At Worldcon, and having a blast. I’ve done some filking, hung around in consuite, went to a panel, trolled the dealer’s room, partied with folks who want to have a Worldcon in a bleak post-nuclear wasteland and have already spent too much money. And it’s only Thursday.

(But that’s okay!)

Also, I nearly took John Scalzi out with my backpack in the reg line. The best part is? When I did that, I didn’t realize it was Scalzi. (Imagine my surprise when the nice dude behind me who’s been cool about the backpack thing walks up to the reg table (while I’ve got my badge and am waiting for the goodie bag) and says “I’m John Scalzi.”)

Yeah. I’m having a blast. Wish you all were here.

Anyway, there are other things I ought to be doing other than hanging out on the computer, so I’m going to do them. See you all later!

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I’m flying to Denver tonight.

Of course, this story’s been about twenty-eight years in the making. It starts with a two year old in Redding. This was back in the bad old days before airline deregulation, which meant that a couple airlines actually found it profitable to run jets into Redding.

Now, my dad worked at the airport, so I practically grew up there, conning travelers into buying me candy from the vending machines as soon as I could talk. And because I was always there, the airport employees adopted me and gave me free run of the place.

Maybe I was destined to work with computers, because a story that’s often told about me is that I once brought an airline’s computer down when I was barely two. I had found the keyboard open and decided to smash around on the keyboard, much like a two year old does. My mother tried to get me away from it, but the airline employees dissuaded her, saying they had locked the computer and I couldn’t do anything to hurt it.

And so they let me be until a customer came, and they found their computer unresponsive. It took a reboot to get things running again. Nobody was quite sure how I’d done it, but it had happened, just as if I had decided to show them just what I could do. I like to think it was because I was destined to work with the things for a living.

Of course, you might ask what this has to do with the flight tonight, although I’m sure the more shrewd of you has guessed.

The airline all those many years ago is the one I’m flying to Denver tonight — Frontier Airlines.

You bet I’m amused.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

The nice people at the county remind us that it’s time to get Stormycat her rabies shot and license again. They sent us a postcard. It contained the following vitals:

Name: Stormy
Sex: F
Color: Calico
Breed: Pitbull

I guess that’s dangerously cute for you.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

So, in the process of cleaning up my room, I found my old Nalgene bottle I used to carry around when I was in grad school. I’ve been trying to drink more water, so I’ve gotten back in the habit of carrying it to work:

But this has its problems. If you’re not familiar with Nalgene bottles, they have a wide mouth. This is great for filling it, but not so great for drinking from it. Also, the only way to attach it to a bag is to weave the cap through a strap. Both of these are problems, so I went to REI yesterday to fix it.

The attachment problem is simple: I now have a carabiner on the cap loop to attach it to a bag. (Okay, technically, it’s a carabiner keychain. It’s even stamped “Not for climbing” on the side. But the REI guy and I both figured that a real carabiner would have been overkill for the situation.)

But the coup is the little piece I bought to fit in the mouth of the Nalgene bottle and make it easier to drink from. It covers most of the mouth, and it looks like this:

Yes. It always gives me a bit of a smile when I open the water bottle.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I’m about to enter the pay period just prior to Worldcon. That means that I’m about three weeks out. I think it’ll be three weeks tomorrow that I get on a plane and leave for Denver. That means I need to figure out what has to be done in those three weeks.

1. I need to get my ribbon order into the ribbon printers. I know Worldcon isn’t as ribbon-happy as Baycon (there are very few places that are as ribbon-happy as Baycon, and I have the badge to prove it), but does anybody out there care to give me an estimate of just how ribbon-happy Worldcon can be?
2. I need to find and pack books that I might want to get signed while I’m in Denver. This will require a long perusal of the attendance and a trip to the storage shed. It’s cheaper to mail than to take the box on the plane with me — I’m already going to have trouble keeping myself to one bag to avoid the $25 charge for the second. The book box needs to be mailed no later than Monday August 4th, and probably should be mailed the Thursday or Friday prior. Also, doublecheck with Mal that the address you have is correct.
3. I need to check with ceemage about what plans are being made that may require my technical expertise.
4. I also need to put together an issue for the August eAPA mailing. This is mandatory for two reasons — one, I skipped July, which means I’m falling dangerously close to failing to meet minac, and two, I’m trying to make plans to meet those members whom are going to Denver. I should probably start on that sometime this week so the end of the month doesn’t creep up on me. Again.
5. The weekend prior (Aug 2nd and 3rd) I need to make sure that most everything is packed. I need to doublecheck this on Monday. Tuesday is going to be a whirlwind of a day, as I’m working a full eight hours and catching a flight to Denver, and there will not be time for last minute packing such as I’m famous for. If I’m packing on Monday, it’s a problem.
6. Hopefully the preliminary schedule will be up soon so I can go over it. It’s probably a good idea to walk into this at least having a vague idea what might be coming up.
7. Anything else? I know I’m missing something, but I’m not sure what that might be. Any help from those who have attended prior Worldcons?

It is going to be an interesting three weeks.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I spent most of the weekend mucking out my room. That is, I’ve been in there cleaning it up from the disaster-area state that it was in and moving things around.

It’s not completely done. There’s a lot of things in boxes, and I’ve got a lot of sorting ahead. But my carpet has been revealed as a completely depressing shade of red and you can actually walk from the door all the way to the bed.

I’m not used to this!

So you can imagine my surprise when I’m curled up on the bed relaxing after having worked rather hard on the room, re-reading John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and munching on some black licorice I bought at the store earlier when, suddenly, there’s a snuffling and the dog appears at the side of the bed, looking longingly at my treats and giving me the sad puppydog eyes.

I moved over to let her get on the bed, and shared a few of my treats (I know; I’m so cruel) and she’s been on the bed since, staying put even as I fetched the camera and took the shot.

Such are the perils of clean rooms, I tell you.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

You know how I was speculating how bad it was in Redding in my last post?

My friend Linda Raven Moore lives up Weaverville way. For those of you not in the know, Weaverville’s in the mountains west of Redding. It’s the county seat of Trinity County, which is the most rural county in the state. A large chunk of Trinity County is the Trinity Alps Wilderness, a stretch of land that has been left to be natural — there aren’t even roads through it. (All firefighting in the Wilderness has to be done by hand tools, that’s how strict they are about it.)

Needless to say, Trinity County is on fire at the moment. This is about what it looked like a day or so ago:

picture courtesy Linda Raven Moore

Linda’s got more pictures at her blog entries on the subject: Smoky Weaverville and Smoky Ride. They’re worth the time to look at all her pictures.

Actually, Linda’s blogs are worth the time in general. She’s got four of them: Raven’s Roads, her travel blog, Raven’s Rides, her motorcycle blog, Raven’s RV, about life in a motor home, and Raven’s Range, the general catchall blog. She’s a good writer, and a master of the photoessay. Check it out!

(In comments, my friend David says that things are clearing out a bit. It’s more smoky in Sacramento today. I’m staying in as much as possible.)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

It’s ugly out there. This is a picture I just took about fifteen minutes ago, as the sun was going down here in Antelope, which is roughly twenty miles northeast of Sacramento proper. (I’m near Roseville, for those familiar with Sactown geography.)

The air’s been nasty all day. Every night, we hope it’ll get better as it clears enough to see stars in the sky. But the daytimes are just nasty. I had to take my mom into Roseville this afternoon, and our car doesn’t have air conditioning. My lungs are still feeling it. Every time I step out into the murky, ugly air, it starts to hurt to breathe. And I’m not in any sensitive group.

I’m in Sacramento. I can only imagine how bad it is in my old stomping grounds up in Redding, where there’s fires burning all around. I have vague memories of 1987, and stepping outside to see a blood red sun hanging in the air. My dad still has pictures somewhere.

Never expected I’d be snapping my own in Sactown, though.

A thousand fires. My lovely state is burning. And more dry lightning predicted.

And it’s only June.

That’s the scariest part.

(More sunset pictures on Flicker here.)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Copied directly from my unofficial transcript:

Spring 2008

Program : American River College
Plan : Accounting Major

ACCT 103 Intermed Accounting I 4.00 4.00 A 16.000
CISA 315 Electronic Spreadsheets 2.00 2.00 A 8.000
Course Topic(s): EXCEL 2007

TERM GPA : 4.000 TERM TOTALS : 6.00 6.00 24.000

CUM GPA : 4.000 CUM TOTALS : 41.50 41.50 166.000

Good Standing

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Here’s an old shot pulled out of my archives. The shot’s taken from a passenger seat going 75 down I-5 as one drops into Anderson from the hill to the south. This was those last few moments of realizing that I was home after a long trip from the Bay Area.

This photo is better if you click through it. You need the full sized shot to get what I’m getting at. (As it is, you can barely see it.)

Anyway, the reason I bring up this shot is that it’s about the only good shot of Shasta or Lassen I can find on quick inspection of photos I’ve stashed online. Of course, identifying mountains from a distance can be problematic. I remember once going to Adin, which is where my pioneer relatives set up their homestead, and looking westward at the snowcapped mountain.

Adin’s in the Big Valley, where Lassen, Shasta, and Modoc counties all come together. (In fact, the three big towns in the Big Valley — Adin, Bieber, and Nubieber — are all in separate counties. Also, note when I use big, I mean relatively compared to the rest of the valley, because those are small towns.) If you look at a map, and look and see what’s west of this point, you’ll see clearly that it’s Mt. Shasta, the same mountain in this photograph. But it took me several moments to realize that.

I grew up in Anderson. The mountain on my horizon has two peaks, the main bulk of Shasta itself, and a smaller peak called Shastina. The thing is, Shastina is on the west side of the volcano. Thus, when viewed from the east, as I was doing in Adin, there is only *one* peak. My visual cues to say “Yeah, that’s Shasta,” were missing.

Which is why I’m having so much fun with Raven’s photos. She went up to Corning and Orland, which are about fifty miles from Redding, and took pictures. And now I’m trying to identify the mountain, and realizing my visual cues are all wrong again.

That said, I want to say it’s Lassen, but I grew up with a view of Lassen from the west, and Raven’s photo is more from the southwest. This is what Lassen looks like from Redding. Actually, that’s taken from one of the western ridges, but it’s close enough. (And it’s a gorgeous shot. My thanks to the photographer, Duane Langshaw.)

Anyway, the point of the exercise is to show just how much fun it can be to try to identify a mountain from pictures. And if anybody can help Raven out, I’m sure she’d appreciate it.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

–T.S. Eliot, from Little Giddings

This one is going into the quotes file.

Anyway, consider this a thread for open musings. What’s on your mind, folks? Comment away, either here or on LJ.

I may have more to say tomorrow, despite the May death march.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

These are the next two weeks in my schedule.

Fri, May 9th: Mom’s 50th birthday. Taking her to lunch. Going out to dinner. Must go down to UCD and pick up paperwork. Must clean house. Homework due in Excel class.

Sat, May 10th: Mom’s family comes for Mom’s bday/Mother’s Day. House must be clean by 11 AM.

Sun, May 11th: Work day to catch up with homework. Need to call Ei and wish happy birthday.

Mon, May 12th: Mom goes back to work. I think I have homework due in Excel class. Work. Need to call and wish tanesmuti happy birthday.

Tue, May 13th: Mom works. I might work. I might be working on final project in Excel class.

Wed, May 14th: Mom works. I work. Final project due in Excel class.

Thurs, May 15th: Mom works. I probably will work.

Fri, May 16th: Mom works. I probably will not, but I will be studying. Need to go to Roseville and pick up ribbons.

Sat, May 17th: Excel Final Exam.

Sun, May 18th: Breathe, because things are about to get ugly.

Mon, May 19th: Work. Mom works.

Tues, May 20th: Mom works. Final exam Accounting. Must have homework done. Must have five article reviews done. May have to work some.

Wed, May 21th: Mom works half day. I work? Mom has appointment with DMV to plead with them to keep her license.

Thurs, May 22nd: Work. Mom works. Ei comes down. Going to see Caspian with Ei. Must be packed for Baycon by this point.

Fri, May 23rd: Drive to Bay Area with Ei for BAYCON!

Yeah, it’s going to be an exhausing couple of weeks.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I finally decided on a ribbon.

It will say:

Met katster.
(still not king)

I’m amused, anyway. :)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Baycon’s coming in less than two weeks! I’m pretty stoked. Baycon was fun last year, and this year I’m actually staying at the hotel instead of commuting from far away. I’m also showing a friend around her first science fiction convention.

(It was pretty easy to convince her to go. All I had to say was, “Hey, guess what? People run around in costume there and nobody thinks they’re weird!”)

Anyway, this year, I’m going to be handing out badge ribbons. (For the confused, that’s why I posted my Baycon badge from last year. The trail of ribbons extending off of it is an example of what I’m talking about.) I haven’t exactly totally decided what they’re all going to say, but besides the already done top sekret ribbon for gridlore, I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to get one that says “Help! I’m trapped in a ribbon factory!”

I’m still trying to figure out some way of saying ‘I said hi to katster’ in a cool fashion, though.

Also, unrelated, the muttering you may have heard coming from Sacramento was katster studying the preliminary Baycon schedules and wondering *why* Iron Poet and Fanzine in an Hour got put in the same timeslot. ;)

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

So yeah, I’m not in my happy place these days. Wednesday was a headache-inducing day, as I sat in the office and couldn’t focus because they’re fixing the light rail across the street. This involved heavy use of the pile driver. So far today, the pile driver has not been invoked, so I’m hoping I’ll actually be able to get some work done.

Then there was the accounting test, the less said about the better. I may lose my record of straight A’s at ARC. I’m sorta resigned to it, as I’ve been having a lot of trouble this term. It’s been busy, what with starting the new job and mom getting a job and whatnot, and some things just have to slip.

And then I get home from the test and find this:

Yeah, some asshole went and wrote gang graffiti on my car. (I found it last night, but I took the pictures this morning.)

Is it too much to ask to go back to Tuesday and have a do-over on the rest of the week?

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

The folks who hang on my IRC channel have occasionally seen gibberish come across their screen as a kitten walked across the laptop keyboard. That’s Ebony, and she’s the all black kitten in back. She has a paw draped over her sister, but it’s kinda hard to tell because of black on black problems.

The kitten in front is Curly, so named because her tail is kinked, and when she was little, it was curly like a pig’s tail. She’s much less daring than Ebony (and thus not prone to type on IRC), but she’s a real sweetheart when you approach her on her terms.

The two of them came into my life about a month ago, when their owner had a bit of a desperate situation and needed to get out fast, which meant we ended up providing a place to stay for three kitties (the two kittens and their momma). But their owner has found a better situation, and kitties are going to be leaving tomorrow. I’ll miss them.

Since it’s hard to see Curly in this picture, I’ll provide another here (or under the cut, for LJ syndication).

( Oh hai dere, are you from the internet? )

I made it safely to Baltimore.

There’ll be more later.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

93% Geek

…this is brought to you in honor of today’s interview. Now, if you don’t mind me, I’m going to be looking for something to bring me back up to speed with Java and begin the task of familiarizing myself with C#.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

I really should have called that last post ‘Folsom Parking Blues’.

Speaking of the original, isn’t it funny how a guy that killed a guy in Reno just to watch him die ended up in Folsom Prison? I mean, Reno’s not that far from here, but it’s on the other side of a state line. Why isn’t he in a Nevada prison?

Just one of those imponderables, I suppose.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.

Actually, the word in my head is an alliterative adjective with the city in the subject line, but meh. We’ll use that as the subject.

I was down in Folsom tonight for a NaNoWriMo write-in. I had a good time hanging out at the local borders with a quite a crowd of the local Nano folks, and while I didn’t get as much done at this write-in as I have at others, I still got my goal wordcount for the day and made it so that I’m right on target with the bare minimum, just as we head into the Veteran’s Day weekend and the 11K challenge. (Somebody suggested writing 11K words over the holiday weekend last year. I thought it was a great idea and am going to do it this year.)

But when I left Borders, I found a white envelope plastered to my car. Sure enough, I had a lovely present from the Folsom Police’s Parking Division in the form of a parking ticket. I mean, to be fair, my front plate has been off my car since my sister got in a collision that knocked it loose. (The plate has been in the trunk ever since.) However, that collision was, geez, four or five years ago when Jill was in her first tour at Davis, and while she and I have gotten three or four different tickets in that car, nobody had whacked us for the front plate being missing yet.

Until I went to bloody frickin’ Folsom.

It ticks me off a little. First of all, the car was parked in the space engine first, which means they had to get out of whatever vehicle they were doing their patrols in and walk around the car to see that the front plate was missing. Two, it was a busy Friday night in what was a parking lot for nearly a dozen big box stores, which almost means that they had to be deliberately looking for cars to ticket. And if you’re that desperate for revenue that you’re deliberately going around to see which cars you can find in minor violation of the law, well…

All it said to me is that Folsom is so hungry for money that ticketing parking violations on a Friday night seemed like a good idea. Alright, fine. I am in violation; I’ll pay the stupid fine. That said, I’m not entirely keen on coming back to Folsom because the first real time I spent in that fair city, this is what happens. It creates somewhat of an unfriendly environment, if you follow my drift.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to go back to Folsom. I know next time, the plate will be on in some fashion or another, so I won’t have to worry about getting another ticket for the same violation, but still…

It just sucks.

I’ll stop whining now.

Originally published at retstak.org. You can comment here or there.