Category: General

It’s funny, even after going to my 3rd report card pickup in 2 days, I’m still not really feeling old yet! I’m sitting across from my kids’ teachers, partially incredulous that I’m old enough to even be here in this situation. LOL, I hope that’s a good thing!

Fortunately, 3 out of 4 kids are doing quite well. The 4th is more of a mixed bag of awesome, sloth, and perhaps a touch of ADHD. But I’d never want to medicate him, that would change who he was and I just don’t think he needs it. He’s sort of a wild genius and all of his teachers can see that, so it’s no surprise that things farther from his interests don’t hold his attention very long.

In any case, I’m thankful I haven’t started feeling old yet. I still have a lot that I want to do before I leave this stage for good. (^__^)

It’s funny, but not really surprising. Despite being laid off, I’m about as busy as ever during the day, if not more so. I have multiple projects under way which I hope will yield some income and I’ve taken on childcare duties for my two youngest, mostly picking people up from various activities.

One of the projects is a book that has really taken on a life of it’s own. And the others are iPhone applications I’m developing. And there are plenty of chores to be done around the house, including throwing out a lot of unneeded junk. Finally, looking for more stable work and contract jobs continues as well.

In all of this busyness, I have had hardly any time to goof off at all!

After the initial shock of being told of my lay off a couple of weeks ago, I had hope to have a stronger more productive week in the office. But the emotional tidal surges are just too strong and unpredictable. It’s been really hard to keep working there knowing that all I have left to do is essentially dig my own grave. I love the people I work with, but it’s hard to even look people in the face now.

At first, of course, I only noticed my own difficulties. But after the news got out, it seems that I’m not the only one feeling bad. I’m happy that so many people care about me, but I’m saddened that my situation is making people uncomfortable. Oh well, that’s just life. We’re all so interconnected and you never escape from it.

I’m still very excited to be setting up my own shop again, but these chaotic blues are going to be with me until at least the last day.

Just found out today that in a few weeks I’ll be getting some time off, permanently… Needless to say, I’m rather distressed by this turn of events feeling a mix of betrayal, shame, and some hopelessness for flavoring. But I’ve got a few more weeks to fight the good fight and show what I’m made of.

I got a prophetic email from my dad yesterday reminding me to be thankful for all that God has given me, and I am. I had a good 8 year run, and now it’s time to do something else. I’m going to give it my all! But for now, excuse me while I sob a little bit more…

My oldest daughter is an artist. We knew this from the beginning, and through the grace of God and a lot of work and help from family, she’s at a great art school. I went to a showing of their latest work in drawing tonight.

The work is great, but as is usually the case at this kind of event, it’s generally uncool to be with or be seen with your parents. This always hurts because you really feel unloved when despite all of the work and sacrifice for your children, they can’t even acknowledge you a bit and at least give you a tour of their work and that of their classmates. It would have been nice.

A few days ago I read something that got me thinking about blogs, twitter, and the preservation of tweets. In a nutshell, right now I am not archiving my tweets in any way. And referencing earlier tweets is not practically doable either. Now granted, most of my tweets are fluff and nonsense, nevertheless, I’d like to at least have some more later access to them.

So I’m trying out Twitter Tools to bring my blog, where I do have more control, closer to my Tweets. So when/if Twitter implodes I’ll at least have my tweets archived. And I can tweet my blog posts easily. This is my first test of the plugin.

About 6 years ago, I posted here about a blue haired Asian woman I had the good fortune to see when I was out and about. Since that time a couple of very likely spam comments have appeared about the virtues of Asian women. I’m probably goig to delete those comments, since they are, of course, just spam.  But before I do that, I just wanted to note that a few days ago, here 6 years later, I had the pleasure of seeing a gorgeous black woman who had wonderful blue highlights in her bangs!

It’s not so unusual now to see interesting hair colors, though blue and pink are still a little rare. In any case ladies, keep up the good work! ~_^

Moving can be tough, but I wasn’t really expecting all of the emotions. Sometimes you just gotta let it all out. That’s where this video came from.

Ooooh, I’m so angry right now! I needed to buy moving boxes so I figured, okay, I’ll go to my neighborhood Ace Hardware store. Ya know, support community businesses and save some gasoline, so green, right? I get there, and 20 small boxes cost $75! I buy the boxes anyway because I’m there with kids and calling my wife on the phone to confirm the $0.67 per box she paid proved fruitless as she did not remember what she paid. She sent a text later about it, but by then it was too late.

I simply couldn’t believe that Ace in competition with Home Depot would be charging so much more for boxes. Just shows what I know. Being irritated and knowing I’d need more boxes, I bit the bullet and drove to Home Depot and confirmed that Ace Hardware was indeed charging astronomically high prices for moving boxes. Yes, I got totally raped by Ace Hardware on those boxes.

I don’t have time to go back to Ace and complain or try to get a refund, but they certainly won’t be getting any business from me again if I have a choice. Next time I hear a sob story about how Home Depot is driving small hardware stores out of business, you’ll only hear laughs from me. Raping your customers is generally a bad business strategy.

Update: Ok, so maybe Ace is not so bad after all. Over the course of the weekend, I discovered that pretty much everyone except Home Depot sells moving boxes for the same relatively high rate! The Home Depot boxes got the job done for me, but I did note that they were a little softer than the more costly ones, meaning that you’re only getting one move outta these guys. The Home Depot boxes were made of 100% recycled paper though, which might explain the softness. Still, I’d go with those cheaper ones every time. I don’t know how anyone plans to compete with Home Depot with such a wide price disparity.

Whoa! It’s been forever since I updated this blog! I went to Ohayocon 2010 and had a great time and have had a bunch of stuff going on since then. Now I’m gearing up for Anime Central and need to finish the AMV I put off for Ohayocon. And, of course, I’ve got costumes to make and/or tweak. Got one request for Domo-kun that I’ve gotta plan.

So it’s been a rough ride, but that just reminds me that I’m still very much alive!