Category: Uncategorized

My commute this morning

Leave a comment

Next time the sign at the I-80/Cap City exchange reads something like:

ACCIDENT AT TRUXEL ROAD
USE ALTERNATE ROUTES

I will heed the warning and not go “Well, how bad could it be?”

Well, crawling three miles in forty-five minutes is about how bad it could be.

California Highway Patrol officials said the truck was carrying loads of dirt that ended up all over the freeway. All westbound lanes were closed for about an hour with two of the three lanes re-opening at 9:40 a.m. (News10 story)

It was sometime very shortly after that when I cleared the jam.

So yes, next time I am warned to pursue alternate routes, I will listen.

Quick thought from katster’s brain

1 Comment

I’ve been dreaming again. I hadn’t for a long time, which was making me a bit sad, but lately, it’s been happening again. (Yeah, I know, we dream even when we don’t remember it, but isn’t that pretty much the same result as “I haven’t.”?)

Anyway, to get to the point, the dreams last night were about a superhero who got his powers by huffing ballpoint pens. I never exactly said my brain was sane, y’know. It was a pretty good story going, though, as he’d stopped sometime in the past because it was doing bad things to his health, but he stumbled across some of the artifacts from those days and said, “Screw this, I’m going back to heroics, no matter what it does to me.”

Which led to the funniest bit, in which he’s snorting these ink pens while trying to convince a friend on the other end of the telephone that, no, he hasn’t fallen back into that filthy habit.

(And yeah, I dream in plot. The dreams may get pretty odd, but the story seems to consistently hang together despite the oddities.)

nothing to see here move along

v2i63by5zx

a rare time I actually use my amateur radio license

1 Comment

So, one of those little known facts about me is that I hold one of those amateur radio license thingies. I rarely use the things, but occasionally, it comes in handy.

You see, I’m sitting at home not just to clean my room, but to also be the emergency contact between my sister’s Brownie troop and the various Brownie parents. Of course, Little Grass Valley is way the heck up in the woods, where the wonders of modern communications devices fail to work.

But a good old fashioned amateur radio and two folks with licenses (that would be my dad and me) and we have a secondary channel of communication that doesn’t involve somebody driving into La Porte, which is about the edge of cellphone signal land.

Of course, I don’t plan to have the thing on all the time — there’s only so much battery power, after all. But it’s still kinda nifty.

[No, I’m not procrastinating; I’m out here because I just finished the 1 PM call.]

the cleanapolypse

Leave a comment

So my folks and my sister and my sister’s Brownie troop have headed up the hill to go camping at Little Grass Valley for the weekend. This leaves me here to dig out the room.

referred to this process as “The Cleanapolypse”, and I like that so much that I’m stealing it.

If you don’t hear from me by Monday, send the search teams in.

[Edit: Also, the mystery of my $16.39 payment to Baycon has been solved. It’s approximately what a fifteen dollar shirt would be with the 9.25% sales tax in San Jose added on. So, it was my payment for my staff shirt that I got to buy because I was a busy busy gopher. This is totally unrelated, but it makes me feel better.]

Wow, that was some party.

Leave a comment

I’m sitting here making sure the checks I wrote to various people during Baycon have cleared my bank account (answer: yes), and in looking at that, I found a new puzzlement: trying to figure out just why I have a charge of $16.39 from Baycon itself. I’m sure there’s some absolutely sane reason it’s there; I’m just not coming up with it.

(The $45 charge later on is from buying Ei’s membership — I earned my 2010 membership with hard work and had the money aside to get hers cheap. We may end up having to sell it, but at the moment…)

But anyway, that must have been one heck of a party if I can’t remember what the hell it’s for.

Awwww for the day

Leave a comment

I’m still at work and thus unable to do massive content posts. So here, have a kitty picture:

(found with this story: Shelter Sounds “Cat Crisis”.)

A philosophical conundrum

4 Comments

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher suggested to the class that now that we were learning decimal points, we should circle our problem numbers to avoid having them accidentally show up in the math. It’s a habit I gleefully adopted, and used through several classes of higher mathematics. Even to this day, if I’m making an ordered list, I circle my numbers.

So I was doing this at work today as setup for what I’m doing on the computer, and I noticed that every time I drew the circle around the number, I drew it counterclockwise. Writing ‘o’ and ‘0’ are done the same way. This got me pondering — is this what every righty does, and lefties go clockwise? Maybe something with the way the pen is gripped?

So I asked the question on twitter, and got three responses. All four (counting myself) were righties, and we split right down the middle as to how we drew our circles.

My pen grip hypothesis seems to be on shaky ground. So in the interests of science!, I’m looking for more data points. Do you draw your circles clockwise or counterclockwise? What hand are you?

But I want to go outside!

Leave a comment


But I want to go outside!
Originally uploaded by retstak

This is Ebony-kitty, the newest member of the family. She is obsessed with windows. I caught this shot of her this morning staring out the sliding glass door. Does she want to go out in the rain or is she just fascinated with the birds gathered around the feeder?

Either way, it made for an adorable shot, and I’ve actually got a decent camera on my phone these days. So you get to enjoy it as well.

Science Fiction must-reads?

10 Comments

Okay, so I’ve set myself a new task, of reading all the winners in the Hugo for Best Novel category, figuring it would give me a broad overview of the genre that I love. (Plus there’s a lot of good books there that I haven’t read.)

But this leads me to the obvious question: What would you consider somebody who’s well-read in science fiction (and heck, we’ll throw in fantasy, too, as several of the Hugo winners are fantasy) to have read? In some ways, a canon of speculative fiction is what I’m asking about.

I haven’t thought it over totally, but I think some of the books on my list would be:
The Foundation trilogy and I, Robot by Asimov
Childhood’s End, 2001, and Rendezvous with Rama by Clarke
Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein
Ringworld by Niven
Canticle for Leibowitz by Miller
Man in the High Castle by Dick (There should be more Dick here, but I’m drawing a blank.)
Forever War by Haldeman
The Lathe of Heaven and The Dispossessed by LeGuin
Snow Crash by Stephenson
Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by Tolkien

And this is a very incomplete list, I point out, this is just off the top of my head. So what am I missing? What would you think required reading for a science fiction geek?

I’m locking posts on this on LJ, because I want the discussion to happen over at my blog. :)

This quote made my morning…

2 Comments

You are on a speakerphone with at least 14 teachers and librarians and suchlike great, wise and good people, I thought. Do not start swearing like you did when you got the Hugo. This was a wise thing to think because otherwise huge, mighty and four letter swears were gathering. I mean, that’s what they’re for. I think I said, You mean it’s Monday?blockquote>
Neil Gaiman, upon being told he had just won the Newberry Medal for The Graveyard Book

Best gift bag ever

Leave a comment


Best gift bag ever
Originally uploaded by retstak

This is the bag that ‘s evil surprise is coming in. Isn’t it the most awesome gift bag ever?

Oh, you want to know what’s in it? Patience, my friends, patience. There will be photos.

Welcome, 2009

Leave a comment

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

Neil Gaiman FTW.

Get to it, y’all.

you’re finis!

Leave a comment

finis_coverY’all might recall about a year and a half ago, or thereabouts, how I was going on about a small work I’d contributed to and how you all should buy a copy or three. I dunno if any of you actually did at the time. I can understand why not, but hey, it was my debut, and I’m kinda proud of it.

Anyway, I hear from the horse’s mouth (which would be himself) that the price of the book is now $15, or you can get a PDF for $8, if you’re the sort that likes reading on the screen. So I’d still encourage you to pick up a copy if you think you might be interested.

The place to purchase them is here: Book / PDF / I can’t decide! Both!

(There’s a discount if you buy both with that third link…)

Anyway, when the future reveals that I have become something — either famous or infamous, you never can tell — the book might just be a collector’s item. Besides, it’s good fun and full of good writing.

There’ll be more later, I just saw a note about this in Ryan’s journal and wanted to make note of it.

Lazy days

Leave a comment


Lazy days

Originally uploaded by retstak

It’s been that kind of morning.

I snapped this shot of the kittycat having a bit of a snooze on my bed this morning. I actually think she’s got the right idea, as it’s foggy and grey outside, and really, just the right sort of morning to sleep in.

Too bad it’s also Tuesday morning, and I’m not independently wealthy, as I wasn’t able to sleep in because I have to work for a living. At least, I didn’t have to go driving to the office in the fog. I do have to drive downtown, shortly, and it doesn’t look like it’s really started to burn off yet.

Anyway, just wanted to share picture of sleeping kittycat. Y’all can go *awww* now.