Author: kelson

Disappear-ring

One of the side benefits of going on a restricted diet to try to identify what the heck new allergy I’ve developed is that after working off the holiday weight gain, I kept going.  I’ve been hovering in the 150-155 range for most of the past year and a half, climbed up to the 155-160 range around Christmas, and have dropped down to the 145-150 range.

There’s only one problem: Back when I was fitted for my wedding ring, I weighed somewhere between 170 and 180.  And it’s been cold lately, so my fingers are even smaller than usual.

This morning while making my lunch, I stopped to washed my hands.  As I dried them on the towel hanging from the refrigerator handle, the ring slipped off, landed on the floor, bounced a bit, then rolled right under the refrigerator until it pinged to a stop against something metallic.

Ordinarily I would have used the plumber’s claw to retrieve it, except for one detail: I haven’t been able to find it since we moved.  alenxa suggested using a BBQ skewer, so I took a flashlight, lay down on the kitchen floor, and looked for the ring.  Fortunately it hadn’t rolled too far back, but I still had to flatten my hand and reach under the refrigerator to get the skewer far enough in.  It took a few tries, but I got it back.  Katie helpfully finished my sandwich while I went to change into a shirt that didn’t have dust all over the cuff.

To top it off, it fell off again at work while I was leaning my chin on my hand.  It took a while to figure out where it landed, until I realized it had fallen into my shirt pocket.

New task: get ring resized.

Pride and Predator

This reminds me of the apocryphal round-robin story written by two people with very different sensibilities as to what makes a good story: Pride and Predator. Starts out as Pride and Prejudice but then an alien lands and starts stalking everyone.

It’ll either be awful or it’ll be hilarious.  Possibly both.

Current Mood: 🙂amused

The New Year

Took a half-day on Wednesday, then went home and took a nap. Went over to help my parents set up for their New Year’s Eve party, planning to come home later & watch LA Confidential, and ended up staying. Watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the “auditions” for the Evil League of Evil submitted by fans. Some were good. Some were…not.

Slept in Thursday. Started out reading Greg Keyes’ The Hounds of Ash, a collection of short stories set in the same world as The Waterborn and The Blackgod. After 2 stories, decided to re-read the novels. Fortunately, we recently pulled them out of storage since alenxa was thinking of reading them. Ran some errands, ended up across from the Apple store in South Coast Plaza. We’d already discussed replacing the mostly-dead PowerBook, both wanted to replace it with another Mac, and we’d even worked out which model we were going to get, so we just went for it. Then headed over for dinner w/ my brother & his fiancee (who flew back on Friday) & my parents, where we helped work through leftovers from the party.

Friday: more reading. Made a point of walking to lunch. Laundry. Working on my Flash site after a long delay. Watched 2 episodes of “Walking with Monsters: Before the Dinosaurs” (computer-generated nature show with prehistoric animals). Nice visuals, but I was bothered by some of the things that I can’t imagine could be extrapolated from fossils — like protective coloring & behavior that’s not based on skeletal structure.

Saturday: Shopping. Finished “Walking w/ Monsters,” watched “Helvetica.” More interesting than expected, but less interesting than was led to expect from reviews.

Current Music: Vienna Teng, “Whatever You Want”

Christmas: Day 1

Somehow managed to get through last-minute Christmas shopping. I’d like to thank the following people for helping: Starbuck, Kelly, Peet, and the Bean sisters (Coffee and Lost). Read and reviewed the final issue of The Flash (the third time it’s been canceled for a relaunch in as many years) while alenxa baked cookies, and on to a “relaxing” evening yesterday of laundry, dishes, and wrapping gifts, with a break for Mickey’s Christmas Carol.

Today, went over to my parents’ for breakfast, meeting up with them and with my brother and his fiancee, who flew down Wednesday and are staying at their place. Then carpooled off to my grandparents’ house for the big family get-together. Follow-up with alenxa’s family on Saturday, originally scheduled around SIL and her boyfriend driving down from Oregon. With all the snow earlier this week, they decided it wasn’t a good idea to try the drive, so it looks like we’ll be hitting the post office sometime in the next few days.

Irvine & Snow

Woodbridge Snow View 1

The whole Santa Ana Mountain range seems to have gotten snow yesterday. I took a detour on the way to work to take some pictures, and ended up on Barranca, where I remembered to stop and take some photos out by the lake at Woodbridge.

Eventually I made it up to a cul-de-sac up on Quail Hill where I took a panoramic photo of the whole area, but I probably won’t be able to stitch it together until evening. I’ve posted a few segments, though.

I’ve been posting the pictures, along with the ones I took of the San Gabriels on Tuesday, in a Flickr photoset.

Writer’s Block: Prophecy or Fallacy?

Happy birthday, Nostradamus. Many people consider the prophecies of Nostradamus to be uncannily accurate, while others remain skeptical. Do you think it’s possible to predict the future?

It’s absolutely possible to extrapolate certain aspects of the future from current and past events. The sun has risen and set every day for the entire length of human history, so we can say with certainty that it will do so tomorrow, even if it’s hidden behind clouds. We can predict large-scale weather and climate patterns, though not details like where next year’s hurricanes will make landfall. We can predict that major earthquakes will hit California over the next few decades, though we don’t know for sure where or when they will strike.

As far as human activity and society, we can predict some things, particularly in the short term, again by looking at what’s happened up to this point and extrapolating. But there’s always the chance that something unexpected will completely derail it. I suspect sociologists and science fiction writers have about as equal potential for accuracy.

As for prophecy and Nostradamus? Say something vague and cryptic enough, and there will always be someone happy to go throught he contortions needed to make it fit something they consider important.

Overnight in San Diego

My company will sometimes do its Christmas party as a destination event. It was in Las Vegas one year, and one year it was even a 3-day cruise. I think it’s a holdover from the dot-com days during which we’d always have an annual ski trip and an annual summer trip. Then it was cut down to one trip. And now it’s combined with the Christmas party.

This year it was held in San Diego, at the Omni Hotel. Since it’s relatively close, we were all on our own for transportation, so alenxa and I took it at our own pace, spending Saturday afternoon in Old Town, hitting a farmer’s market, and so forth. Unfortunately it was casino-themed, and I’m not really big on gambling (though Katie made a killing at blackjack), but the food was really good (it was the in-hotel McCormick and Schmick’s, and while I couldn’t eat the seafood, the steak was quite good, and the chocolate cake was excellent), and I think I have gained at least a rudimentary understanding of craps beyond “you roll the dice and bet on how they land.”

( K2R: Old Town, the Omni, and just how big is that space by the convention center, anyway? )

Now if I could just figure out what to do with this wireless keyboard and mouse…

Nighttime view: San Diego Hilton & Convention Center