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Alright, I got a lot accomplished today, and still had time to relax for a change... My Father and Brother came down from New Hampshire last night to hang for a couple days. So, we woke up this morning, drove all the way up to the South Hills Mall to go to Loews, and I bought a new washing machine. Got a nice super capacity Maytag. Haven't had a working washer in almost a year, and tired of going to the laundromat (usually I just have them wash my stuff, but it's still a pain). Then we went to the "modular closet" isle and I got all the stuff to do my closet. Came back here and finished it, and wired the two light fixtures inside it as well. Lemmee tell ya', it is the nicest closet I have ever had! Talking over 25 feet of shelf space for storage, and almost 10 feet of hanger space. That should help me get my room organized, huh? Plus I got my new bed delivered and set up Friday, so I had the best nights sleep in a looong time. Lets just say my old bed was worn out a lot of years ago. But I never had a spare grand for a new one, so I have to thank Paul for hooking me up with a good deal, thanks Man... One thing is thse new beds are so damn high though. Takes a little getting used to but nice nonetheless. Went down to Pace for the usual Saturday night gig, then out to eat. Oh yeah, today is my Birthday. So All my kids (Sam, Maggie, Sarah, and Danny), Dad, Guy (who supposedly has transformed and looks just like me, but only with more hair) and Todd all met up at the usual place. Damn, I can't even begin to tell you how much food there was. Lets just say a boatload, well, actually two boatloads! And they brought out a birthday cake for me. That was so sweet, I know they went out of their way to get that, they don't even have cake... Man, I am so full I can hardly move. Good thing I'm workin' my butt off tomorrow and Monday here at the house, need to burn off all the extra eats I've had thrown at me this last week. OK, I'm fried and need to sleep so I can get up early and get to work. Want to finish all my windows so I can paint my room during the week. I'll get some pix up from tonight (and of course of my new closet!) tomorrow. Also maybe I'll be just a tad bit more witty and insightful and actually have some social commentary (cloning anyone?) I'm just too tired now to do anything but dully recount my day... Oh yeah, I did go see "Personal Velocity" Thursday night, it was good. I'll touch on that tomorrow as well, K? Need, sleep. Yes, sleep.... outta here, -S posted @ 11:55 PM EST [link] [Karma: -9 (+/-)]Snowin ! Hey, It's snowing, but just a tad. Nice on an x-mas morn' Yup, has me thinking, where the hell did I put my X-mas shirt, the old SD Cycles one I wear but once a year... Was pouring a cup of coffee and heard Gray Cat meowing at the door, guess she spent the night out and about. So here's my favorite pic of Gray - and look out the window, nice and warm and sunny and green. And I had grass, now my whole yard is mud and backhoe tracks. Yeah, yeah, all in the name of progress. Gonna have a lot of landscaping to do in the spring. Cool, get back to the land. Like working outside with earth and green stuff. I like smellin' the smells, feelin' the feel. Hmmm, I like doin' that inside too, but shall we not digress for once? I have some great pix of the kitten, Dave (whose actually almost as big as Gray nowadays) but I have to drop the film off to get D-veloped. These days I just take pictures with my phone, it's convenient, always have a camera with you! The display is 16-bit color, it really is a beautiful phone, best present I've bought myself in a long time. Soooo, speaking of warm weather memories- Santa, are you listening? THIS is what I want next year for Christmas, alright? This pic is from Fathers Day this year. Damn, that bike was fast as hell. She was actually startin' everyone elses bike for them when they couldn't do it. She finally hopped on hers and everyone around was just in awe, it sounded damn healthy. She's lookin' kinda serious here, but she had a kick ass smile, guess I would too if I had a ride like that. Shit, got the 'tude, the ride, and a gearhead to boot, is that what they call the whole package? Hmmm, methinks I'd just be getting myself in trouble if I went back to those places. Have to remind myself that whenever the yearnings come... Riiiiggghhhttt, I'm a responsible adult today with people that depend on me. Speakin of teasers, I'll dig up the link to the original Steve's World and post it up here soon. It was an old (really old, blinky gifs and the like) web page I made about 6 years ago. Have to hand it to Geocities, it's still up. K, I'm gonna throw my paintin pants on and get to work up in my room. I'll write a mini-review of whatever flick I see later when I get in tonight. Enjoy the holiday and your loved ones, if you're alone, keep your heart loving, your mind focused, and your spirit strong and steady, lifes too short and the world needs more people doing it for the right reasons. Alright, without getting all philosophical I'll steal a great quote I read somewhere- "All I've learned about life can be summed up in three words- it goes on" True it is... -S posted @ 11:27 AM EST [link] [Karma: -3 (+/-)] Merry Merry, Quite Contrary... Merry X-mas ! Yup, quite contrary to what I imagined, I was actually feeling a little of the old 'oliday spirit earlier. Busy day. Woke up yesterday and started priming my bedroom. Then off to get a few last minute presents. Yes, the stores were insane busy. Then home depot to get more pipe for the cottage (forgot I have to run the heating lines too). I got some really cool paint for my room. Actually Glaze and base coat. Ralph Lauren has these cool techniques for doing walls, you get the tools and the paints under that label. So I picked a kinda bright, but warm, greenish "chambray" pattern treatment. It looks like a pain to do, will take about 5 days to complete, but it should look great. Then I dropped Sam of at his Mom's so he can spend a could days with her and his sibs. Went to Pace, then picked Maggie up and went to eat, yes, usual place. Holy shit, Brian hooked me up, Soon-Ei just kept bringing plates of sushi and food out, the whole table was full of dishes. And I hadn;t gotten a chance to eat all day, so I gladly finished it all. Maggie surprises me, she tries everything, octopus, fluke, kimchi, whatever, she's open to new things, which is cool. Most kids will only do california rolls! Then we went downtown (or really uptown) to midnight mass at St. J the D Wow, it was incredible. Really really beautiful. If I could wake up early, or stay up a few more hours, I'd go back for the morning service. The music was great, organ sounded as impressive as ever, and the chorus and soloists were impeccable. That place just amazes me. And it's great for people watching. Maggie was surprised when I pointed out the woman sitting next to her for an hour was in fact a man, guess life is a little sheltered down in Irvington, eh? And also, I was surprised to see how many folks go there solo, I'd thought midnight mass was a family/SO kinda thing. Then we went downtown, got a capp and piece of cake, and headed home. It was snowing pretty good down there and I guess the snow and the city I'll always hold dear just got me in the christmas mood. Odd but I had apprehensions about today. This is the first time in last 3 years I have had no kids around Christmas morning, no stockings to open in bed, no sounds of excitement and wrapping paper slowly encroaching upon every square inch of living room floor. But I feel strangely calm and at peace with everything. I guess this is how it is supposed to be, and I'm actually OK with it. I'm going to wake up sooner or later, once I go to sleep of course, and start prepping the windows in my room, putting trim and molding around them, filling holes form years of shades and curtain rods, and then sanding and priming them with Kilz. Alan invited me over for desert at his house, said he didn't want me to be alone all day. Nice offer, I guess I kinda have to stop by, it's the right thing to do. Just for a short bit though, I really don't feel like being around a bunch of people I don't know, making small talk and the like. Plus I have so much to get done around here, really hae a schedule I have to stick to. And I have no clothes, what are the odds there's a laundromat open today ? Prolly won't be crowded if I find one. Sent out my usual mass mail happy holiday e- and with that I'm all done. Presents are delivered, I'm all set to get back regular day to day routine stuff. But like I said, I did have a few hours of holly jolly feelings, so leave me alone about being a scrooge, K? Ya know, now that I think about it, I'm fu**ing tired as all hell. Gonna go crash and tomorrow I'll add some links for photos I took tonight to this post. What, you wonder what to get me for christmas, kinda late, no ? OK, well if you can't find me a sub curious about taking the plunge into a 24/7 lifestyle, then next best thing would be to look at my wish list on Amazon, you know, you just look it up by my email addy. And no, it wasn't me added all that kinky shit. But I'll peruse it.... Alright, again, have a very Merry one, you and yours. Sorry for the dull content, just tired and really nothing that interesting to note today, just puttin' one foot in front of the other... K, l8r again- -S posted @ 05:14 AM EST [link] [Karma: 8 (+/-)]GONY Just came back from seeing Gangs Of New York with Sam. It was alright. Cinematography was great. Storyline good, just a little slow. Long flick. But kinda neat, very good job depicting Manhattan mid 1800's. I dunno, maybe it's me and I watch too many indie and foreign films, but Hollywood movies are usually a disappointment. Speaking of good films, in the last couple weeks, I've watched "The Object Of My Desire" which was great, "Vertical Ray Of The Sun" which for me was incredible the way light and color is used. "In The Mood For Love" and "Falen Angels" both by Wong Kar-Wai, "Lies" which is a an eyeful, and "Ghost In The Shell". And I have a few more new discs here I haven't even opened yet. Hmmm, I guess I need to stop buying DVD's someday soon. My friggin' wish list on Amazon is like 3 pages long these days. Glad to be done with work today. I have the next three days off and have a lot to get done here. Besides working up in the cottage I just tore my whole bedroom apart. Re-wired, insulated (yes this house was built before they ever thought of insulation) and sheetrocked it. Also tore my old closet out and re-framed so now I have one almost 10 feet wide with sliding mirror doors, so one wall is a giant mirror floor to ceiling. Also have tie downs built into the wall around the bed, in case, well, you need to "anchor" anything. Speaking of, I threw my old bed out as I'm getting a brand new one this Friday, platform job, with a couple drawers in the base (probably good storage for the whips and tie downs, huh?) and a super duper comfy king size mattress to replace the 13 year old one I just chucked that would fold in half if I didn't have 3/4 inch plywood underneath it! So in the meantime I'm crashing on an old twin bunk bed in the spare bedroom and I wake up every moring with my neck or shoulder killing me, it sucks... So tomorrow when I wake up I'm gonna prime all the walls in my room and fill all the old nail holes in the window frames and prime them too. I'm going to do up my new closet with those cool ClosetMaid wire shelves and racks and stuff, so I shoulkd have a ton of storage and be able to get rid of one of my dressers. Looking to unclutter this place. Throw out as much furniture as possible and minimize my posessions. Not an easy task. This is a guy who still has some of the same stuff in my junk drawer I had as a teenager. Well, to be honest, one whole dresser is nothing but junk drawers, no clothes. I think I need to streamline a bit, to put it mildly. My big dilemna is what color to paint my room once it's primed and ready to go (sound familiar?)... Much as I like the dark dungeon type theme, I want it to be kinda soothing on the psyche and easy on the eyes. Really I spend any inside time at home in the kitchen, in front of this keyboard, or in my room watching movies. So it's key that the colors are mood enhancing. Any ideas in that department? Please post them as a comment to this entry, K? Actually this cute girl at Home Depot's paint department was all smiles and flirty when I asked her a question the other day, but I was in a rush to get back here and back to work. I shoud go back and feel her out on it (the paint, stop thinking like me). OK OK That is a good segue into the next thing. Which is something I promised the other night. Nope, not the crush thing, I'll do that next time (maybe, depends how bold I'm feeling). But nobody really reads this crap anyway so why not, right? WHY NICE PEOPLE SUCK- Well, have you ever heard of Clarkes third law ? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" So that is very close to the way I often feel- which is "Any sufficiently nice person is indistinguishable from someone who likes me" I mean, it's a pain in the ass enough as it is. Then throw in the confusion of readng signals right and not interpreting that smile with "that" smile, shit, it'll drive you nuts. Bad enough that half the time the people who "like" you are not who you like, and the ones you "like" don't like you "the same way". Then when you do finally have a mutual thing and you build on it, sooner or later it's just not worth it, it ends up being "too much headache". Aaagggghhhhh, shit, just insert appropriate Peanuts strip right here, one where Charlie Browns mouth is open to the size of Wyoming! Then top it all off with most of the people I come into contact with are bona-fide dented cans (and I don't like to defecate where I consume nourishment) and it is even more fucked up. And there's this one can I could be smitten with. And she's gonna kill me with that fuckin' smile of hers. Puhleez, leave me in peace! Hell if I ate canned veggies instead of frozen, she'd be a number ten can of Lima Beans. And I real y like Lima Beans, sometimes I just eat a package of them for a meal, little butter and some herbs on top, mmmm. So what's changed here? Not much, still confused half the time. Been long enough since my last relationship that I' m reverting to "dog-mode" as Lissa puts it, well she doesn't put it that way. She just makes constant "you're such a dog" comments to me. And of course I have to protest, I mean, I'm a male of the human species, it is normal, thank you. So Lissa, when you read this, I may be a dog, but I am trying to figure out why I keep getting involved with psycho girls (or better yet, why am I a psycho magnet) and that's more then most dogs can say! Has anyone noticed I don't spell check any of these things ? Really, I am an excellent speller, can spell almost anything. Problem- I can't type to save my life. So I know there are tons of typo's, you don't like it, you wanna come over here at 3 in the morning and fuckin' proof read it all ? Didn't think so. Wow, I hears some great tunes on A-V at work today. Gonna start jotting down the names and I'll get some links here, like real soon. And I have all the pix from the work party cropped and optimized for the web. Once I figure out how to get the pop-up code working here I'll make a thumbnail page and do some humorous captions. I tried to get the web cam page to be a pop up, but for some reason the same javascript that works in a static page doesn't work here. Not that these pages are dynamic. I settled on Grey Matter as the blog code cuz I don't have time to do a serious site with database driven backend. I have a couple running in development, but writing code to customize all the templates is just too tedious. Maybe one day, but I have too much to do around here to become a code junkie these days. One more thing kinda cool. I've got a cat door on the second floor! How's I do that you ask? Well it wasn't easy teaching the cat to shimmy down that tiny ladder I made... No, what I discovered is that if I keep this one window in my bedroom wide open (yes I know it's December, but I have the thermostat wires grounded out in my room now so it's like an oven upstairs, just temporary since I demolitioned my room, I have a new thermostat to put in this week) Gray cat can jump out the window onto the little roof over the kitchen door, and from there she jumos down to the ground. And I guess she can do the same in reverse and let herself back in. Tonight I opened the kitchen door and the kitten, Dave, was outside, looked at me, meowed once and ran in the house! See, Dave has never been outside. Well, he was a stray kitten someone talked me into taking (thanks Lissa, the fuckin' vet bills added up to the cost of a nice purebred kitty) and I've never let him outside yet. Was afraid he would wander off and not make it back home. Lately though I'm almost wishing he would do just that. Gray Cat is allowed to come and go as she pleases though, always has and never had any problems. Speking of the kitten (really a cat now, but still trippin' like a kitten), lemme give you one piece of advice guys- Next time you're all in love with some female, and she happens to like cats. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, think to yourself how neat it would be to get a kitten. When she's gone and that side of your bed is again empty, the damn kitten will still be around. For a looong time. In fact, depending on how much the woman like to over-analyze everything, she may even make a point of commenting to you how it may have been "impulsive or less then responsible" to get a new cat, "it's a long term commitment" and stuff like that. No shit hon, I have four kids, I know about long term commitments, trust me on this one... Hehe, just couldn't resist that piece of advice. Speaking of kids, I'm going to Midnight Mass at St. John The Divine tomorrow night with Maggie. Kinda cool she will do stuff like that with me. Either she really wants to spend time with me, she really wants to get away from her Mother, or she's bored. Maybe a little bit of each. But she really is a great kid. Smart and funny and insightful, old for her age as only brilliant frustrated teenage girls can be. Man I love her and am glad she wants to hang with me these days. OK, it's late, or early, I need to sleep as I have way more work to do tomorrow then is humanly possible for three people, so if I get half of it done I'll be doing good. Oh yeah, I have to do CXhristmas shopping and wrap a few presents too, damn, that close to X-mas, time flies when you're sitting here writing whatever pops into your head... l8r, -S posted @ 02:48 AM EST [link] [Karma: 6 (+/-)] You Found Me !! Welcome to my place to ramble, philosophize, link, prophesize, and sometimes proselytize. At least on a good day! Hope y'all enjoy, maybe even chuckle or do the "eyebrow thing" occasionally, but most of all that you come back. And feel free to comment, or add Karma as you wish. Finally got a new webcam and it's up... If'n you want to take a peak, click on "webcam" on the right- If the image is not recent, it means I turned it off because I needed some "private time" And if you would, please sign my Guest Map so I know where in the world my visitors come from. OK, On with the posts -- -Steve posted @ 10:39 PM EST [link]long ass day... Shit ! I kinda promised myself I'd write something here every day. Well I meant to last night, but was tired. Not like I ain't now, but have to just do it. Sittin' here munchin on some TJ's stone ground yellows. Really had a sweets craving, but nothing in the house remotely sweet or chocolate or even close. Oh well, kinda late to be eatin' anyway... Just got down from the garage, well I guess it's not a garage anymore. Lemme fill you in- I have a detached garage up in the corner of the yard and I'm turning it into a cottage to rent out. Typical construction nightmare so far. Every unexpected snag that could happen has. Had to trench over a hundred feet to tie into my septic, another trench almost as long to bring water and cable/phone. The whole yard is rock ledge so the guy runs the backhoe has had lots of fun. I'm having some guys do the carpenter type stuff as I don't have time. And I'm doing all the plumbing, heat, and electrical. It's coming along nice. I put a giant skylight in and it looks great. Doing a cathedral ceiling with eyeball high-hats over the living area and gonna do those little halogen mini-cans for task lighting over the kitchen. Spring comes I'll do a little patio in front and plant a row of arborvitae for privacy. Seeing as how it's all new it's actually nicer then the main house! But I'm working on the house little by little. Hmmm, now I think of it, I've been working on it little by little for the last 10 plus years. Oh yeah, did I remember to tell you to NEVER by a really old house with the quaint crooked floors and lots of "character". I didn't? Well don't! The SNL anniversary party was tonight, not that SNL, if you know me, you may know what I'm talkin' bout. But I haven't been in that party mood lately, so came back here after a meeting and started runing the water lines up in the cottage. Finish them in the morning I hope and then start pulling wires. Stopped off and had dinner with "dented-can" guy, my usual place, Soon-Ei is off tomorrow so I figured let me stop by and say hello and grab a bite. She's been working seven days a week lately, so glad she got some relief at last. Come to think of it I kinda work every day too, and there'e no chance of me getting a break anytime soon, but it's all in the name of progress so I see it as working towards something tangible. Which is indeed a change for me... Shit, there's so many good movies coming out and I haven't got time to catch any. Maybe I'll see two movies christmas day, make the most of my day of rest, huh? Wanna see "Personal Velocity" with Kyra S and Fariuza B, it sounds good. And of course "Gangs Of NY", but that I'll take Sam to see with me. K, I'm gonna go crash before I eat anymore of these chips and/or the sun comes up. Found some cool links, I'll post them tomorrow, promise. AND - tomorrow I will go off ona deep ass tangent- what the media and technology has done to make this current generation even more fucked, and also, why is sucks having crushes (no, not unrequited love, simple crush we're talkin') and also, why really nice people confuse the hell out of me, K? alright, catchin' some ZZZ's, l8r... -S Hey- Gray Cat is sitting on my hub, the uplinked one, get offa there ! posted @ 03:59 AM EST [link] [Karma: 19 (+/-)]Love Kimchi burps ! Mmmm, Just back to work from lunch. Had boolgogi, p'ajon, kimch, rice, miso soup & salad, and of course a spicy yellowtail uramaki roll. I could eat kimchi every day, oops, I almost do. Yeah yeah, I know, it stinks to high hell, but it's soooo good! Went with Lee from work and he's getting all the digi-pix from last night transferred to a machine, when he's done, I'll get some up here, promise, K? Alright, have to go, Jianlin is here asking questions ! Writin' more later ;-) posted @ 03:45 PM EST [link] [Karma: 10 (+/-)] |
