Month: December 2002

Here’s my year in Music:

• Busta Rhymes: Genesis – “My vernacular is spectacular”
• Doc Watson: Misc – “There’s a dark and a stormy side of life; there’s a bright and a sunny side too”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers: By The Way – “I’m a notion, in your bedroom, make you feel, make you want to reassume.”
• John Hartford: Morning Bugle – I can’t think of any words because Michelle is listening to freakin’ George Michael. Who got her that CD, anyway?
• Bud Powell: The Genius of Bud Powell – um, there aren’t any words.

Two days after skiing for the first time in two years, my legs hardly function. I have the most trouble going down stairs, sitting down, etc. It was a blast though. Hilly and I skied a half-day at White Pass, which was windy, but the snow was nice and the lines were short.

We were going to meet with several friends, but didn’t run in to them until the 2nd to last run. Low visibility and such. Also, I couldn’t get the shoelace into one of my crappy boots, so i only had one shoelace. It was fun though. It was also relieving to not suck. I could ski just as well as I did two years ago, but without the endurance. Hopefully I’ll do more this week.

Last Christmas was a marathon. It was Michelle and my first married christmas, and we attended 5 separate events. It was exhausting. This year we planned a little better, and actually ended up with a bit of breathing room between events. It was wonderful, and we had a chance to visit with our families. The day after was a bit busy getting stuff working and waiting ~5 hours for Best Buy to install my new car stereo (no more squeal!)

Aside from being able to spend time with family, we’ve had the opporunity to visit with friends. Not as many as we’d like, but we’re working on it. Next year we’ll have it down. Bob’s Keg & Cork provided a great place to visit, drink some great beer, and Bob is just a great guy. He even served a full house on Monday, the day he’s usually closed.

Hope you all had a great holiday season as well.

My Grandparents moved out to Washington this summer. They’ve lived in the same beautiful house on the same beautiful lake in the same Nebraska town for over 40 years. The move has been somewhat difficult, as you can imagine. Its not easy to move from all those memories, traditions, and routines, but they’re getting settled in.

Last night they had all the Washington Freeds over for a cocktail party at their place. Its the first social gathering they’ve had in their new place, and I think it really was the final event that christened their home. Their new place, though much smaller, still had the same feel as the living room back in Hastings. Part of it was the similarity in decorations, lighting, and placement of furniture, but most of it was seeing them comfortable and happy in their new surroundings. It was a very pleasant evening, and I’m glad we were able to be there.

Fearful of actually starting the tradition of sending christmas cards, I’ve put a very non-commital, all-inclusive christmas update online. If you want to read it, you’re welcome to, if not, fine by me.

I finished out my year today. My Simpsons Trivia calendar year, that is. I’ve kept track, and my final score is 202 right, 67 wrong. That gives me a 75%, which I’m happy with. There’s room for improvement, but that means I’d have to watch more TV. Even when its the Simpsons, its a chore.

While downtown this weekend with my parents, we stumbled upon a giant bronze elephant from Xi’an China, which was donated to the city of Portland. After a 7000 mile journey, we happened to show up in time to see it moved by crane into its final spot, facing east at the terminus of the North Park Blocks. It was facinating to watch the bronze behemouth moved; and to wait while the pre-made forms were removed because the measurement was off. I attribute it to a metric-standard conversion. Damn standard system.

While I understand that we typically think of China as being in the East, they really are closer when we look west, plus, you get to look at Powell’s Technical Books store. Bonus.

I had a dream about hell last night. As a rule of thumb, I always post any dream info in the extended entry because who really wants to read about other people’s dreams anyways?
Continue reading Hell

My family went to Great Britain in 2000, and had a splendid time. We were there when all the Mad Cow, Petrol Strike, and Foot & Mouth shit went down. It made for an interesting trip, but now I have doubts about giving blood, since I was there when the Mad Cow thing went down.

I try not to worry much, and I do a decent job of it. However, I sometimes get worried that I will slowly go crazy due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. My dad described the disease as a joke when he was in medical school; the blink tag of diseases. He also described how a person with it slowly goes crazy, driving everyone in their life away and eventually dying alone and very much in a bad state. Sometimes I wonder if that beef vindaloo I had in Keswick will come back to haunt me someday.

I think people like their memories. I sure enjoy mine. I think that’s partly why I do this, and why I take so many pictures. I love to look back from time to time and remember places, smells, tastes and feelings that you can associate with pictures. Today we had Library Inservice, which amounted to a lot of sitting around, and listening to library events that may or may not affect you.

The room we were in has a podium with a computer and an overhead projector. A couple days before I had been training students with WebCT, and had set the desktop background using one of my pictures, and for some reason, it was still set today. I was kind of embarassed, because its a faux pas to that on a work computer. I got comments on the picture, and overall, I was very glad I put it there because it gave me a wonderful image to accompany my constant day dreaming during the sessions. Why do meetings suck so much?