Go take a look, if you haven’t already. If you have personal.suburbanlegend.org bookmarked, you should change it to just plain http://www.suburbanlegend.org, which will take you to the new subdomain. This one will remain active for a bit so I can figure out if I can import my old posts, but I won’t be updating this one anymore.
I’m on vacation, which is why I’m posting more this week. Anyway, I’ve been active on Facebook for the past couple years and obviously sadly neglecting Suburban Legend. What I’d like to do is make this site into an aggregate not only of blog posts, but of Facebook statuses and perhaps Twitter as well. That way, any photos I post, any updates I make and so forth can be done centrally and actually provide this site with some content, rather than forcing people to either subscribe to the social media I use or to visit multiple sites. I’ve just begun the process of looking into how to do that. I’ll probably switch from using ExpressionEngine as my CMS to Joomla (since it’s open-source and offered as a free install with my host) and in so doing, will make this version of the site the “old” version and the Joomla version the new one. Hopefully I can import the data from EE in order to provide a sense of continuity, but if I can’t, then at the very least I’ll keep the photos.
In other technology-updating news, I ordered a new phone yesterday! I’ve been wanting a smartphone for a while, but didn’t pull the trigger because Casey’s ongoing treatment sucked up most of my disposable cash. I also didn’t want to spend several hundred dollars on a phone, nor switch to either AT&T or Verizon, so I’ve been waiting for one of the other carriers to essentially offer a suitably awesome phone for as cheap as possible. This weekend, that event actually came to pass, and I’ll be switching back to T-Mobile from Sprint and welcoming a Motorola Defy into the family, which they were offering for the irresistible price of “free”. I’m pretty excited about that. I hope I don’t become one of those annoying people who can’t get the hell off their phone for more than two minutes at a time, but if I do, at least I promise to try to make it interesting.
Last night I learned that a friend of mine from high school passed away last week from melanoma. I’ve been feeling pretty emotional about this most of the day, but in both a sad and a happy way. John and I palled around during most of my senior year (he was a sophomore) and then had a bit of a falling out shortly before I graduated, and lost touch after that. So, I hadn’t seen or heard from him in nearly 20 years. But I always wondered what became of him, in that way you do when you think about your friends from the past, and even looked up his profile on Facebook a few times though I never found it. At least, not until last night when one of my FB friends (another former HS classmate) posted their prom picture with the caption, “Goodbye John.” Goodbye? Where’d he go? Oh no…
I clicked on the picture and through that, to his profile and then to his partner’s profile. Was I surprised to learn he was gay? Absolutely not. 
He and his partner had been together for 10 years and had their own blog, thebothofus.org and I’ve been going through it. I found the post where John had first received his diagnosis almost exactly 3 years ago, and have been reading forward (the blog does go farther back for a few more years, too). It is a gorgeously descriptive, emotional blog of regular day-to-day events in both their lives, interspersed with updates on John’s condition, political musings and reflections on being gay in today’s world. They talk about puttering in the garden, walking around the lake and simply enjoying life, and it is clear that they loved each other very much and expressed it often.
Right now I’m so happy that John and his partner had such a rich life together, and terribly sad for his partner’s loss (knowing a fraction of what he must be feeling right now with my loss of Casey), and sad for myself that I didn’t get to know John as an adult because he was obviously a great guy. The blog is wonderful and really, really worth a read. I said only a few days ago that one of the reasons I rarely found time to update my own blog (besides web fatigue from working on web stuff all day) was because I tended to do the same things repeatedly and that nobody wants to read about how I did laundry today or what my cat was doing. Well, after reading John’s blog, I am clearly mistaken. Not only is it wonderful to read about someone’s daily life, the things that make it so worthwhile *are* the ordinary things and the honesty with which one approaches talking about them. Even though John is gone, it truly is nice to be able to go back and “catch up” on his life and get a sense of the kind of person he was.
The lessons I’m taking from John’s life and passing today are to enjoy the fact that I’m still alive, and to try to cultivate the appreciation that he had for everything that is still possible.
Sorry about that. Domain expired without me noticing. It’ll be a couple years before that happens again.
Today, Casey left us after a long battle with pancreatitis. Considering half this site consists of Casey pictures, I’m sure you can understand how I feel right now. I know with certainty that I chose the right time; he wasn’t suffering yet, but was clearly beginning to fail and would not have been “himself” much longer. But I miss my baby.
I’m 37 today. Can you believe it? Where does the time go?
It’s been a stormy month, and tonight is no different--tornado warnings to the south and merely strong rains and lightning around here. My lower level (it’s not completely underground, so it’d be inaccurate to call it a basement) has a sump pump in it, but I’d just like a stretch of more than a day or two without rain. I know, I know, we need the rain--but all at once?
So, it’s been a while. What’s happened? Well, we celebrated Easter, Mother’s Day and the weather got nicer. I saw indications that my laptop was on the way to a disk failure, and decided to get a new laptop. 4 days after that, my router shit the bed and I had to get a new router. Now I have a totally awesome network on which I can play Sims at lightning speed...and a lot more credit card debt. Thank God I paid the car off.
Casey’s improved. He’s put on about a pound and is hanging in there. I have to spend $500 on his mouth next week because he needs a cleaning and a growth removed. Is that cat ever not going to cost hundreds of dollars? (Well...yes, eventually, but I prefer that he be both inexpensive and alive.) He also has to eat special prescription food, which means both cats have to eat the special prescription food, and that’s a hundred bucks a month. I spend almost as much on their food as I spend on my damn food. Grah.
In addition to the dental visit, I have to get my tabs and renew my driver’s license by May 31st, so that’s another $150. Jesus. So I’m a little cash-poor until roughly mid-June. Thank God I have all this already-paid-for digital entertainment or I’d be awfully bored sitting at home all day. Luckily, the weather is also ripening into a glorious Minnesota spring, which means plenty of great biking. I’ve been out several times and while I haven’t been on any major rides (20+ miles), I’ve been on some small- and medium-length ones and I have to say that the biking around here is fucking GREAT. I live near several lakes and a number of bike paths, and the regular roads also have wide shoulders and not a huge amount of traffic, so even regular street biking is pretty great. I do miss my old bike paths and the access to the Vento and Gateway trails, but on the other hand, now I have all these other routes to explore. It’s all good.
I have to say I’m really enjoying this neighborhood. Being able to look out my window at the horses grazing in the pasture is incredibly peaceful. See above about the biking. It’s quiet. People are friendly. There’s a lot of very convenient stores and such only a half mile away. I got my hair cut at the spa/salon last week, and today I had a doctor’s appointment. It was an 8-minute bike ride away. How awesome is that? Pretty awesome, I’d say.
So, all in all, things are really pretty great even with the giant vet bills. Here’s hoping Casey comes through with flying colors, and I can finally get those curtains I’ve had my eye on.
I finally got my tax refund check last week, which showed up as a paper check as opposed to a direct deposit. Needless to say, I practically broke both legs running to the bank as fast as I could, and sent off the check to Nissan the next day. Well, today I just checked my bank balance and saw that my check had been cashed, then checked my Nissan account and saw that my loan account was closed. MY CAR IS PAID OFF! 39 months early. How fucking AWESOME is that? Very awesome.
Despite all the hype that surrounded the announcement of the iPad (or perhaps, in some small way, because of it), I decided to finally buy an e-reader, and chose the Nook from Barnes & Noble as my preferred delivery device.
The reason I wanted an e-reader in the first place is because, well, I read. A lot. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-7 books a week, depending on the week. I’ve had all my books for several years and have read them all at least twice, because I enjoy revisiting a story, but I also like buying new books from my favorite authors, and discovering new authors. When I first heard about the Kindle, I thought, well, that’s neat, but I like the experience of reading an actual paper book. The smell, the feel, the experience of it. I love shopping for books and browsing in bookstores. I like bookshelves. All gravy for a book-lover, agreed?
But then, about this time last year, I took a vacation in Florida and, as per my habit, packed about 6 books in my suitcase and another 2-3 in my carryon, as well as my laptop. And since it rained a lot while I was there, I ended up buying a couple more books to entertain myself. And then I was stuck hauling a friggin’ 10-pound carryon all over the damn airport, what with my laptop and my six 500-page novels and my bottle of water, plus my purse. Right about then, I realized that perhaps carrying a 12-ounce device with 1500 books on it would be a superior experience to carrying 6 books of a pound each, at least for traveling purposes.
And then I bought a house and moved, and had to haul fifteen 30-pound boxes of books down 3 flights of stairs into the car and then up 2 more flights of stairs into their respective new homes. Okay, at that point I REALLY saw the appeal of an e-reader.
Coincidentally, Barnes & Noble announced their new e-reader only a few weeks later, and I instantly fell in love with the picture of it. The Kindle has never particularly appealed to me in terms of aesthetics, not that that would have stopped me in a Nook-less world, but I really liked the appearance of the Nook much better, not to mention the fact that it ran on Android (thus opening the opportunity for future app development), that it had wifi (Kindle doesn’t) and that it had an external storage slot for a microSD card, which the Kindle 1 had, but the Kindle 2 doesn’t. (Why not?!)
So, I set my sights on that, lusted over it throughout the holiday season, read a ton of reviews and even managed to get through all the bug reports and the iPad launch without feeling buyer’s remorse. I finally placed my order on January 20th for the February 12th ship date, but B&N had been shipping early, so I knew it was likely I’d have it sooner--and I did. It arrived on the 5th, apparently mere moments after the 1.2 firmware update was pushed out, fixing virtually all the bugs reported in the earlier versions, so it worked great right from the start.
Why didn’t I want an iPad? Well, first, it costs twice as much. Screw that. Second, like I said, I read a lot, and I wanted a device FOR reading. The iPad might be a cool multifunction device, but it’s still an LCD screen like any other LCD screen, and those just are not suited for reading for 3 or more hours at a time (as devoted book-lovers are likely to do). E-ink, on the other hand, emulates a printed page almost perfectly, and the contrast and lack of backlighting are far easier on the eyes. (For this reason, I doubt very much that the iPad will be a “Kindle killer” as predicted.) Yes, the iPad can browse the web and do all kinds of other things, but so what? I already have two laptops and a desktop computer. I don’t really need ANOTHER way to surf the web. Besides, there’s no reason the Nook can’t have a browser one day soon (there are plenty of Android developers chomping at the bit), and it has wifi AND 3G without the extra thirty bucks a month.
So, I’ve had the Nook almost a week now, and I friggin’ love it. The interface is very intuitive, loading content is very easy, and the reading experience is very book-like. So much so, that once I purchased a cover for it, I have to check myself to keep from “turning the page” and flipping from right to left, because there’s nothing ON the left side but the cover! One thing I have heard, and am watching carefully for, is that many users have found that a crack develops in the bevel, at the right-hand page-advance button. Not good. However, one doesn’t need to use the buttons to advance the page: the LCD screen also functions as a page turner with a simple swipe of the finger, which is actually strongly reminiscent of the motion used to turn a paper page. That’s not exactly an excuse for problems in the bevel manufacture, but hopefully the crack issue can be avoided by swiping instead of using the button.
Now I need to resist going crazy in B&N’s e-book store.
Check it out:
You’ll probably want to view the large version of the picture (via the gallery) to get a clear look at it. That’s about 200 yards beyond my house, taken yesterday evening at sunset. Cool, huh? I looked up and saw something floundering in the snow but couldn’t tell what it was. I snapped a few shots anyway just because, and now looking at the pictures, it’s obviously a coyote. (At least it wasn’t a bear.) Coyotes are pretty new to Minnesota, but they’re not just found in the sticks anymore. I’ve seen one about 3 miles west of Lake Calhoun (which is smack in the middle of Minneapolis proper, 5 miles out of downtown) and my sister has a few running around her first-tier suburban neighborhood. The funny thing is, when we were kids growing up at that house, we NEVER saw wildlife around there. Once in a great while the occasional racoon or owl would come around. Now the place is overrun with deer and wild turkeys, a bald eagle showed up across the street last week, and then coyotes just down the street. Crazy!
I updated my site a little early. So it’s not quite 2010 yet, but it says it is, because I could just tell that the next time I thought of updating the graphic would be sometime in February. Better to strike while the iron is hot, I say.
Right now I’m enjoying a beautiful sunset, with the fire and all my candles lit. I have to say that 2009 was a good year for me. It was an incredibly stressful year, to be sure: impending layoffs in February, which I fortunately wasn’t a part of; Casey getting sick in April and needing hundreds of dollars in vet visits and round-the-clock care; buying the house. My God, at some points I thought I was going to lose my mind. Fortunately, I didn’t, and even the stressful events had happy endings. Casey’s lost a ton of weight (from 19 lbs down to about 8 or 9), but he’s responding well to the medication and is practically his old cheery self (he’d be more cheery if Moocher weren’t around to hog the limelight). The house is everything I thought it could be and more, and for less money than even my most wildly optimistic estimates. I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the new LCD television. And the holidays were great. Work was very low-stress with a reasonable workload, which borders on the miraculous. I’ve been able to take a few days off and enjoy the season. My family had a wonderful time at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we all got along great, also miraculous. Considering how many people spent 2009 trying to stay in front of an avalanche of shit, excuse the metaphor, I feel very, very lucky indeed.
So, what’s in store for 2010? Well, the Chinese are going to discover life on Titan and Dave Bowman is going to rematerialize in his interdimensional form. Just kidding. (Nerd humor.) I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to a few upcoming incidents. Once I get my W-2 in a month, I plan to file my taxes as quickly as humanly possible, and score that $8000 tax credit. After celebrating for about 5 minutes, I’ll then use that to pay off my car loan, which will be a huge financial coup for me (I’ve only had the car a year and a half). Since 2010 was something of an expensive year (TV, vet bills, paint for the house, etc), I plan to pay off my credit card again, and try to keep my debt footprint to a minimum. And I’ve decided that it’s high time I saw some of the world, so I plan to begin putting money aside for a vacation fund, get my passport, and start boldly going where I haven’t gone before, starting in 2011. I’ve got plenty of vacation time racked up, and I’ve been to Florida enough times that going there is a slightly more expensive version of staying home. Time to visit some new places and take some new pictures!
But tonight will be a calm and lazy night (as they all are, to a certain extent). Eat a few cookies, watch some Ghost Hunters, doze on the couch, play Sims 3 World Adventures. It’s going to be great, I can feel it!
We’re supposed to get up to 20 inches of snow by Saturday morning. The snow began a couple hours ago, and already the roads are pretty bad. I wrapped my Christmas presents, and then drove to my parents’ house to drop them off, figuring that even if I couldn’t make it on Friday, at least the loot would be there. As soon as I got onto the highway, I reconsidered the wisdom of making the trip. I made it without incident, but man! I’m not budging until the plows come out, that’s for sure. In fact I might not have a choice in the matter.
But, let me tell you. I’ve got tomorrow off, I’ve got the fireplace going, the TV’s on, the cats are running around doing whatever, and my car is in its heated, attached garage not getting snowed on. If I had to be anywhere getting 20 inches of snow dumped on me, I couldn’t pick a better spot than here.
Still alive. I haven’t posted about anything because nothing interesting has happened. Almost done with the Christmas shopping, work’s going great, we’re supposed to get 20” of snow starting tomorrow evening. That’s about it!
I’m really enjoying home ownership thus far. Of course, it’s only been a month, but thus far it seems like all the convenience of apartment living combined with all the privileges of a single-family home. I still don’t need to worry about trash pickup and mowing the lawn (well, as long as I remember to put the can out on the curb on the designated day), but I also never have to worry about getting a hot shower at 10am, or hoarding quarters for the laundry, or having to wait to do laundry either. The place actually isn’t that difficult to clean, either, though it helps that half the house doesn’t have furniture in it yet. The utilities are also dirt-cheap: I paid $87 for my first power/gas bill, my phone bill will be about $50 a month, and my 2010 property tax estimate was $500 less than I had budgeted for. So I’m essentially paying about $400 more per month for about 2.5x the space and a lot more amenities besides (not to mention the equity and tax benefits).
Other than that, work has been quite busy, as one might expect just before the onslaught of Black Friday and the upcoming holiday season. Working, working out, playing the Sims, cleaning, watching the cats chase each other around, that’s the sum of my life. Casey’s about a third of the cat he used to be--he’s about 7 lbs and a little frail, but still finds time to snuggle (which he seeks out less often now that he gets more attention from Moocher than he really wants) and his appetite is hanging in there. Moocher, on the other hand, is getting a little chubby, so I’m going to have to get him to run around a little more.
It is really a good news that you have paid…
By Johnson Smith on 2012 01 04 - from 'No more debt!'.
Kindle is best for E-reading than ipad. It’s backlight in…
By jacksemple on 2011 12 20 - from 'Joining the e-reader crowd...'.
The walk in can seem like a mile hike if…
By kellypreston on 2011 12 03 - from 'New site is up.'.
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
This page has been viewed 99749 times Page rendered in 5.3310 seconds Total Entries: 224 Total Comments: 447 Most Recent Entry: 02/16/2011 05:44 pm Most Recent Comment on: 01/04/2012 06:37 am |
Total Members: 2414 Total Logged in members: 0 Total guests: 13 Total anonymous users: 0 Most Recent Visitor on: 02/06/2012 07:04 pm The most visitors ever was 146 on 12/29/2006 01:49 pm |