nanovivid

I’m a little late on getting around to this, but whatever. The weekend before last, we took a trip to Pennsylvania for Bryan’s sister’s wedding. The wedding was lovely, the food was amazing, and the hotel was… odd. We stayed at the Golden Plough Inn in very country Peddler’s Village. Our room had a lovely farm animal theme, complete with a wood cutout of pigs suckling. Confusingly, even though we were in room 108, there were two flights of stairs required to reach the actual quarters. Even though the accommodations were a bit strange, it was a nice time. Since Bryan was in the wedding, I took a bunch of pictures with his fancy camera which he’s going to post at some point. However, the camera was apparently in the wrong autofocus mode, so a lot of them didn’t turn out so well. Here they are anyway. Oh, and there was a massive thunderstorm during the outdoor reception, so that was exciting.

After the wedding (and breakfast at the Cock ‘n Bull… no, seriously), we drove on to visit Dave and Olivia. They already posted a nice summary of our activities and some pictures, so be sure to check those out. It was great to see them again and to finally get to experience firsthand the amazing work they’ve done to their house (even if the fact that it’s a row house lead Bryan to remark that their neighborhood was “like The Wire”).

We also took the opportunity to visit IKEA, where I picked up some white DIODER lights for my desk, replacing the halogens I had previously. Even though the LEDs are a little flourescent-ish, they put out barely any heat and are wonderfully diminutive.

The trip was very enjoyable and I definitely want to get back to Philly at some point in the future. Due to poor planning and research, we missed out on all the museums, so that’s at least one reason arrange another visit. I could probably pass on a second Peddler’s Village experience though.

♫ Sigur Rós - Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur

Tonight I decided to actually stop being a total recluse and sign onto the Adium. Can you believe it? I barely can. It’s been… a while. I even videochatted with Ryan! As if that alone wasn’t enough sexy excitement, I also talked to Martha and Jeremiah!

It just dawned on me (how’s this for random) that I’ve never mentioned my love, nay, ado-fucking-ration of Arrested Development. And that, my friends, is a great tragedy, since it is easily the funniest show ever.

But wait! Maybe that wasn’t quite as random as I thought! See, this past weekend, Courtney and Jenni came to visit. Since Courtney always brings bad weather to Cleveland, we ended up spending most of the day Saturday watching the whole third season. Which, of course, is amazing.

Even when we weren’t watching Arrested Development, we had fun with Courtney and Jenni, between the shopping and the eating and … dirty girl scouts? They even brought me a bottle of wine with my name on it (though they sadly couldn’t find a Bryan wine to go with it).

So, yes. I am still alive and well, and will hopefully prove that fact slightly more frequently.

♫ The Beatles - Because (Shiloh's Just For Annie Remix)

Yesterday after dinner we went to Vintage Vinyl where Hyperbubble was playing. Their music is pretty fun, but they have this one song called Leon that is extra special. Go listen to it, then come back. Catchy, no? I especially like the meows that are interspersed throughout. Bryan decided that Leon needed to be the ringtone on my phone when he calls me, replacing his previous choice of Grillz.

I also (shockingly) picked up a few albums while we were there. After Hyperbubble was done, the store was playing The Eraser (the new Thom Yorke album) and I couldn’t resist buying it. SO GOOD. The Knife, The KLF, The Magnetic Fields, and Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band were my other purchases. There seems to be a bit of a “the” trend happening witch my choices. Interesting.

Today we’re going to see Chihuly in the Garden, which is supposed to be excellent. There also may be some Geocaching. As long as we don’t get heatstroke, it should be a fun day.

♫ The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You

Ups: getting the two things I set out to get — new running shoes and a new jacket (picture below).

Downs: the H&M only having women’s clothes. I’m still bitter about that. Boston was my first H&M experience and they had men’s and women’s there. Grrr. I mean, this is a store in a mall in the capitol of VA for crying out loud! Do they think that Virginians aren’t worthy of their men’s clothing? Oh well, just another reason to go back to Boston.

Here’s the pic of my new leather jacket from Express Men. It was 50% off! I think it’s pretty hot.

♫ OK Go - Get Over It

Since I’m sitting here bored and frustrated as I try to get the MacOS 9 (ugh) machine I’m working on to stop crashing constantly, I guess I’ll write something. Experiences like this one simply serve to solidify my loathing for the Classic MacOS. Though I totally <3 OS X, anything prior is just painful for me.

Time for a bit of a recap… Saturday was lots of fun. I played the ladies’ man as I went to Charlottesville with Jenni, Courtney, and Lynley. The main purpose of the trip was to get Jenni’s headboard from Under The Roof. We managed to totally not anticipate there being a UVA game that day, which made finding a parking spot a little challenging. Once we did (and right by the store), we got to check out some cool furniture. Then we had a delicious lunch at Cafe Europa. Of course, it’s impossible to go on a trip without some other shopping and between Old Navy, Banana Republic, and Gap, I managed to pick up some nice new clothes. Go me. (The current webcam shot is of one of the sweaters… me wearing the sweater that is).

Then yesterday I was teh productiveness. Not only did I mow the jungle that we were calling a yard, I also finally went food shopping. I’m not sure why I’m so proud of myself for this, but I am.

Oh, look, it’s 7:30 and I’m finally done with this lovely piece of Mac history. Except for the part where the Novell login screen takes forever to come up now. Ugh. Screw it, I’m going home.

♫ Jeremy Dawson - En Capture

I am no longer toothpasteless (and there was much rejoicing). During my shopping spree today I also bought new handles for the drawers under my bed (see picture below). They look so much nicer than the old <insert adjective pertaining to horribleness> ones (one of which you can see sitting on the floor). Yay for new hardware!

As a disclaimer, the carpet is not really that color. It’s much more of a grey-blue. I was just too lazy to correct it.

There have been a couple recent site redesigns worth mentioning… Toby has a new minimal look for his site that is quite nice (and, amazingly, has less pink ;-). Then just today Matthew launched his new design and it’s quality. Go check it out.

Also, thanks to Matthew’s reminding me of its existence, the worldview gallery has been given a fresh new look (aka updated to the look of the rest of the site). Also, comments work on the worldview pieces once again. Either nobody had tried commenting or nobody bothered to tell me they were broken. Anyway, just wanted to remind you that gallery of art still exists so feel free to browse and leave comments. I wonder if I’ll ever get back into doing that art stuff. Hm…

I was counting today and I have seven lights in my room, not counting the overhead light that I almost never use and the christmas lights under my bedframe. What can I say… I like good lighting. :-)

♫ Dryve - Thrifty Mr. Kickstar

The IKEA trip was hella fun. I got a couple things — a new chair and lamp for my room. The chair is so comfy… I love it.

I finally got Elephant by The White Stripes today. They effing rock.

This week is going to be hectic at work, but at least we’re only open normal hours at the helpdesk. That means I can finally get back into running and working out. Yay for that… I’ve definitely missed it. Happy Monday all.

♫ The White Stripes - Ball And Biscuit

Today has been mostly unproductive, just the way I like my Saturdays. I did get some laundry done (yay for clean clothes) but other than that it was mostly a lazy day. My parents came up and I had lunch with them at The Little Grill, and that of course was good. Then later I got an IM from Steve telling me I should come over because John was there. So I did just that. It was great to hang out with those guys again after much too long. Tomorrow is IKEA day. Mmmmm… furniture.

♫ dj404 - Mix Session - January 10, 2003

I’ve now seen Pirates of the Caribbean twice, and it was definitely enjoyable both times. Of course, my enjoyment of the second time might have been helped along by the appletini from Cheddar’s… nah, it’s just a dang good movie. Dave was right in saying that Johnny Depp makes the movie. Jack Sp… i mean Captain Jack Sparrow is just the right blend of suavity and ridiculousness.

As of Friday night, I am no longer a Cheddar’s virgin, and I’m very happy about that. We did have to wait almost an hour for our table, but the food was worth the wait. I had catfish with Cajun spices on seasoned rice, cole slaw, and carrots. Oh, and the oh-so-yummy appletini. (We also went for lunch on Saturday… we just can’t get enough).

Saturday we went to "the place where the stores live" (also known as the mall) and did the shopping thing. I got two cds: Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head and The Polyphonic Spree - The Beginning Stages of…. I’m very much enjoying both so far. If you haven’t heard of The Polyphonic Spree, well, go check them out. They describe themselves as "a choral symphonic pop band," which is pretty accurate. It’s good stuff.

I also got a shirt from Express Men and a pair of jeans from Old Navy. We did a lot of other shopping too… almost too much (note I only said almost).

That night we went out on the pier because the moon was out. Wow. Such beauty. The night was solemn, with a quieting effect on all four of us. After a while, each person silently got up and walked back to the house. The feeling was similar to the end of a church service, only much more beautiful.

Afterwards, it was out to Starbuck’s for hanging out with Michael. He is definitely one of the most fun people I know. It’s too bad he lives all the way out of state (or so he seems to think — yes Michael, you can drive three hours and still be in Virginia).

Despite the lack of beaching, it still was a good trip. We’ve got some beachness lined up for September, so all is not lost in that department.

So there’s a hefty helping of random anecdotes from my recent life. This week, it’s back to work, with no days off. How ever will I survive after last week’s mere two days of work?

♫ Coldplay - One I Love

So I’m here in the Circuit City using Toshiba’s 17" laptop… and it sucks. Hard. It’s forever thick, and it looks like it’s been painstakingly engineered thrown together. Some parts are silver, some are white, some are matte blck, and some are shiny black. And the outside is blue. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

We’ve had fun so far on the trip. No beach today because of the less than perfect weather. BUT we’ve done a buttload of shopping and of course I’ve bought stuff because I have an inability to not buy things while shopping.

There have been other adventures as well that I’ll write about later once I get back online with my good 17" laptop. :-) Man, this laptop is horrible. I guess the screen is nice, but that’s about it.

Well, it’s time to head off for more fun times in Tide Vegas.

♫ two different songs playing at the same time in different parts of the store