OK I’m BACK from the Christmas whirlwind. Whew I’m tired.

I went to Atlanta and saw my mom and her new place. Boy I lucked out this year, going to ATL first meant I avoided the complete midwest snow shutdown. Also met up with Greg and little Greg, had some Waffle House, and hung out a bit. Too bad Amy couldn’t make it but sounds like she’s still going to try and get me the tour hookups for when I’m in DC in February 🙂  She works for Ron Wyden the senator from OR (along with Gordon Smith, I always forget him) and since I am a CONSTITUENT of Wyden’s, then I’m Amy’s bosses boss! Well one one-millionth almost.

In Cincy, I saw everyone I wanted to see except my friend Nick. Next time, dude. But I did get to see Dad and everyone (incl. K & ) as well as Mary, Miner and Janet, the Mauchs, and the other Janet, who is apparently a lot better off than she was earlier this month. (I heard the anaesthetic hit her pretty hard and she was out for 4 days, during which time she went through alcohol and cigarette withdrawal. Eek. I guess knocked out is the way to do it…)

While I was there I went with KG to the really-expensive-but-very-cool Newport Aquarium. The pic dump is up but some especially cool shots are:

some foot-long albino (?) gourami
a huge sea crab
clownfish in sea anemone
a tigerfish
some sixy-nining otters
a sea turtle
sharks and KG
some Gentoo penguins
a top view of the big tank

We also had a car accident but everyone is OK. And I set up a wireless access point but no one but me had a wireless computer, doh! Sounds like Dad, K, C, and C Fletcher will soon, so I guess I’ve done my duty of pushing them into the 21st century…

Back in PDX, my new keyboard arrived (a Yamaha AN1x) and the replacement for my twice-defective RAM, so I’m good. I also got Fred two new tankmates, some Australian Rainbowfish. Pretty innocuous. I thought Fred was skinny but he’s a giant bruiser in comparison!

OK that’s it. I need to figure out my new synth, and get back on PST. Work tomorrow.

There is nothing wrong with eating toast in the shower!

Some pictures of my fish, Fred, whose full name is Frederick J Goulash (don’t ask) are now up. I like the last one especially, you can see him going after some food. After I’m back from the holidays I think maybe I’ll get him a friend.

Fish are a funny pet. They say that when you keep fish, you’re really keeping water. How true. Ammonia levels in Fred’s tank have not been dropping as fast as I thought they would and I’ve been testing it frequently. I must admit that since getting one I’m jonesing for more. And bigger. In particular, I’ve really been thinking about getting an Oscar. These are smart (supposedly as smart as a dog!) big (up to 14″ long) fish from South America. The downside is they need a BIG tank to live in. Like 50+ gallons big. So I’m not sure I’m quite ready to go that far, ya know? I think I’d like to have a small tank for more than a few months before putting $350 into a new tank, stand, filter… I mean who knows? Maybe I’ll want to get a hedgehog, or gasp maybe even a dog? Or maybe do something else with my money. Chinchillas are kinda cute too, but they are indiscriminate poopers. Unacceptable — next!

Went and saw Spontaneous Woo and TPS Report on Friday. TPS’s main dude Ashish (great stage presence) is in my group, and I’m friends with SW’s gutarist, who is an Intellian also. It was good to see them play, and it was at The Arnada, which is funny because it’s the only place that Templeshock could reliably gets gigs so we were there a LOT. (BTW I think Spontaneous Woo is a GREAT band name.) I also like how even the most local of bands now has a website. Ha.

On Sunday I helped my friends Sharon and Derek rebuild the deck to their front door. This consisted of putting pylons in the mud, and a lot of leveling and standing around (like real construction workers). I also helped find their power main my digging down 3 feet. I was very glad when it was found without anyone experiencing electricity via a shovel. Aaanyways… 🙂

Looking fwd to seeing the family soon. On my dad’s side we’re trying to tone down the gifts a bit, so we’ll see how that works. Had a good talk with the old man tonight, too. He says he plans on living until he’s 85. Is that so? Let’s see what you say when you’re 84! I bet a few more years won’t sound so bad then!

Finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Wow. Kinda took 150 pages to get going but once the magic started flying it was pretty good. The villain was fantastical, but I think more realistic and menacing than, say, Voldemort. Even the silly 18th century style of writing was OK after a while.

I am now running gaim on my Linux box at home, so I should be online more often. For the record, take your pick:
AIM: groverkillelmo
MSN: andy (at) groveronline.com
Y!M: asgrover

Also, thanks to my friend Oliver for turning me on to some new tunes!

Not that anyone was going to, but I learned with my last birthday that leaving stuff you have acquired on a wishlist is VERY BAD.

So let me reiterate. I have a new digital camera. It is a Canon Digital Elph S110 and it kicks ass. It is very small. After I got it at lunch I went nuts taking pictures of the boring stuff in my cube. I hope nobody thought I was an industrial spy or anything. Mucho thanks to dad for the wherewithal to get it.

Lots of cool pics coming soon.

Thanks to a generous gift of a tank, I now again have a fishtank! So far I only have 1 fish (named Fred) in order to let the tank chemistry stabilize, but I’ll probably get another one to keep him company in a month or so. Sorry no pics yet. (Man I wish I had a better camera, mine is seriously obsolete.)

The Winamp plugin I wrote now has 967 (edit: 4000 now) downloads off of winamp.com! I hope people are using it and like it. Hmm what should I write next.

I have discovered the musical incredibleness of Ableton Live. Wow. I posted the first song I wrote with it on my website. The song certainly isn’t polished but I did it start to finish in 5 *hours*, starting from a bunch of guitar riffs my friend Jason laid down. Still a long way to go — I listen to some of the tracks produced by other amateur musicians on the web and they’re really good!

My problem with Cubase was always its extremely steep learning curve, hopefully the use of Live will be less of an impediment to creativity. As a bonus, it was also only $299, so now I can compose music without feeling like a criminal! 🙂

Finally, I’m really pondering what I should do after I take my sabbatical, after 7 years at Intel. Intel’s been pretty good to me…should I stick with it or try something new? I’ve been debating going to graduate school (law?), or perhaps working for a smaller company, or even starting my own.

Go see The Incredibles. I loved it.

Yep, I’m 30. Don’t see what the big deal is…

On an unrelated note, my friend Oliver notes here that it is much better to be buried in a biodegradable fashion than like a mummy. Well I totally agree. I think if you haven’t made your peace with the fact that your physical remains are pretty much irrelevant, then now’s the time to wake up. That said, I can certainly understand why people feel a certain way about their remains. Clearly the least selfish thing anyone could do is donate their body to science, the most likely result which would be being dissected by medical students. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t feel comfortable making this contribution intellectually, but at a deeper level my reptilian brain just can’t do it. Cremation is always an option…

Finally, another unpleasant thing to think about is living wills. If I were in Terry Schiavo’s condition, a persistent vegetative state, would I want to stop living? I don’t think a weblog really the best place to talk about this (which is obviously a very personal and private decision) but let me just ask that IF this should happen to me, please take a look on my computer for a file called letmediedammit.doc. 😉

You are now reading what I wrote *after* I deleted the rant I wrote. 🙂

Let me just say this: George W. Bush is now the president — and responsible not just to those Americans who voted for him, but to everyone. Including me. I hope that he is fully aware of that.

Let’s see you work to better the lives of *all* Americans now, George, okay?

I have the flu.

This sucks.

Fever? Dunno. Maybe I should get a thermometer…
Headache? Sometimes.
Extreme tiredness? Yep.
Dry cough? Yep.
Sore throat? Just a little.
Nasal congestion? Yep.
Sneezing? Yes, but not so much anymore.
Body aches? Yep.
Little bit of an earache. Not good.

I feel like I’m trapped in my house. I missed THREE Halloween parties this weekend. Got a costume and everything…guess I can hold on to it for next year?

OK time for a fluids/drug run.