hushed gray: the Kevin chronicles

Friday, December 29, 2006

Disco duck
Today, I think, was worthy of a journal entry, so let me do at least a quick summary before I head off to bed.

After finally dragging myself out of bed around the early hour of 10 a.m. (while that sounds like sleeping in it's not on my interim work schedule), I got the bathroom cleaned. That included the normal sink/toilet/tub scrubbing (not to be confused with Chumbawamba's "Tubthumping"), but I went a step further and washed the shower curtain (I can now see less dimly through the veil) and organized the under-the-sink cabinet.

I also vacuumed the apartment and rode my bike down to the corner gas station to pump up the back tire--I do need to get out on that thing more often.

On the stamp collecting front, I discovered a number of plate blocks have apparently adhered themselves to the stock pages, so I need to spend some time Sunday trying to pry those loose to see what can be saved and what's scrap at this point. It just gets so humid down here that I really don't see much way to keep that from happening, so I don't intend to buy much of anything with water-activated gum. It just doesn't make sense to put money into those stamps if a few months later I'm going to be trying to peel them off the pages.

This evening I did what I'd call "cooking." I cooked rice (not the five-minute instant rice, but the 45-minute brown rice) and heated up some pre-cooked frozen chicken. And it was very tasty. I made enough rice that I shouldn't have to cook again this weekend, haha.

After dinner I called home and talked with Mama and Rachel. After that I called Sarah and talked with her for a few minutes. Then I got on IM and chatted with Tony, Amanda, and Beth-Erin. That takes me back a few years...but it was good to catch up with everyone. I think Tony's impressed with how much football jargon I've picked up, even if I don't really know what it means.

Hymns are picked out for tomorrow. Much more I'd like to write but the bed calls. Goodnight.

posted at 11:57 pm | permalink | 0 comments

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Gerald Ford
Word came down shortly after 11:45 p.m. that Gerald Ford had died. He had been in and out of the hospital so many times over the past few years that in one sense it isn't exactly a surprise. But when you consider that he's one of only 43 people to ever hold the office--and one of only three to die in my lifetime--it seems rather significant.

posted at 1:56 am | permalink | 1 comment

Friday, December 22, 2006

Connecting intellectually
I'm glad I checked the tires while I was out and about today. The emergency spare is supposed to be inflated to 60 PSI; mine was inflated to only 17 PSI, so I pumped it up.

I also bought fuel; in three weeks of in-town driving, the Prizm got a bit better than 35 miles-per-gallon. That's not quite twice what the wagon got in the city, so I'm right well pleased with the fuel mileage.

So next week I start working the "later" shift. Not particularly looking forward to that, but the options are somewhat limited right now. Hopefully I'll adjust fairly quickly, and hopefully it will not be a long-term situation--though I'm not one to get my hopes up on such things.

posted at 1:15 am | permalink | 0 comments

Thursday, December 21, 2006

I'm whooped
It was one of those days where I spend 10 hours working like a mule, and at the end of it look around and have to ask where are the results. There's no doubt I worked, there simply wasn't much in the item store with my name on it when I finally left. But I worked.

I am just flat worn out, so how about bed?

posted at 12:12 am | permalink | 1 comment

Monday, December 18, 2006

Productivity's up
All I've got to show for the day is 9½ hours at work and a bunch of freshly-laundered and ironed clothes, plus another letter answered. Somehow that seems like a pretty productive day, so I'm sure not going to knock it.

Do you ever have a dream that you can't remember but that you know must have been incredibly vivid because when you wake up there's a particular person or place or object seemingly burned into your mind, almost as real as if you'd experienced something while awake? Sometimes I have dreams like that; I'm most certain I had a dream like that Saturday night, though I can remember almost none of the details. Bizarre.

There are dishes to be washed and e-mails to be answered, so cheerio.

posted at 11:50 pm | permalink | 0 comments

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Growl
Just got in from a walk, my second in three days. I've got to start getting outside more, and this seems as good a place as any to start.

Went to Bill's roast last night. There were some funny comments and some disgusting comments, and much consumption of alcohol (though not by me). 1 Peter 4:4 comes to mind for some reason. But it was something to do, and a nice send-off for Bill.

Today I've poked around a bit at my stamp collection, taken care of some e-mail, and so on and so forth.

Other things I won't write about here. Looking forward to next weekend!

posted at 3:23 pm | permalink | 0 comments

Thursday, December 14, 2006

I wasn't completely kidding about the vest
Generally when there's a shooting shortly before I'm scheduled to leave work, I'm not inclined to go check it out. But when it's within a five-minute drive from my apartment (keep in mind that I live in the "safe" part of town)...well, it'd kind of be crazy not to go, no? So that's what I did after I left the station last night, got a bit of sound from the police and e-mailed it in to the station.

Anyway, yes, three more shootings yesterday, two of them deadly. That's in addition to the three shootings on Monday, I guess it was. I'm thinking there was also a triple stabbing either Monday or Tuesday night, it's hard to keep them all straight. People are nuts.

I don't know if you've seen JibJab's 2006 year in review video. I caught a glimpse of it mentioned on one of the entertainment news magazine shows last night, so I checked it out. Parts of it are in poor taste, so I'm not linking to it here. Basic synopsis, it's an animation of (presumably) young school kids singing about the events of 2006 to the tune of "Jingle Bells." It's the last few bars that grabbed my attention, and I quote: "Israel, Hezbollah, Iran wants a bomb; the way that things are headed Armageddon won't be long--it really won't be long!" And then the animation ends with a view of the audience of parents with horrified looks on their faces, and the sound of crickets.

Sometimes "comedy" is scary.

posted at 10:10 am | permalink | 1 comment

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Forget the winter coat
How about a bulletproof vest? The city had at least three shootings yesterday, one of which I was sent out to cover since the afternoon reporter had the day off. I had an awful time finding the spot; we apparently didn't get the e-mail sent out with an exact address. But late and missing e-mail has been happening for a couple of months now, so no big surprise there.

Overall, though, violence aside, yesterday went pretty well. Got caught up on some e-mail around here, though perhaps not as much as I would have hoped. But anyway.

For some reason I thought I had a lot more to say, but I guess not, not right now at least.

posted at 11:03 am | permalink | 1 comment

Friday, December 08, 2006

Brrr
Okay, mid-40's with a wind chill that feels like mid-30's is not acceptable daytime weather for Florida even if it was sunny out today! If I'd wanted coldness I'd have moved to Naknek, where as of this writing it's a balmy 23 degrees.

Overall not a bad week. I burned my final vacation day of the year on Wednesday, took some time to get The Philosateleian up to date through the end of the year except for the snowflakes stamps. I wouldn't be surprised if there are two or three varieties of each design, but I simply don't have enough of them yet to finish the pages. They'll wait until March or whenever.

The various charitable non-profit organizations are really pumping out the solicitations as the year comes to an end. I guess they're fishing for contributions tied to the "holiday spirit." At least some of them use the 5¢ Sea Coast stamps, though pretty much everything I'm seeing is the small 2003 year date.

I've rediscovered The Sims 2, and I'm taking a slightly different approach this time. Instead of just letting my Sim take his chances on finding an acceptable spouse, I looked up which NPC's have the "family" aspiration--and targeted one of those. (Unless you've played The Sims 2, that probably sounded like complete nonsense. I apologize.)

Bedtime.

posted at 11:10 pm | permalink | 1 comment

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Good day for a nap
It's cloudy, drizzly, and cool enough to be comfortable without being downright cold. I wouldn't mind a nap (and who knows, I might end up lying down and closing my eyes for a couple of minutes).

I had a nice Sabbath. We had an extremely short sermon-on-CD today, and after services Matt and I went to get some lunch. The S's and B's showed up before we were done, so we moved to their table.

Yesterday was technically my day off from work, but I got a call from the station around 2 asking me to go check out a bomb squad callout about a mile from my apartment. A man had held up a bank, then left a "suspicious device" in the parking lot as he fled. I guess it all made me the unofficial afternoon reporter for the day, and I ought to be able to claim an hour-and-a-half of overtime for that.

posted at 5:41 pm | permalink | 0 comments