sue and I saw recently was Beerfest, the latest Broken Lizard movie, from the same people who did Super Troopers. Beerfest was fun, I viewed it as a live action cartoon. Good doofy fun.

Onto deeper things, work continues to go well. It's funny, because I'm not even at the three month mark (that'll be on October 10th), but it feels like I've been there much longer, and not in a bad way. Of course, I'm still figuring stuff out, like where to put items to file away, but overall, it's going well. Having a title like "Assistant Director," gets some attention when you ask people to do things, but there's also relationship building that has to happen, because titles only go so far.

I'm beginning to get calls from other offices, people looking for assistance, or even my opinion about approaches to initiatives, oddly enough. It's fun, but also something to get used to.

Tomorrow, I'll be consolidating my list of stuff to talk about on the next episode of Pseudocertainty. It should be fun, as Joe and I haven't recorded an episode in quite awhile.

NP: Brian Eno + David Byrne - Mea Culpa

Year!

You know, I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of doing this blog. That is, if it hasn't already passed yet. I hope you've enjoyed going on this voyage of life with me. I'm sure it hasn't always been scintillating, but life is lived in the moments between exciting happenings.

For basic daily routine today, I did laundry and dishes. We also put up some more stuff on our walls, but there's more to do. I organized the remaining art (mainly Sue's stuff, which is quite good) a little better, so it didn't look as much like a mess. Over the next day or so, we'll get the rest of the stuff up, or at least decide what will go up where.

This Friday, Joe J. and I are planning on recording another episode of Pseudocertainty. This will be the first one recorded down here in NJ, while Joe is in Boston. I hope that the internet connection is still good enough to let Skype work.

I realized the other day that this is the first time in years that my "center of gravity" isn't Boston, but now the New York/New Jersey area. What I mean by this is that, even when I was out at grad school in Michigan, Boston was a place that was very easy to return to. It's a place where a lot of life happened. Now, that "center" has changed back to the New York/New Jersey area. It's not a bad thing, and maybe it's more measured by what major metropolitan area is closest, but it is very noticable, for me at least. Except for when I was out in East Lansing, I haven't been more than 2.5 hours from Boston since 1989. That's now different.

I do enjoy being back in the New York area, it'll allow me to see family more often, and see New York friends that I've felt a little neglectful about, but I do miss the easy access to Boston. I'm sure we'll get up there again, possibly even before the year is out, but it is a change.

NP: Magma - K.A III

Audience!

You know, you go away from blogging for a few days, and people can't stop asking when you'll blog again!

Okay, when I say people, I mean two, and one of them was my mom. But, it's an audience, and so, I write...

I like to do these blogs in the evening, after Sue goes to bed. It gives me some time when writing won't take away from our awake time together. It's not that this is private in any way, Sue reads it, so it's not that, I just like the quiet of doing this now. I haven't done any blogging recently, in the last week or so, because I've been going to bed earlier. I've been really tired starting around 11ish. I figured my body needed rest, so the blog was sacrificed.

The most exciting news in the world of Lord over here is that Sue has been offered, and has accepted a position over in Manhattan at The New School. I won't go into the details, as it's really her business, but she has a great job, and is going to do fantastic with it. I think it'll be a good move for her. If she wants to take classes there, she can, which will be fun for her.

Once she gets in a good rhythm with the job, we'll be able to figure out our budget for savings, what we can do for future vacations, and other stuff. It'll be fun! It appears that we'll both get the same amount of vacation, and that we'll both have three day weekends during the summer. Good stuff.

Recent movies we've seen, with a thumbs up/thumbs down score:

• Snakes on a Plane: Thumbs up, but not as goofy as I was hoping...
• Little Miss Sunshine: Thumbs up, I enjoyed it, but it could have had a bit more of a resolution at the end. I would have liked to see a little more wrapping up.
• The Last Kiss: Thumbs up, but again, not a very deep film. A number of things happened, but you didn't really get into the characters as much as I would have liked.

I think that's all the movies for the past few weeks. I'm a fairly easy movie viewer. I generally will only see things that I think I will like.

That's all for now... More to come soon. I think I'm very close to the one year anniversary of this blog, which will call for some reflection, I'm sure...

NP: King Crimson - Exiles (20 Mar 1974)

Townshend!

If you have albums, tapes, CD's, mp3's, or whatever you listen to music on nowadays (8 track, anyone?), there are albums that you can return to over and over again, without getting tired of them at all. I recently revisited one of my favorite albums, Pete Townshend's "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes," issued in 1983, and recently remastered with 3 bonus tracks.

I will admit first off, that I am a sucker for remastered versions of albums, and especially bonus tracks. So when I heard that Townshend's entire solo catalogue was going to be re-released, it was quite a delight. And this is the album I was looking forward to the most. Fortunately, I wasn't disappointed in the result.

With "Chinese Eyes," as it's often shortened to in conversation or in writing, it's not that every song on the album is a hit, or just destroys me when I listen to it, but it is truly the total package of how the album builds, never hitting a wrong beat, always keeping the mood right where it should be.

The first four songs on the album, "Stop Hurting People," "The Sea Refuses No River," "Prelude," and "Face Dances Part Two," really do well in introducing and setting the tone for the rest of the album. It's almost like these four songs make a mini-ep all of their own, putting the listener in the right place for what follows.

I've always thought of the next 5 songs as part of a piece that fit together for the body of the album. "Exquisitely Bored," "Communication," "Stardom in Acton," "Uniforms (Corp d'esprit)," and "North Country Girl" all fit together to create a reflective, wistful mood. Even the "up" songs like "Communication" have a thread of melancholy running through them that make the music match the content of the lyrics well.

The final two songs, "Somebody Saved Me" and "Slit Skirts" round out the album with the perfect conclusion, perhaps the best ending of an album that I've heard. "Somebody Saved Me" reflects on friendship and loss, while "Slit Skirts" focuses on the ennui of love faded to the point of not feeling even the shadow of love. Not the most happy of songs, but it works. And music doesn't have to be happy to be uplifting. I finish listening to this album always feeling reflective, and like I've heard a true masterpiece of art. As an album, a complete whole, I don't have many albums that beat this one.

NP: Ten Seconds - Nightwebs

Photo...

I took this looking out our living room window, looking east on the evening of September 11th.

Access!

Ah, the joys of computing in the modern age. I'm having massive slowdowns on the speed of internet access here in our apartment, I think because some people may be engaging in activities that take up massive amounts of bandwidth. I leave it to the brilliance of the reader to deduce what I am talking about.

I actually have a lot to write about, but I fear that it may get lost in the ether, if I try to post it during this slow internet period. But, I try, because that's what humans do.

Perhaps I will put a list of upcoming blog topics here. Yes, that sounds good...

• The brilliance that is the Pete Townshend album "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes"
• Continued genealogical updates
• Items of New Jersey interest
• Brisco County Jr.
• Some photos
• Musings on friendships (good stuff, don't worry, friends)
• Old work stuff
• New work stuff

Seems like a full plate. More to come as I can write about this...

NP: Eric Idle - Paranoid Jails