Interesting Video

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Vapor Lock

I've been in a funk. Nothing really set it off, but, in a funk, I remain. Le sigh.

Friday, I got my refund check from my school money, so, Friday night, I went out to dmajorfifth's and the cluster picker's house and repaid them the last of the money that Kenny borrowed from them almost 2 years ago. Then, I went up to Sandpoint.

My first stop was at Home Despot (intentional misspelling) to try to buy the casting resin I need to create the Weinie Award for the winner of the Pick 'Em League I've been hosting on the band's message board. This is the second year I've done it, and, this year, I wanted to continue the "Great Weinie Caper" by gifting the winner of the Pick 'Em League with a "trophy" of this petrified, ancient breakfast sausage. (God, that sounds hilarious!) Anyway, [unscheduled rant break]

Arg!!! Sprint just sent another of their customers to me via my toll free number!!! Do these people NEVER LEARN?!?!?!?

[end: unscheduled rant break]

Anyway, back to Home Despot: I went there to look for two things. One, I want to get a portable dishwasher; and, two, I needed that acrylic resin. They didn't have the dishwasher, so I went to the paint department to look for the resin. The guy in the paint department immediately said that they didn't have the resin, but they did have a polyurethane-type stuff that would do the job. They were out of the stuff, which is $20 per quart. So, I bought nothing there. After that, Kenny and I went to this Mexican restaurant in the same parking lot with Home Despot, and we had dinner. The food was decent (not as good as the Mexican restaurant in Newport, but edible).

After that, we went to a friend's house and we stayed there for quite a while, talking, so we didn't get to Wal-Mart until almost 9PM. I hadn't been shopping in a good long while, so there was a LOT of stuff that I needed. Rather than bore you with that, I'll tell you this: while there, I saw this little sweeper vac thing that looked perfect for small vaccuuming things around the house. It was misplaced on the shelf, so I had no clue how much it was, but I bought it, anyway. Also, I purchased some hair color. When I got home, I took the vaccuum thing out of the box and started to assemble it. That's when I realized that the manufacturer had not included the part that attached the handle to the unit, and they had not included the battery charger plug. So, that had to go back.

I had also purchased a new lighting fixture for the bathroom (which will have to be installed with the electricity shut off), and a clip-on desk lamp to go over the stove, so I could see to cook. Well, Saturday, Kenny went to the store, I had him get me more lightbulbs, since the kids used them all. He bought 100 watt bulbs. I told him when he was putting one in the desk lamp thing that it was too powerful for the lamp, but he said that he "didn't buy weinie bulbs." I let it go. I was cooking some chicken at the time, and boiling some pasta. I'd just taken the pasta off the stove and drained it and gone over to the fridge to get the butter when I heard this horrible BANG behind me. I turned around to see that the lightbulb had exploded all over the top of the stove. Luckily, the pasta was well away from the glass fragments, and I'd put a lid on the pan with the chicken in it, so the food was all right. But smoke was rolling out from the desk lamp. I thought it was ruined, too, but, the next day, Kenny went and got some 60 watt bulbs, and the lamp still works and it hasn't exploded that bulb.

Last night, after failing to find a portable dishwasher at either Home Despot or Wal*Mart, I went online and found exactly what I was looking for. So, I ordered it! Now, I don't have to do the dishes anymore!! Yay!!

As for me, I should be working on Devil's Handiwork.

Ding Dong

The engineer finally sent me the last two songs. Out of the five, I like what they've done on one of them. I don't know about you, but 1/5ths of something isn't a lot to me....

Anyway, I've conveniently uploaded the songs to my server. Internet Explorer should "Right Click/Save Target As..." and Firefox should Right Click "Save Link As." Both work the same, I found out today....

The Cover

Strings

My thoughts: I like "The Cover." It's starting to sound like an actual song, and they are doing things (that I like) that I wouldn't have thought to do, which is what I would actually pay a producer to do. As for "Strings," it is the most important song to get right, and they've clearly blown the feeling the music needs to have to support the lyrics. The verses are okay... but the choruses and the bridge are not right. The choruses and bridge will have to be completely redone. The music has to tell the story the same way the lyrics do because, if these get sold to TV or film, they probably won't use the version with the vocals and lyrics. And right now, the music isn't doing that.

I spent the entirety of the day watching football, and the Superbowl will not be "super" anything. Were it not for the fact that I have several people playing in the football pool, I might not watch it at all. As it is, I will be having a party here for the Superbowl and will likely give out the prizes for the pick 'em league.

Tomorrow, we are to have band practice, and the kids are out of school for the day. Tuesday, I don't know. Wednesday, Kenny has pool league. Thursday should be band practice again and I have a paper due.

Blech

I have heartburn and it refuses to go away. If I eat a Rolaids, it will go away for two or three hours and then be back, burning my throat. Arg.

Band practice went well. We got through some of the tougher songs, but it is apparent to me that we still need to practice them a BUNCH more.

I don't have that much to say right now; I'm only posting because today is the 4th anniversary of this blog!

Fun

Cait and I played Scrabble and - would you believe - she got 429 points and I got 435?!?! No, seriously: I spelled "christen" (building off an 'r' already there, and using all my letters) on a double word score, and, a play later, Cait spelled "virtual" on a triple word score and also spelled "rarer" at the same time (building off "rare" with her 'r'). I spelled "zephyr" on a double word score, and Cait spelled "zodiac." We also spelled "qua" and "jade" and "axes" and "phantom" and "nature" and "sword." Aw, hell. I took a picture with my cell phone. Here it is:

Circulent

I did some work on Devil's Handiwork! I actually created a name for the company Shelby worked for as a spy: Circulent.

I know... you're thinking, what the hell is that? Well, I was looking up stuff on corporate symbology (and got all sidetracked on how Freemasons and the Illuminati are rumored to influence corporate logos and branding and whatnot, which I don't buy, really)... and the star, Sirius, kept coming up in the symbols. Sirius is, of course, the brightest star in the sky... the Dogstar... Canis major... aaaannnyyyyyway....

So, I am thinking, "Sirius... Sirius... Sirius...." while looking at a Wikipedia article on the naming etymolgy of companies. And I kept reading on there where these companies just jam two unrelated words together and create a new word for their company. So, I looked up Sirius in the dictionary for ideas. And it said "bright, shining" and I thought, Luminescent.

So I go to look that up, and my eye lands on another word: lucluent. I forget the exact meaning of that, but it is pronounced, "LOO-ku-LENT." So, I combined that word with "Sirius," spelled it with a "C" and got Circulent. (Which would be pronounced as "SIR-ku-LENT.")

Now that word has some connotations! Light, brightness, the star as a symbol(more Freemasonry crap, if I need to add it for some reason), the star as a... star... PLUS... it sounds like it could have something to do with a circle, which could come in handy, too!

Well, I Did It

I am officially a Gonzaga student. I now have to buy books, contact the financial aid office, and get acquainted with my professors. I can't wait!

Happy New Year

Well, lessee... My last journal entry was just before Christmas. We had a nice holiday, and I kept myself very busy, as usual. I've got one major project to do, and then I am probably going to do some work for a friend of mine this coming week.

Dad and Carl came over here for football on Sunday, and we played Hearts, which was fun. I spent the vast majority of the New Year's holiday with my cousin, his girlfriend, and The Twins playing Dungeons & Dragons (showing my nerd colors here). We went out to the Legion on New Year's Eve and listened to a karaoke band (which is just as weird as it sounds; amazingly, they were still able to mess up) and drank.

Other than that, nothing's happening. I have the urge to write, but I don't have the motivation at the moment. I am in limbo because this school thing is taking so long to get going.

Life and Stuff

I'll recap my weekend real fast: I had a great visit with one of my best friends Friday afternoon, and I made sugar cookies later in the day and got more stuff into the people at Gonzaga. Saturday, Kenny didn't want to take me grocery shopping, so I ended up waiting for my Mom and Dad, who were going to Sandpoint, anyway, to do their Christmas shopping and grocery shopping. I also went to visit another of my best friends and took him his Christmas present. We had a nice visit; it's always nice to see my friends in person. E-mail is so impersonal.

So, after shopping, I rushed home. It was 5 til 6 and I had to be at the bowling alley at 6PM for a bowling thing we'd signed up for. I always win money for stinking at these things, and Saturday was no different: I bowled a 47, a 55, and a 74. I won $10 for playing badly. Yay!

Afterward, we all went up to the Cusick Tavern for the free dinner, and then I went over to visit my bass player and we had a nice visit about computers. After that, we went home and I went to bed. Got up Sunday morning at 8:30 AM and watched the Steelers lose while wrapping Christmas presents. Then, I baked the sugar cookies for which I had made the dough on Friday. Dad and Dad's friend, Carl, came over to watch the later games. Carl brought pizza and we played Hearts during the late game and munched sugar cookies.

Test Taking

So, Kenny and I went to Moscow yesterday. It was an all-day trip. I had fallen asleep in my recliner at about 9PM Wednesday night, and went to bed at about 11:30-ish or so. I then woke up at 4:15 AM. I tried to go back to sleep, but nothing worked. So, at 5AM, I got up and printed off a practice exam for the test I was to take.

The test is called the "Miller Analogies Test," and, as the title will lead you to believe, the entire test is made up of analogies. The subject matter covers everything from pop culture to history; from literature to word games; from math to sciences. You really have to have a wide knowledge base (and a love for trivia, I think) to do well on this test. Just as a yardstick, the average test taker of the MAT gets 30 questions right out of 120.

Anyway, so I took the practice test, and missed 21 questions. But, it didn't make me feel any more confident, as the test was a simulated one concocted by Harvard and was rather old. But it got my brain pull-started. I got ready, and we left here at 9:30AM. We took Highway 41 to Post Falls and got on the freeway and then headed south toward Pullman.

And that's where things got seriously FUBAR'd. We knew that the LTD has the ability to have one of those window washer things (the liquid squirter part), but it didn't work. We assumed that it was out of fluid, even though Kenny had glanced at the engine compartment once to see if there was a reservoir, but he was unable to locate it then... but he really wasn't looking. Before we reached Post Falls, the windshield was COVERED in road grime. We stopped at a gas station in Spirit Lake and really looked for the windshield cleaner reservoir. All the plumbing for it is there, but the tank itself was missing. So, we cleaned the windshield there.

So, we're heading south, and we encounter a very dense fog. It was so thick that we couldn't see 25 feet around us in any direction. We passed Steptoe Butte, but we couldn't see it. Couldn't even see the wheat fields around us. What with the fog and the road grime being thrown up by the semi in front of us and coating our windshield, Kenny was, essentially, driving blind. So, I took to throwing bottled water (left in the car from this past football season, as the kids tended to leave full bottles of water in the car where they got pushed under the seats) on the windshield. I accomplished this by rolling down my window, holding the bottle by the very bottom, and flinging the water catapult style across the windshield. This worked quite well.

However, at about the halfway mark, we went to turn on the wipers, and this horrible electric burning smell came out from the dashboard and the wipers stopped working. We were convinced that the wiper motor had burned up on us, in a dense fog, behind a truck, on sloppy roads, with a snow storm coming... and we weren't yet even to Pullman, much less Moscow, and we had a return trip to make.

About 10 miles down the road, Kenny decides to try the wipers again, and, lo and behold, they WORK! Heh. We finally find the place I need to take my test, and I go in and get signed in and pay for the test. I expected the test to be hard. It wasn't. Well, not really. Having gone over the practice test helped me a lot, I think, as I got a raw score of 437, which, as my advisor at Gonzaga put it, puts me in the 90th percentile of people who take the MAT.

Anyway, so, we headed back to Spokane. More fog. More water splashing. Went to Denny's for dinner. We got home at about 7:30PM or so, so the whole trip took almost 12 hours.

School Stuff

Tomorrow, I am going down to Moscow to take a required test to get into the Master's program at Gonzaga. This little test will cost me $75 to take. What fun.

In the meantime, I had to write a "statement of purpose," also for getting into the Master's program. Normally, I would share, but I have several good reasons for not doing it this time. First, it contains too much personal information about me. Second, it contains too much personal information about other people. Third, I've heard that people have a tendency to just steal these things when they need to write a letter of intent or statement of purpose for college... so, I will keep it to myself. Let's just say that my advisor liked the letter and leave it at that.

Not Much Going On

I've not done a lot in the last few days. I applied to Gonzaga. I filled out a new FAFSA. I still have to write a "letter of intent" that addresses why I want to pursue this particular degree and get two letters of recommendation.

I wrote another new song. In the last two months, I've written three new songs. I mentioned one: "Moonshine Valentine." The others are "Honor Among Theives" and "If The Stars Align." The first two I am pretty happy with, but the last one needs some lyrical work, I think. Just a couple of touch ups, especially in the pre-choruses and bridge.

Stuff

So far today, I've taken a shower, almost finished my Christmas cards, and decided to do something stupid.

Yes, indeed: I've decided to return to school for my Master's degree. I need to do some research very quickly if I am to get started by the Spring Semester at Gonzaga... I originally thought about law school and becoming a lawyer, but that would require me to go to classes at least two or three days a week.

Miscellanea

I spent a few hours recording yesterday. It was frustrating, as usual. I am getting a strange hissing noise, which I think is the guitar cord. I am going to try switching it out and see what happens. My plans for today include more recording and making out Christmas cards.

New Music

I have written a new song. It rocks. :D It is called "Moonshine Valentine," and it is based on a true story from Eastern Kentucky in about 1920. It is a sad story, though. The story is about the daughter of a notorious moonshiner and how she falls in love with a revenue man, even though her father warns her not to see him. It ends badly. But the song is still pretty damned cool!

UGH

Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, WORK.

UGH.

Been Busy

I've been working pretty much non-stop since Sunday. It's not over yet. I've been working on the lawyer's site, but I've got the content almost done in my Word documents, and the design is finished. Just have to insert keywords into the text and then insert the text into the design and publish it. Well, I also have to research how things are uploaded in the UK. It seems that domain name registration in Ireland is different than here: you have to write to someone or other and explain why you want a specific domain name. So, I think there might be differences in how things are uploaded or how you attached a domain name to a certian hosting account.... Also, I have to develop a "Conveyancing Calculator" that runs on the web site and outputs numbers. Also, I have to set up the e-mail accounts. And a "search" feature. And RSS feeds to publish automatically. Lots to do by the weekend.

That's pretty much all that's happening.

Half-Stache The Cannonball Pirate

My cat passed away today. He was 14. Actually, I don't think it was today. I hadn't seen him since Monday night. I found his body underneath the lilac bush next to my bedroom. We buried him next to the aspens in the backyard. I dug the hole and put rocks on the grave.

I'll miss him.

I Am The (Whatever) Whisperer

I started feeling funny last night at about 11PM. A heaviness in my chest, burning in my throat. I tried to deny it, but I was coming down with Kenny's cold. Only, I am not stuffed up. I got laryngitis. I cannot speak at all, much less sing. I know I won't be able to sing by Saturday. And then there's practice! I don't know HOW we're going to practice if I can't sing.

ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Busiest Weekend

Cue eerie music

It was a dark and stormy day. I was feeling lazy as usual. The rain pelted the side of the house like an angry woodpecker with A.D.D. and O.C.D armed with a 12-gauge. This was my Friday. I finally got up the gumption to get ready and drive to Spokane, three cranky kids in tow. It was the start of the long weekend, so the traffic was as crazy as a meth-addled squirrel after a ride on a tilt-a-whirl. People had completely lost all common sense while driving, all seemingly concentrating on what they were all going to do whenever they got to wherever it was they were going off to.

I made my way carefully - with my cruise control set at 60 - to the wedding site for the rehearsal. It was at the rehearsal that I met a woman that I shall call "Controlling Bitch." She attempted to control every aspect of the rehearsal... even the stuff she couldn't possibly know anything about, including how to time my music to the activities of the bridal party. I made my best attempt at ignoring her.

After the rehearsal, I hurried home to cook dinner, but with the traffic and nothing to drink, I decided to swing into the Ram Drive-In on our way home. I am so not shitting you: we must have waited there in the drive-thru lane for over an hour. When we got to the window, I'll bet we weren't there more than 45 seconds. PATHETIC SERVICE. Stupid teenagers. I'd have fired the lot of them, were I the manager. But, hell. I'm not. So, I'll shut up about that.

I got home and started cooking dinner and was helped my aunt work on her new laptop. It was during this that I was looking for my Dreamweaver CD and realized that I lost it in the move. Le sigh. After dinner, I put Cait's hair up in pincurls and put the kids to bed. I had some computer stuff to do, so I didn't get to bed until almost 3 AM.

I got up at 8AM and we drove into Spokane and met up with my aunt, uncle, and the twins at Pizza Hut. After lunch we all went to the wedding site. Me, Kenny, and the kids were the only ones there at first. About 5 minutes later, Controlling Bitch showed up and told us to move our car so "other people didn't park" where we did. No matter how many times we assured her that we would, indeed, move our car as soon as our musical equipment was unloaded, she wouldn't shut up until the car was moved. Finally, we just moved the thing just so she would STFU.

The day was hot, and I spent the majority of the day just sitting in the shade and getting nervous over my piano performance. The ceremony got going after while, though, and I did play pretty well. I started with "In The Garden," just like at practice. And I did the performance just as the Controlling Bitch told me I should: play "In the Garden" until the groomsmen appeared, then play "Ceud Mile Failte (100,000 Welcomes)" (a song I wrote) for the bridesmaids. Only, there was a pretty big delay between the appearance of the groomsmen and the appearance of the bridesmaids. So I ended up playing "Ceud Mile Failte" WAAAAAAAAAY longer. The controlling bitch had told me earlier to start playing the wedding march as soon as I caught sight of the ring bearer because, she said, the bride would be "right behind him."

Well, clearly, "Controlling Bitch" was wrong. I saw the ringbearer, but the flower girl and bride, et cetera, were some distance behind him, so, I started playing the wedding march as soon as I saw the ringbearer... and ended up playing it, like, 100,000,000,000 times. I felt so stupid. Thanks, Controlling Bitch, for the great musical advice. Ha!

After the ceremony, me and Kenny played some music for the guests. After the wedding me and Kenny came home and I made some ravioli and we watched a football game replay on the NFL Network with my Dad until Dad went home, and then me and Kenny watched some stuff Kenny had taped on the DVR. Kenny wanted to get a Pay-Per-View movie, but the phone line hasn't been plugged in for a while to the receiver, so just using the remote wouldn't work. So the kids brought me the laptop to order the movie via the Internet. Well, I hadn't looked at the laptop for some time; I have let the kids use it pretty much exclusively since they moved in. Well, I booted it up and it was then that I realized that Something Had Happened to my laptop. The left click key on the touch pad was sticking down, and something was stuck under the "t" key. After cleaning up the left click key, I kept touching the "t" key, and it spontaneously fell off, revealing a PIECE OF RICE under it. To my surprise, unlike the last time this happened, the key popped right back in place, but I was peeved, so the kids have a week-long ban from all my computers. Hopefully, that will teach them to keep food and drinks away from the Expensive Equipment.

I ended up falling asleep on the couch. Kenny woke me up at about midnight and we went to bed.

I woke up at about 10AM the next day and got ready to go to Spokane... again. Three days in a row of driving in an out of Spokane... arg. Anyway, went in to the studio and traffic (still the long weekend, yanno) made me late by almost half an hour. I told them when I got there that I had to leave by 5:30 PM, but then, at 4PM, they were all, like, "okay, we've got all we need. You can go." And I'm like, "Are you sure you don't want me to do more harmonies or something while I'm here?" And they're like, "No, we're good. Lots of music work tomorrow, though."

So, bewildered, I left. Stopped at Dairy Queen and bought a Moo-Latte. Stopped at Safeway, took a leak, and bought pop and cat food. Came home, and cooked pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, and hash browns for the band and the kids. Then, we practiced. Mom and Dad stopped by.

We had band practice scheduled for the next day at 4PM. The bassist and drummer showed up, and we practiced.

Later, I put the kids to bed, did the dishes, talked to my friends, and then dropped dead (i.e.: slept). I had set the alarm on my cell phone for 9:30 AM, and simply slept through it, so I didn't get up until 11AM this morning.

Made coffee and got the kids started on their school work. They did all right, and were done by 12:30 PM. I ran a scan on my computer, filled out the rebate forms for our cell phones, and sent Cait's check to her savings account. Once my computer scan was finished, I worked on a web site.

I cooked dinner for the family and two of my cousins, and then helped the kids and Kenny make their picks on the band's Pick 'Em League on the forum.

Tomorrow, the kids have school again, and then they have football and cheerleading practice. The kids have games late Saturday afternoon. Sunday, I am going to WATCH FOOTBALL!!!!