mabrakes

poke

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:00:43 GMT

Still here. Just busy. Whee.

Husband got his new Honda Accord 1/14. Mom's birthday was 2/6. (Need to mail the card... >.>)

One of the greatest things my mom has ever told me...

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:29:05 GMT

Was something at Christmas to the effect of, "You're an adult now; you can have Oreos before supper if you want to."

VOTE!!!

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:44:18 GMT

Happy Election Day!

Are there greeting cards for Election Day?

Ok, so, the car

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:42:04 GMT

So, Tuesday night I picked up my new car. It's a 2009 Honda Fit, in the "storm silver metallic," which roughly translates to "medium-dark gray." I got the sport trim, because it was cheaper (and easier) to upgrade the trim than to add on the random stuff we wanted (me: USB port; him: cruise control). It's a manual transmission. I'm still stalling in first gear occasionally - mostly at lights, because I'm cautious on the gas.

It's smaller than I'm used to, and you sit fairly close to the front - I'm still figuring out how far up I can park, because I've been way far back in most parking spaces so far. I learned to drive in a minivan, then had a Plymouth Acclaim for over eight years, so this is very different. It's tall, though - the smallness is mostly in the length. It's a hatchback, and the rear seats fold both up and down. This works well with the twin garbage/recycling cans I have in the back seat. The cargo space is pretty good even without reconfiguring the seats.

You sit up in it, which is good; cars with seats low to the ground are hard on my knees. The lower back support is excellent. The steering wheel has a T pattern for the spokes, which is unfortunate since I normally drive with my hand at the bottom of the wheel, overhanded, but being a manual, I'm having to change how I hold the wheel anyway (switching right to left to accommodate the shifting). There's a footrest down by the clutch. Visibility is pretty good, with the size of the headrests being the only occasional problem. The rear hatch has a wiper.

Okay, so, the USB. I can plug in my thumb drive, and the radio will find the folder(s) with music and play it - with ID3 recognition, and everything. The Aux button switches between XM, USB, and CD without haveing to unplug anything. The volume is a knob (important).

Electric windows are meh to me. The electric locks still confuse me regarding which way opens and which way closes. Electric mirrors are appreciated, though. Gazillions of cupholders. Two are right in front of the front vents, so if you want a beverage heated or cooled, it works really well.

Heats up pretty quickly. The engine temperature guage thing actually tells me when the engine is cold. Shifts smoothly, other than my still getting used to a manual full time.

That's to start...

Gah, snow

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:12:56 GMT

The husband mentioned that the weather was going to be icky, but he didn't say anything about SNOW. Argh.

I get my car today! /dance

Egads

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:22:15 GMT

I was detoured from my normal route to work by a truck fire on I-88. O.O

General stuff

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:34:25 GMT

I don't think many, if any, people who don't already know me read this, but I've kept it five or six months, so some general stuff...

I'm a librarian. I mostly work in circulation (where you check books out and whatnot) and interlibrary loan (getting items from other libraries for our patrons, and sending our stuff to places that don't have it), but I also do some reference work. I find information categorization fascinating, and have been known to daydream about things like file structures and relational databases.

I play World of Warcraft. My main is a hunter; I mostly play hunters, rogues, and priests, but I also have a shaman and a warrior getting up there. I'm not a min-maxer; I spec to play in ways that I find fun. This means that I have a couple of marksman hunters - heavy enough into the tree that when the 3.0 patch shifts, I won't have to shift any of my non-marksman points to get the new 51-point talent. I play dagger rogues; the 70 is subtlety, but specialized towards surviveability, and it's fun to farm on her, because she just doesn't die. My priest is a 33/28/0 hybrid - she can heal in heroics and raids, but can also pull of 600+ DPS in the same. In mostly healing gear. My shaman is elemental, with points in restoration, but not any of the healing points. My warrior is fury, but I mostly play in battle stance (still leveling solo), and I skipped the 41 point talent. I've tried mages and warlocks, but haven't kept any. My druid will be deleted to make a death knight. My paladin got transferred off the server when it was free to make room for the shaman. I've done goblin engineering, mooncloth tailoring, dragonscale leatherworking (on two characters), potion alchemy, and swordsmithing.

I also write fiction. Nothing published; it's mostly for my sanity.

I play Dungeons & Dragons, and run a campaign off and on. I tend to play rangers or scouts or clerics. Usually NG.

Married, two cats. Siblings. Broad musical tastes. Mostly read fantasy and biography. Play piano (not as well as I used to). History M.A., library M.S.

Arrogance

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:26:43 GMT

Ok, so there's stuff I'm inordinately proud of, even if I don't bring it up. Among them:

790 on the GRE analytical section. The section doesn't even exist now, but it was basically logic.
Going through a whole year of calculus with a TI-36X solar calculator, when the rest of the class had graphing calculators, and I finished the year with the highest average. (I was the curve in trig the year before.)
The only B on my high school transcript is in gym. (And, quite frankly, it was entirely because I suck at volleyball.) (Yes, I was valedictorian.)
I have kick-ass siblings. I sometimes talk about them too much.
I'm second in command of a World of Warcraft guild which turns 4 this Christmas; I'll have been in it for 3 years in November, and I've been an officer for about 2.3 years. We may be the oldest large, stable guild on our server.
It's irritating, but I'm routinely mistaken for 16-18. I'm 28. (Irritating because I work in academia. No, I'm not a student.)

And, totally unrelated, MY CAR IS BEING BUILT TODAY!! Actually, since it's being built in Japan, and they're 13 hours ahead of me, it might already be built! I'm getting a 2009 Fit.

RIP

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 16:22:21 GMT

Richard Wright

Wrath!

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:48:42 GMT

Release date for Wrath of the Lich King is apparently 11/13/08. :D :D :D

Gah!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:13:08 GMT

I'm parked in. >.< So much for going off campus for lunch. Luckily I have plenty of instant noodle products stashed in my office. Hopefully the person leaves before I want to go home tonight. Vertigo today, anyway, so it's probably just as well.

Lucky me!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:31:09 GMT

My Reese's just got stuck in the vending machine in our cafe in the lobby, and I was lucky enough that the vending machine guy was right there and was able to open it up and get it for me! Yay, chocolate. :D

54 now

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:39:28 GMT

Happy birthday, Dad! (Not that dad is on the internets...)

Last week's garbage...

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:35:40 GMT

Last week's garbage attracted this. Took the pictures at max zoom, just in case. ;) The neighbors (whose garbage you can see in there with it) were quite concerned about it, and even called animal control (who said they couldn't do anything about it), but the husband and I were both rather amused by it.

RIP, George Carlin

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:22:07 GMT

He was one of my husband's favorite comedians.

7 years

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:03:12 GMT

Happy anniversary to the man I love!

(Not that he reads my LJ, but you know...)

Inspirations

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:55:50 GMT

Months ago on a mailing list, there was a "Who inspires you?" thread. I started a draft reply, but never got around to finishing it. So I'm putting it here.

Virginia Woolf - "A Room of One's Own" made quite an impression on me in my undergrad. And I need one. It's a serious consideration when we have the funds for a house - a room for me, and a room for him. Dens, or some such.

Abigail Adams - Her early advocacy of women's rights and education without denying the roles of wife, mother, and such... Of all the First Ladies, for some reason she speaks to me the most.

Desiderius Erasmus - Wrote a paper on several of his works during undergrad. "The Complaint of Peace" was a particular influence.

Ludwig van Beethoven - When I was young, we had a record (yes, vinyl) with "The Consecration of the House" overture on one side and the "Lenore" overture on the other. I roller skated around the basement with "Consecration" playing quite a bit. Eventually the record acquired a chip in one side (it has since completely shattered); however, the first CD I ever owned was one with these two overtures. In the years I took piano lessons, Beethoven was always my preferred "classical" composer. (Bach has those evilly difficult inventions, and Mozart has just always been boring to me.) My last recital piece was Sonata in C sharp minor op. 27, 2 - Adagio sostenuto ("Moonlight"). And the Allegretto (second movement) of Symphony No. 7 is one of my favorite pieces of music all in all.

(Possibly more to come later.)

In Memorium

Mon, 26 May 2008 18:01:37 GMT

Pfc. Forrest Southwood. December 6, 1944, France.

Huh

Wed, 21 May 2008 20:46:53 GMT

http://irc.peeron.com/xkcd/map/

Of course, today's location for my region is in the middle of the Hudson River...

Patch day!

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:19:40 GMT

Woot! Now I just have to figure out what to move to put Scare Beast back on my visible bars since its range got buff and it's now an instant cast. (Hopefully the rays in Coilfang are fearable, because they're the first thing I thought of.)

Well, crap

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:28:32 GMT

So I went to my interview today; I think it went all right.

Then I head out to leave afterwards, and I'm thinking, "Yay, I get to go bag shopping now!" (I'm looking for something to replace my backpack that can double as something 'professional' or some such.) And I get half a block from where I had an interview, and my car dies. Basically no more power from the engine. /cry I did manage to get it off the road into a parking lot.

Called the husband and AAA, got it towed to our mechanic. (~$25 for the tow, wasn't too bad. Yay, AAA.) Husband dropped me off at home. Now we get to wait and see if it's within the fixable price range, or if I'm going to be shopping Aveos this week. >.< It's a '93, and it rolled over 160k miles this weekend. So, I mean, it's been on its last legs a while. /sigh

(Why the Aveo? Because it's rated about the same as the Fit on Edmunds, and would probably cost $2k less, and looks very similar. Granted, I still need to test drive one. And it has roll-up windows. I prefer roll-up windows.)

LibraryThing meme

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:20:48 GMT

A meme I can get into. :P Even though I don't actually use LibraryThing. (Over 1000 books is daunting to input.)

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread"by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded.

Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Here's the twist: add (*) beside the ones you liked and would (or did) read again or recommend. Even if you read 'em for school in the firstplace.

Additonally, stuff in green I own.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion*
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick (I don't dislike it; it's just so long.)
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (I'm reading it,lol... my brother gave it to me, and I think my other siblings have read it as well.)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair* (one of the highlights of that class)
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations (I really didn't like it.)
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath* (I love this book.)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon (I've read random parts)
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down* (this is what I generally list as my favorite book)
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit* (in the middle of re-reading it, heh)
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island*
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers*

So what kind of nerd am I?

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:48:30 GMT

The kind who wants to drive the entire length of U.S. 20, take pictures, and write a book about it. And why U.S. 20? Because James Fenimore Cooper mentions it in one of his books. (Back when it was still called, among other things, the Western Turnpike.)

U.S. 20 starts in Boston, crosses the north/central part of Massachusetts, runs down the latitudinal axis of New York, cuts across the tail of Pennsylvania into northern Ohio, runs across the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana (including Hammond, where my mom's from), and Illinois (goes through Chicago), crosses the Mississippi into Iowa at Dubuque, then goes through Nebraska to Wyoming, where it runs smack up to Yellowstone. It comes out the other side into the corner of Montana and then cuts down into Idaho, where it runs across the southern part of the state and then crosses into Oregon northwest of Boise. It runs through the middle part of Oregon, running smack into the Pacific Ocean in Newport.

I figure, first of all, it's a hell of a road trip, and secondly, since the book part of the idea involves historical information on both the road and the places it goes through, well, that part would just be fascinating for me. :P Just a few of the topics that would get hit at least tangentially: the American Revolution; the Industrial Revolution; westward expansion; the Steel/Rust Belt; the Oregon Trail; environmental conservation. And that's just the big cities.

And I suppose there would be a travelogue aspect to it (places to eat, things to see, things to do).

Ugh

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 01:19:38 GMT

It's gotta be something I'm eating... 2 Fridays in a row, emergency potty runs. We haven't even gone out yet. (Probably a good thing.)

Erg

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:55:30 GMT

Popped in the 3rd disc of Cowboy Bebop to watch while leveling my warrior... which I ended up stopping for the night at "Hard Luck Woman" (the episode that ends with the song "Call Me, Call Me" and Ed leaving), which of course makes me cry. And all I've got left to watch again is "The Real Folk Blues."

Next to re-watch is Firefly, which doesn't work as well with WoW since the episodes are longer.