Life

General ramblings connected to my personal life and activities.

Post-Thanksgiving Wrapup

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Heh…I guess after three days, I should really move my ‘happy Thanksgiving’ post down the page a touch, eh?

Thanksgiving was quite nice. I had both Wednesday and Thursday off, and Prairie’s dad Lon came down on Wednesday afternoon to spend Thanksgiving with us. I got to take him shopping to help him pick up an iPod Nano, and then we watched Star Wars Episode II in the evening.

Thursday was spent entirely at home, relaxing and puttering around. Prairie cooked up an incredibly good dinner (in the words of Arlo Guthrie, “a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat”):

A Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat...

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes covered in marshmallows, gravy, rolls, jello salad, cranberry jelly, and pecan tartlets and pumpkin pie for dessert. Yum!

Unfortunately, eventually all that ended, and Friday rolled around. Black Friday, to be precise. There are definite pros and cons to having a mall-based retail job…and wow, but that day was insane. I had a split shift: 7am-11am, off for six hours, and then back from 5pm-10:30pm. Uff-da. Busy all day long (there were actually people waiting at the store gate when we opened at 7am) — and unfortunately, I just didn’t seem to be getting the right customers, as I ended up having the least sales of any of the sales staff that day. “ Ah, well…I know I’m not a born salesman, I just do the best I can while I’m there.

More long days Saturday and today, but I’ve got Monday off to rest. Quite looking forward to that, too…

Buying a camera?

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Oh, by the way…

On the off chance that any of my Seattle-area readers are considering or planning on buying a camera this holiday season, I’d love you forever if you came by the Kit’s Cameras store in the Northgate Mall while I’m working. I can’t do anything like dropping prices or some such thing, but not only will I do my best to get you set up, it’d make my sales numbers look that much better. ;)

Frack!

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Hehe — Prairie and I just finished watching Season One of Battlestar Galactica. I’d seen it before (on my ‘puter via BitTorrent), ’twas the first time for her.

She’s hooked.

We may end up taking some time to watch what there is so far of Season Two (which is sitting on my ‘puter, again thanks to BitTorrent) so she can catch up to where we are before they start broadcasting new episodes in January.

Make it stop!

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Apparently, sound carries through the ventilation ducts in our apartment building.

The downstairs neighbor — on the other side of the building — has had “All I Want For Christmas is You” from the Love Actually soundtrack playing on repeat…

For.

Six.

Hours.

It’s most clear in our bathroom, but it can be heard throughout our apartment. I’m actually lucky that I had a three-hour training meeting tonight…Prairie’s actually been here all evening (hiding in the bedroom with all the connecting doors closed and watching TV has been saving her sanity).

I just called the landlords and let them know. “Oh, you’re kidding!” Heh. Our best guess (I tried knocking on their door) is that they’re not home, and left a clock radio alarm on or something.

Whatever it was, it looks like the landlords just got in — it finally stopped.

Six.

Hours.

Bless our landlords, for they make Christmas stop.

Reconnecting

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This is great.

Some time ago — back in April of ’04 — I came across an old Anchorage Press article talking about the “glory days” of the underground/punk/alternative music scene in Anchorage, from the late ’70’s up to the early ’90’s, which touched off my own post reminiscing about my days running around the local scene, from the ’90’s to the early 2000’s.

Touched off by a couple of random Google searches, over the past couple of weeks (starting in August, and really picking up steam in November), that post has become an impromptu meeting point and simple message board for quite a few of the Anchorage scenesters of the ’80’s. While I was just a few years younger and don’t know any of the people who’ve been posting, I have been having an absolute blast watching all the various comments come in as this group of old friends re-connect after twenty-odd years or so.

All I did was provide the right Google keywords and a comment form that these guys have been using to get back in touch…but it’s enough to get a grin on my face whenever I see another comment roll in.

Lots of Pictures

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I’ve spent much of the afternoon and evening continuing to work on scanning in old photos that I’ve had lying jumbled up in various boxes. Quite a few have been scanned in and uploaded to my Flickr account. They haven’t been done in any particular order — roughly chronological, but it’s been a bit hit-and-miss here and there as I come across mis-ordered sections — but to make things at least a little bit easier, I did end up creating a ‘Narcissism’ photoset that has all the pictures of me collected together and presented in chronological order.

Other bits that may be of interest to various people: Royce, who’s been in my life since fourth grade; City Lights, the first (though very short-lived) public DJ’ing gig I talked my way into; and The Lost Abbey (possibly NSFW, though not very), my first major (regular, longer than a couple months) DJ’ing gig.

More will come as I get time — I’ve only made it up to 1995, and I’ve got at least a few from ’96 and ’97, and that doesn’t even go into the three rolls from Gig’s that are sitting here too. For now, though, I need to do a little housework and get dinner in the oven before Prairie gets home and Hope and Peter show up to watch Lost.

Update: Prairie’s pointing out that when I said I needed to “get dinner in the oven”, I meant that literally — she’d actually made the dinner. I was just putting it in the oven so it would be ready in time for everyone to show up. It’s not like I’m actually cooking or anything here…. ;)

Before I was around

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Last time I went up to visit my folks in Anchorage, I snagged some old family photos. I’m (finally) starting to get some of them scanned in.

First up: four photos of my Aunt Kay. I never met Kay, as she died long before I was born. However, I’ve been told on a few occasions that she and I are very much alike. While I’m sure I’d seen pictures of her before, I didn’t remember any of them before I found these while digging through the stacks of pictures at mom and dad’s house.

From left to right: Kay sometime in 1960; Kay in a kilt sometime in 1961 (possibly at the University of Iowa, according to the handwritten note on the back of the photo); Kay and her date for Senior Prom sometime in 1961; Mom and Kay dressed up for Kay’s High School graduation in 1961.

Kay Ward Kay Ward Kay Ward, Senior Prom Berta and Kay Ward, Kay's High School Graduation

Lastly, Mom pinning Dad’s wings on after his promotion to 2nd Lieutenant in 1968.

Dad's 2nd Lieutenant Promotion

Where I’ve Been

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Where I've travelled in the world

USA, Canada, England, Germany (twice), Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia (which doesn’t exist anymore, so I had to choose Bosnia/Herzegovina), Italy, and Greece.

Where I've travelled in the US

Alaska, Arkansas, California, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississipi, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia.

(Some of these are “visited” in the sense of “drove through or rode through in a train”, others were when I was very young and can’t really remember. Still…in once sense or another, I’ve physically been within the borders of the state.)

Create your own visited states map or visited countries map.

Kind of sad that this is all I’ve been to, and yet that’s enough for many people to consider me “well traveled”. There’s still so much of this planet that I need to get to…I’ve barely gotten started!