Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

I had something I wanted to post about… but that was then and now my brain won’t tell me what it was. Huh.

Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

I dunno how Riley’s life is, but mine is pretty good right now.

I just got back from OmegaCon, where I had a lovely relaxing weekend. I recombined my bottle and my flask. And I had almost 3/4 of a bottle of scotch left. Imagine that. Of course, the “Apple Pie” on Friday night, and the honey wine on Saturday night, served to make sure my blood wouldn’t freeze at normal temperatures.

I was lucky to get a room – sadly, it was a smoking room. (Next year is smoke-free – yay!) I was prepared, and brought a spray bottle of Nature’s Miracle odor eliminator to spray all over the carpet, and some odor crystals. They worked well enough that the room wasn’t bad. But as I unpacked here at home I did notice a little bit of a tobacco smell on my jacket that sat in the room all weekend.

I got there too early, and my room wasn’t ready yet. With a little encouragement, I threw on my swim suit and went and hung out in the pool for a while. Good thing I did, since I never got back into the pool all weekend. There just never seemed to be time.

I did stuff. I wore pajamas all weekend. It’s all kind of a pleasant blur. Some highlights included the fire pit, quiet time with friends, hanging out in my room and navel-gazing, and not using a computer *at all* all weekend. (Okay, I cheated and used my phone. But that hardly counts.)

I got a new kilt! Techdragon got my kilt done in time to get it to me and it’s awesome.

And I remember at least some names of people. Now to see if I can keep those in my brain long enough to use them again.

Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

After spending many months with some kind of unconscious aversion to knitting, I am suddenly overwhelmed with projects.

I picked up the needles and finished off a hat for my wife. Despite the horrendously awful boucle’ yarn involved, I kept knitting.

A friend has a mitten pattern that needed a test knitter. I’ve finished one mitten, I’m looking at my notes to see what might need to be changed, and will start the next mitten soon.

I really want to knit a felted messenger-style bag to carry my netbook in. I have looked around for patterns, and had just about settled on one when I stumbled across a technique for casting on yarn to a d-ring. (d-ring cast-on) Sweet! And that would let me make the strap removable and/or adjustable. So now I need to design my own pattern. That’s going to take a little contemplation, so that project probably won’t start for a while.

While killing time stumbling around on the Internet one evening I happened across an article about making bottle cozies: cozies. What’s wrong with that pattern, you ask? Why, nothing at all. However, I think I need to design my own. I’ve started and frogged three times so far.

Kilt hose! These have been on my list for a while now. And now that I’ve ordered another kilt, I think I need to be starting them.

I’m heading off to Omegacon soon, and as I started thinking about my packing list it occured to me that I don’t have any slippers. Oh noes! Whatever shall I do? Well, what I shall do is go without for now. But I do have it in mind to remedy my lack of slipper-ness. Perhaps with these.

And of course I’d like to make some things as Christmas gifts. But whenever will I have time? I’m afraid that my knitting is going to be done completely selfishly for quite a while.

Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

Ahh yes. Peter O’Toole. What a fine fine actor. Can you believe he’s still working? Amazing. Isn’t he like 800 years old?

So now I must remember to get some of the classics into my Netflix queue. The Lion in Winter to start with, maybe. He and Katherine Hepburn are fantastic in that one.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Yes. They don’t make movies like that any more.

My Favorite Year. Definitely. “He’s plastered!”

Okay, so who wants to host a Peter O’Toole film festival? I’d do it, but I don’t even own a TV. I’ll bring the movies, beer, and chips.

Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

I was talking to someone today who is very smart. And they said something along the lines of this:

“If you aren’t reaching your goals, you need to either change what you are doing, or change your goals.” The third option, of course, is to continue doing exactly what you’ve been doing, continuing to get the same result and, essentially, failing.

I thought about what they had said for a moment, and realized that I don’t really have goals. I just kind of bumble along, waiting to see what happens next. Or, as Piglet would say: “I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today.”

Which is fine, if what comes your way is enough. But it certainly limits your options, as opposed to going out and seeking things.

Originally published at Bogroll Babble. You can comment here or there.

Let’s test this out and see if it will crosspost to Livejournal for me…

Because I haven't posted anything for a while, and because my ipod was kind to me and actually didn't bring up anything overly embarassing.

A music meme: Hit shuffle on your ipod or mp3 player and write down the first 25 songs. No cheating or skipping songs that are shameful. That is the fun!

( If you care )

Do you ever wonder "what if"? And when you do, do you actually think about it realistically?

For some reason, this morning I was thinking back to my college days and I recalled the glassblowing class that I dropped. I was overloaded with some crap like calculus and physics, or calculus and philosophy. Or calculus and calculus. Some horrible classes at any rate, almost certainly including calc. (Did I mention that I managed to fail calculus a record number of times?)

I went to the first couple of classes. I even got to handle glass once. It was way cool. I burned the hairs off my forearms getting the glass onto the punty (that's the metal stick that you use to handle the glass). I pulled it out and set it down across the table/chair/thing and started rolling it back and forth. I got to play with the molten glass with the giant metal tweezers. The professor commented on how well I was doing and that I was a natural.

And then I dropped the class. Stupid calculus.

So - what if instead of doing the supposedly responsible thing, I had dropped calc and physics and switched my major to art and started doing glassblowing instead? Boy, think of the possibilities! World famous artist. Studio in New York, showings in Paris, blah blah blah. Or, more realistically, I'd end up making and selling little glass unicorns at RenFests all over the country. Pulling down just enough money to survive, living in a tent, and bathing out of a bucket. Driving a beat up 1977 Winnebago. Hating, with a passion, little glass unicorns.

I am beginning to suspect that Apple has something hidden up their sleeve.

I was in a particular mood last night on the drive home, and my ipod's random play tormented me all the way home. It knew just what to play to twist the knife in and make my mood worse.

This morning, as I headed out of the driveway I asked it to please give me a reprieve, and hit 'next' off of the last evil song it had been playing me yesterday. I was thinking "light and fluffy. Please give me light and fluffy." It played The Village People, followed by Alice Cooper, Queen Ida, and the Weather Girls. Wow. Is there some kind of secret RFID chip in my head that Apple is using?

Other than a 24 hour period spent running to the hospital to see mom-in-law and being at home, Convergence was pretty great.

The main thing I was thinking this morning, on my way into work and back to the real world, was regret that I didn't get to spend more time with you. You, you and you. All of you. There wasn't a single person there that I got enough time with. (Except the freaky drunk who apparently couldn't get a roommate to answer the phone and let him into his room. Him I wouldn't have minded missing at all.) Some of them, like Shaun and Greg, I barely saw at all. Sad me. Some I got to actually hang out with. That was cool, but I wish there had been more of it.

I usually like smaller gatherings because of this. In a smaller gathering, you don't generally miss as much. At Convergence, you miss almost everything. Sad! It's kind of like going to the biggest buffet in the world, and only being able to eat one plate of food. It might be truly awesome food, but you kind of wonder what other things you missed. That's okay though. I'll go back again next year and get my fill once again.

I hope your plate was as full of awesome as mine was.