Nothing is easier than self-deceit.

The Big Day

2011-12-02T20:21:00.032-05:00

It's been exactly 2 months since my wedding. I've been waiting to write this post (even though multiple people have asked me about it) until I had some pictures to illustrate the story. The few months leading up to the wedding were really uneventful; there was very little planning left to do, and I mostly just went about my life like normal - working and playing video games. It was only the week before that I had anything to do - send final confirmations to all my vendors, finalize all the details and actually start worrying.

The whole wedding weekend we spent in Boston, at the Boston Harbor Hotel where the event was taking place. The wedding was Sunday at 2pm. After getting a manicure and pedicure on Saturday morning, I went into Boston to have my final meeting with the catering coordinator and made some last minute requests and changes. This was about 1pm. Ben and my parents (who also had rooms at the hotel) weren't meeting me there until 3pm, so I took a seat at the bar and had drinks and dessert. The bartender was cute, and kept pouring me the extras from various martinis and bloody marys he was making so that I could try them. There was a young guy sitting next to me who was supposed to meet his friends for some sort of birthday dinner cruise and kept trying to convince me not to get married the next day, and to come cruise with him and his friends instead. Yikes. I think he was pretty drunk.

Finally, my parents and Ben arrived and we could check into the room, which was on the 9th floor and had a lovely view of the harbor and Logan Airport. It was a mini-suite, so it had a really cute little sitting room and a huge dressing room and bathroom. Since it overlooked the harbor, it also overlooked Foster's Pavilion, the glass domed room which was our venue. This came in handy the next morning as we could look down upon it and watch them set up for our wedding.

Foster's Pavilion and the outside of the hotel:

The rehearsal dinner was Saturday night at Maggiano's, and this was about the time my shyness, anxiety and annoyance kicked in. There was nothing to rehearse really, but since our families had never met, we figured it would be a good thing to do before the actual wedding day. Although the rehearsal dinner was very lovely - in this little curtained-off private room at the restaurant - and the food was fabulous, I just really wanted to get out of there the whole time. It had nothing to do with the people or the event, I just really wanted to be alone. The Ativan was really not helping, and I was choking down lots of pain killers to get rid of my impending migraine. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of that event. I guess I should have hired my photographer for that, too!

But - lo and behold - the next morning my anxiety (and migraine) had disappeared. We had room service for breakfast and pretty much sat around doing nothing until about 11am. We did go down to the venue once to watch the staff set up and make table placement suggestions. But other than that, nothing happened until my hairdresser arrived at 11 and then everything after that is a blur.

Some shots of the details of my clothing and accessories:

I absolutely loved my bouquet. It turned out even better than I had planned. When talking to my floral designer, we went over a bunch of ideas. I wanted calla lilies, but I wasn't sure what kind or color. At first, I wanted just yellow calla lilies, but I also wanted Ben to be wearing a red shirt and a red rose, so I needed to find a way to tie that in. I was going for Fall-ish colors (reds, oranges, yellows, browns), and I wanted sort of a broad palette. My final request for my bouquet ended up being yellow and orange calla lilies and miniature red roses. We weren't sure that was going to work right, so I gave the designer free reign to do whatever was needed. Ultimately, she made it work spectacularly with full-sized red roses instead of miniatures. It was really chic and sculpted and lovely.

My hairdresser, Nicole, was great, and did my mom's hair and then did my hair exactly how I wanted it: simple and elegant. All the activity started picking up right as she was leaving. I needed to get my make-up on, and the florist arrived with everything, and Shannon (my photographer arrived. We still needed to take the favors (boxed chocolate truffles from Puopolo's Candies in Hingham) down to the venue and set them out on the tables.

Some shots of our rings (one in my bouquet and one next to my veil):

At about 1:15pm, we went down and saw the final set-up, and put the favors out. I had to rush back upstairs to finish my make-up and get my dress on. People were already arriving, so I basically stood by the window and watched them arrive until about 1:58, and then I went downstairs to wait by the doors.

The walk from the hotel doors to the venue room was really long, and involved walking through a bunch of tourists on the boardwalk who kept stopping me to offer congratulations. While I was walking in my processional. Really, guys? The processional song was Pachelbel's Canon in D.

The walk:

The ceremony was very short. We pretty much had some filler sappy stuff, Ben's brother Matt did a reading, we exchanged vows, and exchanged rings. That was all. I think it ran maybe 15 minutes max? I really don't remember much of it. Everything was kind of blurry.

Photos of the ceremony, including Ben waiting for me at the "altar", my best friend Hunter accepting my bouquet to hold for the duration, Matt doing his reading, the ring exchange, the kiss and us running the hell away when it ended:

Our music for the ceremony and the reception was provided by our friend Mackenzie, who is a professional violist. You can see her in the background of the ceremony pictures. I only remember hearing a little of what she played, actually (as said before, it was all a blur). That actually reminds me of one thing I wish I could've done: taken more time to actually enjoy my wedding. I wolfed down the food, didn't spend too much time with any one person or group, and rushed around coordinating things and taking pictures. It was the biggest event of my life and I essentially missed it. Another reason I wanted to elope: hopefully would've been less stress. I could focus on myself (and Ben) and not have to worry about everyone else.

After the ceremony, we went with Shannon to do our personal formal shots of just me and Ben. It was really stress-free. The big weight of "getting everything right" for the ceremony part was lifted. Now everyone was being fed and gotten drunk while we unwound doing our photos. All of them came out really nice. I love Boston, and I loved that we had a nice urban setting for our photos.

The venue was amazing. The staff did an awesome job of setting up the tables and food displays with all this cream, gold and brown linen. The flowers and favors fit in perfectly, and it was very simple and not over-decorated. The food was very good, or so I think I remember. We had passed hor d'oeuvres: lamb ribs, potato knishes, vegetable spring rolls, chicken satay, quesadillas, and risotto cakes. We also had a selection of desserts and fruit, and a cake from Flour Bakery. Oh, my god, it's my favorite cake in the world - lemon raspberry - and they did a great job decorating it. Don't forget the open bar (you don't want to know the bill for that one).

Here are some shots of the details of the food and venue, including the centerpieces, cake, and drinks:

All I can really say about the reception is that I've heard it was very good. No, really, I barely remember anything that happened. I remember talking to everyone and laughing, but I don't remember what I said, or what I was laughing at. I vaguely remember it all looking pretty (and the pictures confirm), but I didn't really get a chance to focus on anything. I only tried the food and the cake because the servers reserved plates of it for me and Ben, and I didn't try any of the cool drinks, like whoever got that martini pictured above. There was just too much to do and not enough time. Before I knew it, it was 4:30pm and the bartender was doing a last call. Really, the whole thing was crazy. By the time we said goodbye to everyone and went back up to our room, I literally had to peel my feet out of my shoes - heels are evil.

And then it was over. It's sort of funny how anticlimactic it all felt. I mean, the next day everything was life as usual, except that there was nothing in the fridge to eat for once ever and I was pretty tired and now I have a wedding dress that I'll never use again. I know everyone expects newlyweds to be gushing about rainbows and bunnies and whatever other sappy things, but essentially nothing has changed in our lives. I guess we can file taxes once together instead of separately - that's sort of nice. I guess I'm too practical to let weddings get to me - even my own.

Blog Share: In-Law Story

2011-11-14T08:50:00.003-05:00

The theme for this Blog Share is supposed to be about in-laws and families. There really is some good commiseration to be had when comparing in law stories (don’t lie, you’ve read those iVillage message boards a time or two to help you feel better about your own situation). For me, though, it’s hard to come up with a good in-law story because most of them are just tragic in their awfulness and that’s because my in-laws are truly heinous people. Like WOW, I thought ugliness like that only existed in fiction. The most *benign* example I can think of is this.

When we were planning our wedding, my fiancé invited both of his parents. His parents had split up (in an incredibly rough divorce which took TWO YEARS to finalize) years before our wedding and, while he hadn’t really spoken to his mother since his parents had split up (his father told him that a “good son” would “prove his love for his father” by totally cutting off his mother and at the time my fiancé was still desperate to prove that he loved his Dad), he still wanted her to at least see him get married.

Then he made the mistake of telling his father that he had invited his mother.

His father, in return for his son’s honesty, threatened to boycott our wedding because my fiance’s even *thinking* of inviting his own mother to his wedding proved that he didn’t love his father after all and had been lying to him all along about where his loyalty was.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “well good, nobody wants that kind of poison at a wedding.” Because that’s what I was thinking. Of course, I couldn’t say that at the time because it would have seriously upset the man I wanted to marry.

But then my fiance’s Dad went further and instead of just “well then I’m not comin’” decided that he would instead drive his RV out to our wedding site, park it in the middle of the venue’s parking lot so that nobody else could park there and then sit inside and not come out until my fiance’s Mom was gone.

“People gotta know where I stand.” Is what he told my fiancé.

Then the man decided “if you want to see me on your wedding day, you’ll just have to come into the RV and see me. If you want me to see you get married, you’ll just have to have it in the camper.”

What makes this behavior more immature is that the man had gotten remarried already and was bringing his new wife (a woman he had cheated on my fiance’s mother with) to the wedding.

Eventually it all got sorted. People got talked down. Both of my fiance’s parents came to our wedding. His mother even made a quick appearance at our reception. His father wore all black. No kidding.

My marriage was short. It was longer than Kim Kardashian’s though so that’s something.

Our divorce was finalized over the summer and it’s still hard for me. He moved on super quickly and is already dating and doing all of the things he refused to do with me with some girl he met on Match.com. I happily took back my maiden name and am making plans to move (I got our apartment in the split) but I still can’t look at what was his side of the bed without crying.

I know it will get better.

I also know that if things were to change and suddenly my ex-husband were to want to be my husband again I probably wouldn’t take him back…at least not now.

And that is because while I miss him like crazy, one of the very best things to come out of our split is that I will hopefully never. EVER. Have to deal with his crazy ass father ever again.

Blog Share Coming Up Again!

2011-11-13T09:24:00.003-05:00

For those of you who don't know what the Blog Share is, it is a chance for bloggers to reveal something about themselves that can't be said on their own site. On Tuesday, November 15th, the post on my blog will not be my own - it will have been written by someone itching to get something off their chest and sent to me anonymously to post. Some people write about their significant others, their in-laws, their exes, their work, a personal flaw, or just some strange story. Sometimes the posts contain deep secrets that the writer doesn't want associated with them, other times people write about topics which merely don't fit with the theme of their own sites. Blog Share posts range from funny to serious to just plain weird. Please see the list at the bottom of this post for a complete list of participants, and take the time to read everyone's hard work.

The rules of the Blog Share state that I cannot identify which post is mine (it breaks down the anonymity of the whole thing). You may recognize it among the group but, if you do, please refrain from identifying me. If you recognize the writer of the post on my site, please be respectful of their anonymity as well.

To my new readers: Welcome! I'm a software/database engineer living just south of Boston, MA with my husband and two cats. This blog is my personal blog, which usually covers the events in my life, things I buy, books I read, things I see on the internet, etc. I'm excited to open my blog to the Blog Share again, and I hope you enjoy and admire the hard work done by everyone to make this event possible.

~~~

Andrea Unplugged
April On Ashley
Bright Yellow World
Drifts Get Deeper
Malfeasance
Our Little Geekling
The Reluctant Grownup
Together They Come
Did I Say That Outloud?
Snarke
Operation Pink Herring
Nonsense and Frippery
Mama Bub
Heidikins
Nothing Is Easier Than Self-Deceit
Barfing Rainbows and Unicorns
And You Know What Else

Picnic Days

2011-08-20T17:53:00.011-04:00

Today, we took the opportunity of the 82 degree weather, sun and new picnic basket that my mother gave Ben for his birthday to have a beach outing. It's been a pretty good week, all in all. I set up an appointment for early September to go over the details of the flowers with the floral designer, and we're taking care of a few final things for the wedding next week such as favors, picking up Ben's new (tailored!) suit, and applying for that very necessary marriage license. We had dinner at Meritage on Tuesday, which is the restaurant at the Boston Harbor Hotel that does their catering and (as we found out) has spectacular food. So our food should be great. We also booked a cruise to Alaska for next summer - a Princess cruise, round-trip from Seattle, hitting such ports as Juneau, Skagway, Ketchikan and Victoria. All I really care about is the dog sledding!

So, with all of this happening, we rewarded ourselves with a picnic - a little different from our usual reward of going to the book store or Red Mango. It was a modest picnic - some sushi, potato salad, fruit, cheese, crackers, and juice - but it was nice nevertheless. Oh, and something that we got a Fresh Market called "banana pudding", which is pretty much heaven in a little plastic cup.

We went to the beach that's about .5 miles from our apartment and always fairly empty and laid out my very comfortable double-towel to do a little reading. After finally getting Ben to pick up the first Game of Thrones book, he's hooked and won't put it down. I'm reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, about 6 months behind all the cool people, but hey, my pile of books to read is very tall. I should take a picture of it sometime. But anyway. Off we went into the sun and sand.

And it was nice for about an hour until it became unbearably hot. We returned home about 20 minutes ahead of the massively down-pouring thunderstorm, with bright pink sun-burned backs because we didn't think the sun could possibly be that bad on an hour-long picnic and didn't bring sunscreen. Oh, well. It was still nice to get out! Hopefully next weekend my outing will be to the mall.

Wedding: Getting Closer

2011-08-10T07:23:00.005-04:00

The wedding is just over a month and a half away. I haven't updated in a long time because there was a long period in which nothing really happened. After you decide on all the major points and the deposits are in, it's mostly just a waiting game until you get closer to the date.

A few interesting things happened over the past couple of months: my dress was altered and finalized, I found a necklace and earrings at a fair in New Hampshire, we purchased a new suit and tie for Ben (shirt pending), I picked a wedding cake from Four Bakery, I called the cleaning company to come clean our apartment the week before the wedding since people will be staying there, I went to my doctor to get a prescription for some nerve-reducing Ativan, and I made facial and hair and nail appointments. See? It was mostly little stuff. In the last couple of weeks, we made two bigger milestones: planning the rehearsal dinner and meeting with the event caterer.

The rehearsal dinner is going to be at Maggiano's, an Italian restaurant in Boston that fit our three requirements of: reasonably priced, has private rooms, and offers gluten-free options. Not that we're rehearsing anything, per se, but we thought it would probably be a good idea to let our parents meet at a time that was before the actual wedding. It was rather fun planning the rehearsal dinner - getting to pick all the menu items and the wines and whatnot. What could be better the night before the wedding than unlimited wine, beer and food? That's a good idea, right?

The other major thing we did was meet with the caterer. The catering is through the Boston Harbor Hotel (our venue), so when I say "met with the caterer", I really mean, "planned all aspects of the venue, timing, food, drink, decorations and service". So, the Boston Harbor Hotel is expensive, this is true, but the worth of the price really comes through in the service. My catering director/coordinator is great - she is thorough, nice, and extremely accommodating. She really has everything completely under control. When I asked her such questions as "When should I have Winston deliver the flowers?" she just said, "Oh, don't worry, I'll contact them directly and take care of it". Very smooth. The banquet order she wrote up was extremely comprehensive, listing exact food, drinks, and timing, and included all the special details we had talked about. She didn't miss anything. I have had nothing but good experiences with them so far.

And... Ben and I talked about going to Alaska next year, and it seems like we are probably going to book a trip! Like 90% sure? Very, very exciting. My best friend went on a cruise to Alaska a couple of years ago and I was always jealous of his cute family pictures of helicopter rides, botanical gardens, dog-sledding, and beautiful sunsets. It will pretty much be the honeymoon we wanted but couldn't plan because we're getting married too fast and October isn't an Alaska-friendly time of year. Not that Montreal won't be fun, but Alaska is the carrot-on-a-stick.

So that's that. The list of things left to do is getting smaller and smaller: find the right color shirt for Ben, meet with the florist, order the wedding favors (chocolate truffles from Puopolo's in Hingham!), apply for the marriage license, and a few other details. And, we are going to be attending our very good friend Gretchen's wedding this weekend, so I will be watching extra closely to see how everything goes as an interested future bride!

Wedding: The Middle

2011-05-25T07:07:00.003-04:00

It's been just under a month since I got engaged, and I have just blown through the wedding planning! Pretty much everything is booked and ready to rock and roll. Seriously, everything is moving with very little issue.

I looked at two florists and decided on Winston Flowers. They work a lot with my venue (The Boston Harbor Hotel) and I really felt like the woman was actually interested in planning my admittedly small wedding, whereas the other vendor I looked at, while nice, seemed like they were put-off by the size. (Only 7 centerpieces??) The Winston Flowers consultant was even nice enough to give me a ride back to the T in the pouring rain (it wasn't raining when I walked there) after meeting with me and showing me their back rooms of flowers.

We booked our officiant, too, who is very nice. When we met with her, she asked us all sort of awkward questions about our relationship that it was funny to watch Ben stumble over. What do you really love about Angela? What makes you know she's the one? She seems very laid back and funny, which is perfect for us since we want such a low-key ceremony.

We got a musician - a violist who's an old high school friend of Ben's. We were lucky enough to have the choice between two lovely Boston Conservatory students - a harpist and a violist, but Ben liked the sound of viola more, so we went with that.

We still have to do engagement photos - we postponed because of the rain - but the photographer and I have a couple of ideas in mind for location, so I'm excited. And I have a new shirt coming in the mail that I think I can wear for the photos!

Perhaps the biggest news: I got my wedding dress yesterday! (I've sent pictures to a few people. If you want to see it, let me know and I'll try to get a picture to you.) Ben doesn't want to see it or really hear about it until that day, so I can't post a picture or describe it, but it is quite lovely. I had seen it online weeks before and when I went into David's Bridal, I tried it on first right away. Even though I tried on a few others after, that first one was the one! The size I bought fits me absolutely perfectly except for the length, so that's great. I wasn't originally going to get a veil, but when they brought out the matching one, I actually really liked how it looked, so I got it as well, and a pair of simple shoes to match.

There is very little left undone at this point. We need to get Ben's clothes, and pick out the wedding rings. Other than that, most of the planning is in the details, which don't get sorted out until closer to the wedding anyway. Marriage certificate, what exact food and appetizers to serve, layout of the tables/chairs, color of the linens, ceremony wording, exact selections of flowers and music, etc. Oh, yeah, and that paying people part. Like all engaged couples, that's probably the part we are least looking forward to. =P

Wedding: The Beginning

2011-05-11T21:43:00.000-04:00

Oh, my god. How, exactly, did I go from begging Ben to elope with me on our engagement night to a 35-person guest list and a full wedding at the Boston Harbor Hotel? How, how, HOW? I think someone should knock me offside the head to see if all the crazy falls out. Anyway, I've gotten a couple of requests to keep people up-to-date on the planning. So, here goes.

I was going to get married in Alaska next Spring. Then, we started talking about a small, intimate, laid-back wedding locally in the Fall. Then, Ben said, "Isn't there a gazebo somewhere on the waterfront in Boston?" To which I responded, "Do you mean that round, domed, glass room on the harbor-side of the Boston Harbor Hotel?" So I sent him some pictures and he affirmed that it was indeed Foster's Pavilion, the aforementioned glass room, that he was thinking of.

And I cringed. The Boston Harbor Hotel? The only five star hotel in Boston? Yeah, sure, I can totally afford that. Not unrealistic at all. So I called them, and tried my best to sound like a politely interested (and rich) bride looking for a venue for her wedding. I was prepared to swallow with aplomb numbers such as $5000 room rentals and $10,000 food and beverage minimums. I was so ready, but... they never came.

Instead, what I heard were perfectly reasonable numbers. Numbers that sounded so reasonable, I had to ask questions like, "Do you mean that's the fee per hour?" and "Hundred, not thousand?" I hope the woman didn't think I was crazy.

Because, you see, I've quickly realized that wedding costs are directly proportional to the number of people you are inviting. My guest list is 35 close family and friends. That is incredibly more realistic cost-wise than 200 people, and it's what I wanted anyway. (Ick, hundreds of people? Being the center of attention? Long ceremonies and walking down an aisle to Wagner? Shoot me. I just cannot do that.)

This delighted me. I worked on the waterfront for four years. I walked by that glass room day after day. I saw all sorts of parties and thought, "I bet it would be so cool to get married there." I even once told Ben that as we walked by it.

So, I set plans in motion. And I haven't stopped since.

We went to see the venue. We liked it. We got all the details. We set the date. We poured over hor d'oeuvre menus and whether to have premium alcohol or super-premium alcohol. We reviewed and signed the contract. I proofed invitations. I set up a meeting with an officiant. I reserved a photographer. I made an appointment with the florist, and to look at dresses. I email Ben like 50 times a day trying to nail down little details and by this time he probably doesn't want to marry me anymore.

Because, my wedding is in 4.5 months. That's a really short amount of time. I keep hearing "calm down" and "relax", except... I can't. Obviously, people who say that don't understand that usually you get more than 4 months to plan. That isn't a complaint - I'd rather have it sooner, and I'm willing to do all the work to make it so, but I can't set the languid pace that you can usually set when your wedding is 1.5 years out.

We have an engagement photo session coming up. I'm excited. I like being photographed and I think it will be cute and fun. I'll post pictures and more updates as they come. But for now, I'm pretty much right in the middle - everything started, but nothing quite completely done. Deep breath.

The Engagement Story

2011-04-30T15:32:00.008-04:00

As of April the 29th at approximately 7:00PM, I am engaged. And yes, it's to Ben. And yes, it was awesome. But to start the story, I have to back up a few weeks.

On April 16th, we attended Jaden's Ladder's Bright Lights, Big City gala. It's a really great event that raises a lot of money for the charity through live auctions, silent auctions and just general gift-giving. There were also a couple of raffles, one which was for a pair of diamond stud earrings. The raffle was $100 to enter, and you got one ticket. Not many people had entered the raffle and Ben, deciding our chances were pretty good (and, hey, it's all for charity anyway), decided to enter. Fast forward to the end of the night - we win the diamond studs, and they are very pretty and we're ecstatic.

Except - I don't wear earrings. Especially not diamond studs. Especially not half carat each diamond studs. So - we had to do something else with them.

It's not like we hadn't talked about marriage. We had lots of conversations about it, but we expected the engagement to be a bit later - maybe at the end of this year. But, as Ben said, "What better sign can you get than winning a pair of nice diamonds the exact size we were looking for, out of the blue at a party that I wouldn't have otherwise ever gone to?"

So, last weekend on April 23rd, we went out in the pouring rain to see a jeweler that my mother has known for a long time, and Ben said, "I'd like to have one of these set as an engagement ring." (He wanted to keep the other, he explained, for some future "plan" that he has. Awesome? Or - yikes? Who knows!) And I was very happy, and picked out a very nice setting and Ben made me leave while he worked out the details with the jeweler.

I didn't really know what to expect from there. We had talked before about how it seems silly to pick out a ring together and then just pretend for months that nothing happened while you wait for the right time to get engaged. I mean, once you've picked out the ring together, it's pretty much a "yes", right? So, I was expected something soon, but perhaps not this soon. Especially since Ben was playing a little game a la Jim and Pam on The Office where he claimed he was going to constantly pretend to propose to me so that I would never know when it was actually coming.

We've had, for months now, tickets to see Mozart's Requiem at Symphony Hall - which happens to be one of my absolute favorite classical pieces. I've been excited about it for weeks. Earlier this week, I asked Ben what we should do before seeing the show - where we should get dinner, etc. Ben's response was, "I'll take you somewhere nice so you think I'm proposing to you." My thoughts? All right, cool, I can handle a few fancy dinners if he wants to play this game. He tells me to meet him in Copley Square at 5:45PM. Okay.

I get all dressed up for my night at the symphony, and for whatever fancy place in the immediate vicinity he decides to take me. He drags me all the way around the square, in an attempt to mislead me while I'm wincing every step in my four-inch heels, and finally stops in front of the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel, home of the very famous Oak Room restaurant.

"We're going... here?" I ask, tentatively. I know Ben loves me, and I know he's seeking to mislead me in his proposal game, but the Oak Room is serious business. $20 martinis and $60 entrees don't seem to me to be "fake proposing" material. So I'm a little suspicious, but we go inside and have a very pleasant dinner sans proposal, including a martini that almost put me face down on the ground for the rest of the night and a to-die-for fig tart.

When the check comes, it takes my slightly fuzz brain a few minutes to realize that Ben has signed it without even putting a credit card down. I snapped it from his side of the table and read to the bottom. He had charged it to a room at the hotel.

"We have a room here?" I ask, somewhat in shock. Ben smiles and returns, "Are you ready to go, then?" So I stopped stuffing my face with the complimentary cotton candy that came with the bill and followed him down the very bright and golden hall to the elevators.

And he leads me up to a very lovely, old-school room on the third floor where there are roses waiting and says, "I know you don't like to make a big deal out of stuff like this, so... will you marry me?" The ring I picked out is magically in his hand and I tell him, "Yes, but... I'm a little drunk right now." Which, for me, is an embarrassed and bashful way of saying, "Yes, I would love to marry you, I'm so glad you asked" while he awkwardly put the ring on my finger.

And that was the proposal. From there, we went to the symphony, heard some awesome music, went back to the hotel, drank from the mini-bar, and ate an amazing breakfast (again in the Oak Room) before leaving to come home and resume normal life where there are chores and grocery shopping to be done.

We called people, made it "Facebook Official", and have had no fewer than three offers to have parties thrown for us. It's all very exciting, and everyone's really happy and we're really happy, but for us it doesn't change all that much after living together for 2.5 years. Except that now I need to get on the whole wedding-planning thing. See? Life doesn't stop just because you get engaged!

Things That Make My Day

2011-04-27T22:31:00.002-04:00

Lately - Zipcar!

And by "lately", I really mean "for the past year or so". Zipcar is the best. They really, really are.

To back up a little - about a year ago, I sold my car. Cars are such a hassle. Insurance is expensive, they constantly need maintenance, gas is a killer. They are the complete opposite of an investment. It probably cost me something like an average of $800-$1000 a month to keep my car around. It was insane, especially since we hardly used it.

Now, for years, I had been seeing and hearing about the Cambridge, MA-based Zipcar company. It's car-sharing. They park cars all over the city, and you can rent them out for a fee by the hour or by the day. What's especially nice is that they have two of them parked right in our apartment building's parking lot, as well as three more a two-minute walk away, and they are also all over Boston so in a pinch we could take the T into the city and get one from there.

Zipcar as a service is great. All the reservation-making is done online, they respond to all service requests promptly, and the hourly or daily fee you pay includes insurance and gas. In our area, they go for about $9-11 per hour and $60-$80 per day. Not bad, really.

The cars themselves are pretty sweet, too. They usually vary the models in each location so that you have a choice. We've had a Mazda 3, a Mini Cooper, a Kia Soul and (just recently) a Nissan Altima Hybrid. They keep them very clean, perform regular maintenance on them, and swap them out pretty regularly for new cars.

We make reservations every weekend to do routine errands, sometimes during the week to go out to dinner, and occasionally we take one for two or three days up to Maine or NH. In all the time, out of all the reservations, we've never encountered a mechanical issue and there was one single, solitary time where the person who had the car before us returned it a little late. I'd say, for a car sharing service, that's pretty good. All of our gripes have been very minor.

Their customer service tends to be impeccable, too. They are courteous on the phone, respond to emails quickly, and seem to go out of their way to help. That time the person returned the car late? We noticed the other car in our lot wasn't reserved, so we called them up real quick and they changed the reservation over to the free car so that we didn't lose any time waiting. One time, we returned our Zipcar to the wrong location at the end of a reservation. The next day, they called me asking me what had happened, as there were some people looking for the (missing) car. We apologized profusely and returned the car to the correct place and, despite being very well within their right to do so, Zipcar didn't fine us or yell at us or anything.

A couple of weekends ago, we had a mix-up with the iPod adaptor in the car we regularly reserve. The one in the car has been broken for a while, so we went to buy a new one for it, since Zicar will reimburse you for small purchases for cars. To our immense disappointment, someone stole the adaptor we bought. When Zipcar received the reimbursement request and contacted us with a question about it, we told them they shouldn't bother reimbursing it because the adaptor was stolen. Zipcar did quite the opposite - they reimbursed our purchase, put in a maintenance request to replace the broken one in the car, and said they would send us one of our own to keep in case we needed it! Seriously? That's ridiculously good customer service. Ben's word for it was "excessive", which may or may not be true, but it definitely makes us remember how awesome Zipcar is.

They've just recently gone public on the stock market (at a very high price, which is great) to raise capital. I can only hope their excellent standards do not go down in the future, because at this rate I will use them for forever.

Computer, Part II: Hardware

2011-04-24T11:33:00.003-04:00

So, here it is.

Its name is Zaknafein. I have a peculiar habit of naming all my electronic devices. It started because I had so many of them and when talking with other geeky and techie friends, I wanted to be able to distinguish them. So, all my electronic devices are named, and usually (with some exceptions) after various fictional male characters from novels. My external hard drive is Bel, my iPhone is Artemis, my computers (rebuild after rebuild) have gone through Sang-Drax, Miles, Gil-galad, and a few others. My Nook is Marius. I've even started doing it to Ben's devices.

So here is Zaknafein, who was amazing in that he started up perfectly on the first try with no issues. There always seems to be a greater than 50% chance that it won't, but it did, and I love not having to troubleshoot weird hardware-level issues.

The lovely case you see is this Antec Nine Hundred, which I've used on a number of builds to great success. It has amazing air-flow and plenty of space inside. I went a little higher-end on the processor than I was intending, but I ended up with this Intel i7 Quad-Core with hyper-threading, so it pretty much has 8 cores instead of 4. I wanted a motherboard with enough heat-sinks, SATA 6Gb and USB3, so I went with this ASUS P7P55D-E. Since what started this all was my hard drive failing, I went with an Enterprise-Grade Western Digital 7200RPM with a 64MB cache for a little more money to get the speed and stability. I picked up 4GB of G-SKILL RAM, which I like for its heatshields and high timing, and plan on picking up 2GB more when it's in stock. To power it all, I got a pretty standard Antec 550W Power Supply. The optical drive is a pretty cheap and standard LG DVD Burner. The only thing I didn't replace is my video card, which is a Nvidia 9800 GT, only about a year old and similar to this - it's still nice enough that I don't really need to replace it for another 6 months to a year.

And that's that. Hopefully I can go another 4 years with few-to-no issues. Let's just say it plays Portal 2 pretty well. And, on that note, I have to get back to Portal 2. For science.

Computer, Part I: Peripherals

2011-04-08T18:55:00.005-04:00

So, a couple of weeks ago, my hard drive started dying. It fails to boot up sometimes, sometimes the BIOS will rearrange the boot order, so on and so forth. There's an issue. It saddens me, because my hard drive is only about a year old and rather nice. About the same time this started, I was also in the middle of building Ben a new computer. His was old and crappy, and when it started acting funny, I put together a setup that fit within his budget and made it. It is beautiful and works perfectly, and I think he's happy.

But anyway. My hard drive is dying. Although the hard drive itself is only a year old, the oldest components in the thing date back about five years. So of course it came to my mind that I should rebuild it completely. I've begun my list on Newegg (computer parts supplier), filling it out with things like the new i7 quad-core Intel processor and an enterprise class (read: reliable and expensive) hard drive. The whole thing will be a couple of hundred dollars more than Ben's build, but I'm more of a stickler for that stuff.

But I haven't finalized the parts. The RAM I want is out of stock, and I'm not entirely sold on the hard drive I've chosen. So I'm waiting for a little while. And in the meantime, I took a look at the broken speakers that have been sitting on my desk for a year, the keyboard that occasionally repeats all the home-row keys when I press them, and the mouse that I have to slam on the desk every so often to kick start. Not to mention my one puny monitor, compared with Ben's dual-monitor setup.

And so I went shopping for the things I could buy! And I came out with a gorgeous new ASUS monitor, RAZER mouse and RAZER keyboard, and Creative speakers. I went light on the speakers (only getting a 2.0 setup, without a subwoofer) because I rarely use them, but I was set on the RAZER stuff because they make the best peripherals for gaming. I love the keyboard, although I'm still getting used to the mouse.

And here's the setup (my camera sucks, so the colors are all off, but oh well). The speakers are hidden behind the monitor, mainly because there's very little room left on the top shelf of my desk now, due to the two 19 " monitors.

The stuff came in a big box from Newegg, and Newegg (thankfully) packs with paper instead of peanuts, so this is what the mess looked like:

And this is a kitteh who crawled into the box and could hardly get out:

An abrupt (but delightful) change...

2011-03-17T16:55:00.001-04:00

Now that things have been set in motion and all the pertinent people have been informed, I can make a more public announcement than even Facebook allows.

I am leaving my job at Advanti at the end of the month for a job at Microsoft.

Wow. It's an overwhelming thing to say. The words are full of emotions - joy, trepidation, excitement, guilt, worry, anticipation, and many others.

Here's what happened. Last month, I was contacted by a Microsoft Talent Scout, who had seen my profile on LinkedIn and thought I would be a good fit for one of his positions. It was really sudden, and there was no prompting on my end - he just called me out of the blue. In fact, I was so sure that it couldn't be a job opportunity that I thought he was some sort of vendor from Microsoft, who may have gotten my number instead of my boss's by accident. But no. He was looking for me, and he wanted to get me on the phone with the hiring manager for the position.

My phone interview was the next day. It was nerve-wracking. I brushed up on some topics I hadn't looked at in a while but thought might be asked about. I fretted. I worried that my phone wouldn't receive the call, or that it would drop halfway through. I wondered what the hiring manager was like. But my worries were for naught, because the interview went well. It was partially technical, partially just information exchange, and a little joking about whether I would have my iPhone thrown out the window upon arrival. The conclusion? The hiring manager wanted to bring me in for an on-site interview.

I was thrilled, but I was scared, too. I am 23, with less experience than their other candidates. It was impossible to think of myself as "Microsoft material". Even though Ben kept repeating, "THEY called YOU!" over and over again.

So I studied some more. And I worried some more. And I fretted over my outfit, and my resume, and trying to remember lots of obscure code I hadn't written in months or all the logic puzzles and life experiences they would inevitably ask me about. I talked to Mike, my old boss from Omgeo, who always makes me feel better about my abilities. It was two weeks between my phone interview and my in-person interview, so I had lots of time to concern myself. I'm surprised I didn't give myself a brain aneurysm.

And then the day came. "Reserve the whole day" my scheduler (yes, the person who was strictly in-charge of scheduling my interview) told me. So I got dressed up in a nice turtleneck and skirt and heels. And I pulled out a nice leather folder to hold my resume. And I hopped on the train to Kendall Square, where I used to work doing contracts at Perseus Books and hadn't been to in years, feeling oddly calm.

I won't say much about the interviews themselves here. I met with my Talent Scout, who is genuinely awesome, and he went over all the important points about the day with me. Mainly, that the longer I'm there and the more people I meet with that day, the better the interview is going. If I'm out by lunch, it's probably a bad sign. I met with seven people. They asked me lots of technical questions about databases, SQL, testing, project management, coding, and also asked me a lot about my experiences. It was a pretty standard set of computer science interviews, actually, except that there were more of them and they were more rigorous than I had been through before. And Microsoft had the good grace to provide lunch, which was very nice of them.

I didn't leave until almost 4pm, thinking that I had done passably well, but that I probably hadn't blown people away. It was my hardest interview ever, but I was pretty sure I hadn't made a fool of myself. And that alone satisfied me, because, regardless if I got a job, Microsoft had called me and I had done all right at an interview. This could only mean good things for the future, right?

So then came the waiting. They had other candidates to interview. I didn't hear back until the middle of the following week. My Talent Scout sent me a vague and (to my already worried brain) very ominous-sound email, merely telling me that he "had news" and asking if I "had time to talk". And when he called me, the most joyous words came through the cell towers: they wanted to offer me the job! Wow. Crazy. I couldn't think straight. I barely got through that conversation, because all I really wanted was to go out on my balcony and scream to the whole city of Quincy that I had gotten a job at one of my favorite companies in the whole world.

But instead, I politely got off the phone and went shopping. I deserved it, right? I felt oddly like I did when I got into Bennington College - suddenly blasé even though the best thing in the world had just happened to me. I did all the important things - signed the offer letter, gave notice to Advanti (who took it very well, even though I really like Advanti and feel very bad about leaving), submitted all the paperwork, etc. Pending a successful background check and all that (yeah, 'cause I'm such a little troublemaker and miscreant), I will be starting at Microsoft on April 4th.

I'll be working at their New England Research and Development Center (NERD Center, haha) in Cambridge, MA, in their TV and Video Advertising department. I will be helping to do testing and development on products which help people more accurately and efficiently place television ads. I can't tell you what an improvement that is over finance. I hate finance, from the very bottom of my heart. I know more about the stock market, asset and private wealth management, hedge funds, etc., than I ever really wanted to know.

There are many benefits to moving over to Microsoft, and I'm extremely happy to be given this opportunity. I will be sad to leave Advanti, because I think what Advanti does is pivotal and important to finance and I think the people there are truly extremely talented, but I'm very happy to be starting a new adventure. I'm 100% certain that I would not be in such a good position right now if not for Advanti and Omgeo. I'm pretty excited and pretty terrified right about now.

PAX East 2011 (Vacation, Part 2)

2011-03-15T06:42:00.001-04:00

So, the second part of my week-off-adventure was volunteering for the weekend at PAX East. PAX is a video game (also table-top game, card game, and role-playing game) convention organized by the folks at Penny Arcade, a prominent online video game comic/commentary site. PAX is an amazing place for gamers and game industry leaders to come together to learn about and promote new games, new technologies, new ideas, and just to generally have fun. The convention originated in Seattle (the home of Penny Arcade), but now happens in Boston each year as well.

Penny Arcade has a small staff and therefore the convention is heavily reliant on what they like to call, the "Enforcers". "Enforcer" is a fancy ninja name for "convention volunteer". Enforcers do anything from foot traffic direction inside the convention center, to registration, to security, to monitoring the PC and console rooms, to assisting in the theaters and with the panels, to running around like madmen trying to get messages or items from one place to another, to running errands for ehibitors, etc., etc. You get the idea; PAX would not run without the Enforcers.

This year, I volunteered to be an Enforcer. Last year, I went and saw the con as an attendee, which was great. I saw panels on various topics, walked the expo hall floor, played game demos, talked to game developers, and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere of having 40,000 people together who all have the same hobby. This year, I did that, and more. Oh, and there were about double as many people, since the con moved from the rather modest Hynes Convention Center to the stunningly huge Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Being an Enforcer isn't glamorous. Rule Number 1 of Enforcing is "make the convention fun for the attendees" and although that might be fun in some scenarios, usually it's just a matter of repeating "Lanyards, programs and swag bags are down the hall, very end, take a right before the escalators, you'll see the line" over and over again. Which, at one point, I did. For about 3 hours. Oddly enough, it was very satisfying, even if it was the same question again and again. Other than that, I helped Nvidia set up their booth on Thursday (awesome folks - they were really cool), and then gave directions, ferried swag and helped at the Registration desk for the rest of the weekend. It was fun seeing everyone else had fun. Occasionally, at the Registration desk, we had to give bad news to people (lost tickets, etc.), but mainly it was a good time.

Penny Arcade is really good to their Enforcers, treating us like real people who are trustworthy and can think for ourselves. The attendees love us, and seem to instinctively know that they can just pull aside anyone with the distinctive red shirt on and just ask us whatever. All the exhibitors and speakers I ran into were alight with praise. I can't wait to return next year (or maybe at the summer PAX in Seattle, we'll see).

Now, onto the convention. It was packed. It was loud. Some of it was really weird. The panels are always alluring, but watching the demos on the expo hall floor are better. Everything - seriously - was in 3D. It took me a good 45 seconds, looking at all the computer screens, to figure out why everything was blurry. Alienware had a crazy-looking booth, the Dungeons and Dragons booth was faux-stone, the Duke Nukem Forever booth looked like the inside of a classy casino, there was a giant Pikachu hanging overhead, and Bioshock had a pretty girl in a corset-dress taking pictures with people. There was a demo of Portal 2, 3D Fable III and World of Warcraft, the new Magic: The Gathering card set. It was crazy. People had fun. Everyone was talking about something geeky. Everyone caught everyone else's references. One of the girls working the Registration desk with me is a legit nuclear physicist, and another girl is a member of the World of Warcraft guild Elitist Jerks - the foremost theorycrafters and numbers people behind the game. It was crazy and awesome.

Here are some pictures. Here's the Registration line on Friday morning from above. People waiting to pick up badges at will-call.

Here's the very crowded expo hall from the top of the stairs. This is only a small portion; the length of the hall is something like half a mile. It certainly felt like it while walking.

The Portal 2 demo station! Very cool - can't wait.

And, of course, the giant Pikachu balloon hanging over the Pokemon booth.

So, bottom line: PAX is awesome. Being an Enforcer is awesome.

Jay Peak (Vacation, Part 1)

2011-03-08T15:43:00.008-05:00

Great news! Friday dawned and ten days of vacation began. I haven't taken a week off work in... ever? Honestly, I can't even remember. Not while I was at Omgeo certainly, and even in college we never got a Fall or Spring break - merely "long weekend", a 4-day reprieve. Now that I have paid vacation days, though, the game changes.

So this week was (and is going to continue to be) action-packed. From Sunday to Tuesday, we went up to Jay Peak in North Troy, VT. North Troy is so close to the Canadian border that there is poutine on the menu and all the signs are in both English and French. Jay Peak is famous for its powder and its glades. Before this weekend, they had already gotten almost 300 inches of snow this season, and when we left earlier today, they had gotten 42 more inches in the intervening days. What does that mean? That means the trails were loaded with powder. The storm rolled in Sunday night after turning from rain to snow, and went all the way through Monday evening, which meant not only was there a ton of fresh powder when we hit the slopes Monday morning, but it snowed throughout the day, too. I've literally never skied in so much snow. I was getting stuck. It was impossible to turn. Not to mention, it was a week-day and there was no one on the slopes. Hooray!

Simply put, Jay was great. The skiing was great, the skating was great, the rooms were great, the food was great. Here are some shots of our little studio apartment in their brand new Tram Haus Lodge, which sits at the base of the mountain. It had a small kitchenette (perfect for breakfast and lunch) as well as a fireplace, flat screen TV and view of the lifts.

When we got their on Sunday, we skied for a couple of hours before heading in to eat lunch, check into the room, watch some History Channel (Modern Marvels is the best show ever!) and then eat at Alice's Table, the hotel's really awesome restaurant. The food was great, and the prices were pretty reasonable, too. Honestly, the prices for this whole place are really reasonable - probably has something to do with being so far north. After dinner, we went skating at their (also brand new) ice rink.

The place was pretty much empty even though it was "Public Free Skate" (we shared the rink with about five other people), and it was fun to get on skates for the first time in about seven years. When I was younger, I used to do competitive figure skating, and it's amazing how most of that comes back easily. Ben, on the other hand, was freaked out when I started pushing him backwards on his skates. By the end of the skating, I almost had him reversing directions while moving. Almost.

When we woke up the next day, the conditions were very snowy. The workers were snow blowing and shoveling the walkways and digging out the lifts from about 2.5 feet of snow.

It was still snowing pretty hard, too.

And it was a pain to walk anywhere.

But the conditions were great! Nothing had been groomed, so it was all fluffy powder. Here are some shots of a trail I was on about half-way up the mountain. Notice the deep ski tracks in the snow? How about the fact that you can't see my skis and can only barely see the tops of my bindings? Yeah, that's me shooting the camera down at my feet. My pole is halfway buried in snow, too. And this was a regular old blue-square trail.

So yeah - awesome. Plenty of people were snowed in at the hotel overnight, so the bar downstairs was pretty packed. That evening we just relaxed, had dinner, and watched more History Channel.

And when we woke up? It was a bright clear day. And a total of 42 inches of snow had dropped while we were there!

We left after a little more skiing today, and the ride home through VT and NH was clear and beautiful.

That down there is Cannon Mountain, in NH. The slopes looked great there, too.

So, that is part one of my vacation. I have a couple of days of doing nothing before I volunteer all weekend as an "Enforcer" (fancy geek convention lingo for "volunteer") at PAX East, a video game convention organized by Penny Arcade at the BCEC in Boston. I'm excited to see all of the awesome games, concerts and exhibits, as well as help the show run smoothly. If you're attending, you'll probably see me everyday between 3pm and 9pm at the Registration desk.

How I Began Working Out

2011-02-19T22:02:00.002-05:00

So, before the beginning of this year, I never worked out. I never went to the gym. I never went running. When I was younger, I used to do figure skating and ski team, but that was ten years ago, and I haven't done anything to keep myself physically fit since. Honestly, I haven't really had to, and that's a blessing - I've always been on the lean side, and have never really dealt with severe body issues.

But, a year or so ago, I started feeling a little different. It was apparent that my metabolism was slowing down a bit - I could no longer eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's a night and still stay the same weight. My midriff felt thicker, and my legs felt flabbier. I didn't look as good in a tank top. So, I made a New Year's resolution: work out more.

At the end of December, I joined the swanky Equinox gym next to my new client in Boston. I figured this would serve two purposes: it might encourage me to go out during lunch or right after work and do some working out or take a class, and also paying for it might encourage me to make use of the facilities when before I may have just blown the whole thing off.

Since Equinox is a very swanky gym, they included a free body assessment and a couple of complimentary personal training sessions as part of my membership. Sure, why not? I thought. At the very least, it would be useful to know my starting statistics, and useful to learn how to use a few of the crazy-looking machines in this massive place. So, I signed up and was contacted by a trainer. At the end of our free sessions, I decided to continue on with him and do a program of 12 sessions - that way, I would really understand what goes into a full workout and get started on the right foot.

My trainer was awesome. In addition to being funny and sarcastic and good at personal training, he is also working on becoming a doctor, so as a bonus he could answer a lot of very technical questions about the body and why things happen. And he put up with a lot of crap from me when I complained endlessly during our sessions and told him how much there was NO WAY I could do 5 more reps of this.

Training regularly is hard. I learned all the names of all the muscles. I learned how to foam-roll and stretch. I learned how to use machines, how to use free weights, why to keep my elbows straight, why Cardio doesn't need to be part of my workout, how to eat right when I'm strength training, and all the stupid things that happen when you raise your blood pressure during a workout. I did special exercises to correct my knee turn ins and my feet during squats. Those particular exercises sucked, and made me the closest to crying I ever came while training.

And then, before I knew it, all twelve sessions had passed. And I was done. Well, with the guided training, at least. And we took my measurements and stats again. I had weighed 125 pounds when we started. Funnily enough, I weighed 125 pounds when we ended, too. But, my percentage of body fat went down and somewhere in that training, I had lost just about 5.5 pounds of fat and gained 5.5 pounds of lean muscle. It doesn't sound like a lot, I guess, but I don't weigh that much and it's an accomplishment.

Now I just need to keep going! Wish me luck, I guess?

My Story

2011-02-14T11:28:00.000-05:00

I'm out of blog material lately and a little bit of a copy cat, so when I saw my friend June's lovely and touching post about how she met her and married her husband, Sean, I felt compelled to tell my own story. Happy Valentine's Day, right? Here goes.

I once met a Rogue named Mandelas. Ben hates when I start the story this way - he probably feels like it's tacky, or geeky or like others wouldn't understand. Perhaps he's right, but these are my feelings, and for me, the story begins in a dungeon called Shattered Halls with a Rogue named Mandelas. Mandelas is a World of Warcraft character played by Ben, who happened to be the apartment-mate of Kevin, a friend of mine from Northeastern University. I had met Kevin a couple of years previously via my ex, Matt. Kevin and I had grown pretty close because of a love of video games and my blueberry apple crisp, and when he found out I was taking a term off from Bennington College to live in Boston and take classes at BU, he invited me over to dinner (ie: he wanted me to cook and do the dishes) at his apartment. The apartment he shared with Ben.

I had heard of Ben before, and I had "met" him, if meeting someone online in World of Warcraft is considered "meeting". That was September. I remember some of the first times "hanging out" with him. The dungeon run where I first met him, and Kevin introduced him as "my roommate who's just coming back to the game after a long break". I made a fool of myself in that run, and won't ever forget it. Then it was October. Kevin formed a guild, and I got to "see" and "hang out with" Ben a lot more. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, in fact. This was over three and a half years ago now. It's amazing how much personality comes out in a game - Ben was quiet, but a good player. He was a jokester. He was generous. When we chatted, it was the chatter of people who know what the word "egregious" means, and know how to use it in a sentence. Then it was late October. A big group of us got together in Boston at Northeastern. I met Ben for the first time in person. He was cute, quiet and had a sort of detached personality. He smiled a lot at people's jokes, but didn't say much. He filled up his plate in the dining hall, but only ate half of it.

Autumn passed and Winter came. Many people - though perhaps not many who read this blog - know that I was "on and off" dating my high school boyfriend, Matt. We were "officially" broken up at the time, but our tumultuous relationship was still present in my life. December was upon me, and I was horribly upset with my relationship (or, I should say, lack thereof) with Matt. January came. Kevin (as I mentioned above) asked me over to cook dinner, something I used to do quite often when he was roommates with Matt a year before. I brought a big bag of groceries over to their shoddy Boston apartment and cooked tomato sauce, meatballs and pasta in their tiny, awful kitchen. We sat around a table dragged into the hall because there was no living room. Ben was full of calm and quiet. I told stories about Bennington. He kept winking at me, making me wonder what that could possibly mean.

I learned he was a civil engineer. I learned he was on his co-op, inspecting bridges at night for a small company in Boston. He had a hammock in his room. He had the first and second seasons of "The OC" in his closet. He slept on an air mattress. He loved shepard's pie, but made it with too much salt. He was very reserved. I asked Kevin if he had a girlfriend. Kevin said he didn't.

Later that month, he messaged me on World of Warcraft. He asked me how to cook a whole chicken - he had bought one on-sale at the store and had no idea what to do with it. I offered to come over that night and help. We ate chicken on the floor of Kevin's bedroom. I went over to their place a few more times. I said I loved the movie "Casino Royale", so one of the nights, we bought a pint of Ben and Jerry's at the convenience store and watched "Casino Royale". We both sat on his bed - the air mattress on the floor - and watched the movie on his computer monitor. I was a little interested in him, and half hoped he would make a move during the movie, but he didn't. I had no idea if he was interested in me at all.

February came, and the night before Valentine's Day, as Midnight approached, we found ourselves both on World of Warcraft, doing not much of anything. He offered to help me with a task. I accepted. He ran around killing all the enemies in the area while I gathered some items I needed. When we were done, we sat together on top of a tall mushroom and later on a statue of a cobra. It was quiet and cute and immensely comforting. It was after Midnight when I signed off, and I wished him a Happy Valentine's Day. Before I logged off, I sent him a little heart in the game that said, "I will follow you all around Azeroth". It was an inside joke. I found out later that he still has that heart in his character's bank. A few days later, I got some in-game mail back from him. The subject of the mail was "Happy Birthday" (my birthday wasn't for another 9 months), and attached to the letter were a bunch of the items I needed. I was touched - the items were hard to get, and would have netted him a large profit had he chosen to sell them instead. That he sent them to me meant a lot.

Frankly, I was a little baffled. Although he had done these nice things for me, he treated me rather offhandedly and was incredibly hard to read. I was a little baffled at myself, too - Ben was not at all my type. Tall, with blond hair and blue eyes, when I normally go for shorter guys, with darker hair. It was clear he lived pretty cheaply - a room in a crappy apartment with an air mattress for a bed and virtually no other furniture? - whereas I grew up with money and with friends who had money. But he was smart, and quietly charming, and Kevin said nice things about him. Even the complete strangers in our World of Warcraft guild liked him.

Almost a week later, right past the middle of February, Kevin invited me into Boston to get sushi with him. When we were about to leave his apartment, Ben decided to come with us. It was snowing hard out, and I was walking down the street between the two of them. I remember looking out the window at the restaurant watching the snow and thinking, "My life is about to change." I still think back on that moment and realize I will probably never have a truer premonition. After dinner, we went back to their apartment. The three of us watched "Blood Diamond". After that was through, Ben and I watched "The Postman". By the time it was over, it was 11:55pm. We looked at each other hesitantly. "I think the trains may have stopped running by now," I said. Ben agreed. He invited me to spend the night. He only had one pillow. We stayed up most of the night talking. Nothing happened between us, but it didn't matter. We got along really well, and he was cute. I stayed the next night, too, not sleeping much from being up late with friends and being squished on the air mattress that was now being shared with both Ben and Owen, another friend.

That morning, I had a huge fight with Matt. Although we were not officially together in any way (because, mind you, he didn't want to be) and even though absolutely nothing had happened between me and Ben, Matt was angry and jealous at me for staying the night there. We fought and we talked and fought and talked. I knew that he had a point, but near the end of our conversation, he forbid me to see Ben again. That did it. There was no way anyone was going to tell me who I could or couldn't see. I told him we were through, and left. Matt and I had been "on and off" for about four years. He was my best friend, and I was deeply in love with him. Saying those words, and dealing with the repercussions of that "break up" for months (years?) after, was heartbreaking. I could write an entire novel about my relationship with Matt - and it would include all the good, bad, touching, sad, joyful, heartbreaking and life-changing things you find in most long term relationships. But this story isn't about Matt. Suffice it to say that the break up sucked, and Ben was extremely nice about the whole thing, for a long time after I even still had a right to be upset and crying about Matt at 2 in the morning.

So, I was devastated and confused. I had just broken up with someone who many people thought I might marry, and I sort of liked a guy whose feelings about me were a complete mystery. I held up for a while, but at the beginning of March, I did what any normal person would do - I took off a couple of days off from work to think, ordered expensive take-out, and planned to go skiing on a Saturday up at Mount Snow by myself for some "me" time.

As Fate would have it, I found out that Ben and some friends (including the very same Sean I mentioned at the beginning of this post) were planning a ski trip for that day, themselves - to Mount Snow. Well okay, I thought. That doesn't mean I have to see anyone. It's a huge mountain, and I'll never find them anyway. It snowed the night before, and the roads sucked. Most of the way up route 2, I called Ben to see if they had actually decided to go and see if they were okay on the roads. They had, and they were. Feeling a little awkward and nervous, I complained idly about a white truck that was slowing down traffic up ahead of me. Ben commented that they were in front of a slow, white truck. Out of all the places on the almost-four-hour trip from Boston to Dover, VT, we had ended up in the same 1/4 mile stretch.

The ski day was fun, although not the "me" time I had planned - long chairlift rides during which to talk, fresh snow from the storm the night before, sharing Sean's granola bars at lunch. When we were leaving, Owen suggested that Ben ride home with me to keep me company, since they had come up with three people. We listened to a CD I had made the night before while sorting out my feelings about everything. I got pulled over in Vermont for not moving into the passing lane to avoid a pulled over vehicle. I only got a warning, but I was beyond embarrassed. When I dropped him off at his apartment in Boston, I asked if I could drop my car off at home and come back over. He agreed. Although I had no hard evidence either way, by this time, I was fairly certain he was interested in me, too.

When I got back to his place, he made french toast for dinner. I didn't even really like french toast, but my appetite had just mysteriously returned after being gone since the breakup and that french toast was the best thing ever. We talked about World of Wacraft, but eventually relaxed and talked about ourselves. Then our feelings. Then we kissed for the first time. We started officially dating almost a month later. Now it's just about three years later, and I'm a completely different person than who I was then.

Ben is quiet, reserved, calm and introspective in a way that's toned my own melodrama and sometimes manic personality. He is very sweet and almost never gets angry. He hates when I don't communicate to him what I want, so I've tried to become clearer about my desires. He tries very hard in our relationship, which makes me try, too. (Don't ever let anyone tell you that you shouldn't have to try to make a relationship work. You will have to try, but it should be worth every moment of trying.)

The summer after we got together was rough. I was still dealing with my breakup. He had a friend staying with him the whole summer. I was needy. He hated it. We fought. Somehow, we got through. That Fall, I went back to Bennington and only came to Boston some weekends. It was difficult. That winter, we moved in together. Things, startlingly enough, got easier. We got two kittens - Loki and Penelope. They are the best, and have probably brought us together even more. The following summer, Ben went to The Netherlands for over a month. It was hard being alone after living with someone for half a year.

I don't believe in things like love at first sight or soul mates. What Ben and I have is a quiet sort of love. The kind of love that makes you impulsively hold hands on the way to the car and say "I love you" or "you're handsome" at random times. The kind of love that makes you curl up together for a weekend and play Fable III. The kind of love that isn't expressed with fireworks or Hollywood drama, but instead with long car rides together, grocery shopping on the weekends, bowls of freshly cut fruit, cooking dinner together, debates about social issues and science, sharing books, loving our cats, summer evenings in Boston, glasses of red wine. Sharing life with Ben isn't effortless, but it is easy and graceful. To use Ben's civil engineering parlance, "we shore each other up", and the changes we've made for each other (I think) are changes for the better.

Yesterday, for Valentine's Day, we went to an expensive lunch in Hingham. We appreciate good food, and always go out for special occasions. Ben planned it and surprised me, probably because I still complain that he should be more romantic. He wanted to take me to see "Black Swan". As sweet as that was, I knew he wouldn't like it. We went to the bookstore instead. When we got home, we played Fable, until it was time to go play World of Warcraft. Our days are simple - filled with work, books, cats, trips around town and to New Hampshire, and plenty of comforting routine. They are pretty perfect.

Blog Share: I Need A New Job

2011-02-09T20:09:00.001-05:00

Attention Reader: The post below was NOT written by me. This post was written by an anonymous blogger, and is being posted on my blog as part of the winter 2011 Blog Share. To read more about the Blog Share and see a full list of participating blogs, please see my previous post here, and please give a warm welcome to today's poster.

~~~

I need a new job. I'm fairly certain of this. At least 95% of the time this is the way I feel. The other 5% of the time I love what I do. I've realized, however, that 5% enjoyment is not enough enjoyment to bring happiness to my life. I've become so unhappy at work that I've begun to not like the person I am while I am at work and often when I am home. It's hard to shake off the stress and anxiety for the short period of time between getting off work and having to go back the next morning.

On paper, I love my job. I'm ideal for it. People say I do a great job and that I'm perfect for it. The time and energy I have to invest in it has become too much. Only one person has done this job longer than I have and the job has expanded a lot since she was in this position. The powers that be don't seem to understand the extent of what I do and how much of myself I have to put into it day in and day out.

I've been doing a "soft search" for quite awhile. Now, it's time to get serious about changing jobs. I'd love to stay at the same company, but there really aren't other opportunities open. I don't want to go into a position I am overqualified for, but at this point it almost seems worth it. I am ready to work a standard Monday - Friday 8am-5pm job. I understand most jobs come with some requirements for overtime and I can handle that. What I can't handle is the extra six weeks of work I put in last year with no comp time.

I can't burn bridges - as much as I want to, I know that would be stupid for many reasons. As miserable as I am (meaning I start dreading the week by Sunday afternoon and I often cry on my way to the office) I know I need to be patient and cope until the right job and offer come along. I just wish it would come along NOW!

Blog Share Coming Up!

2011-01-31T06:24:00.003-05:00

Edit: The date was pushed back a week to February 10th.

It's been a while since the last Blog Share happened. I was really glad I participated then, and I'm really glad to be participating again this time around.

For those of you who don't know what the Blog Share is, it is a chance for bloggers to reveal something about themselves that can't be said on their own site. On February 10th, the post on my blog will not be my own - it will have been written by someone itching to get something off their chest and sent to me anonymously to post. Some people write about their significant others, their exes, their work, a personal flaw, or just some strange story. Sometimes the posts contain deep secrets that the writer doesn't want associated with them, other times people write about topics which merely don't fit with the theme of their sites. Blog Share posts range from funny to serious to just plain weird. At the bottom of this post, I've linked all the blogs that will be participating - please take the time to read everyone's hard work.

The rules of the Blog Share state that I cannot identify which post is mine (it breaks down the anonymity of the whole thing). You may recognize it among the group but, if you do, please refrain from identifying me. If you recognize the writer of the post on my site, please be respectful of their anonymity as well.

To my new readers: Welcome! I'm a software/database engineer living just south of Boston, MA with my boyfriend and two cats. This blog is my personal blog, which usually covers the events in my life, things I buy, books I read, things I see on the internet, etc. I'm excited to open my blog to the Blog Share again, and I hope you enjoy and admire the hard work done by everyone to make this event possible.

~~~

Participants:

The Time for Change
Bright Yellow World
Reflections in the Snow-Covered Hills
Totally Serial
Daily Tannenbaum
Andrea Unplugged
Malfeasance
From Kim's Desk
Rediscovering Me
Mama Bub
Being Five
Nothing Is Easier Than Self-Deceit
Molly's Musings
Heidikins
Snarke
Did I Say That Outloud?
The Reluctant Grownup
And You Know What Else
Bwildered
Thinking Some More

Kitchenware!

2011-01-09T23:40:00.004-05:00

Honestly, my favorite place in the world might just be Crate and Barrel. I love pretty much everything in that store, not to mention the whole place just enhances my general love of kitchenware, bathware, bedding, furniture, etc. Sometimes I think I should've been an interior designer or maybe just a housewife so that I could play with all the cool things one can buy for a house (and so I could justify to myself the need for a $300 stand mixer!).

Anyway, by crazy random happenstance, Ben has lately been in a "spending money on nice things" mood - which has meant trips to the swanky shopping plaza in Hingham. We went to Crate and Barrel this past weekend, and had gone to Bed, Bath and Beyond the weekend before to pick up a few things we needed (well, perhaps things we merely wanted).

The pots were "need" category items; a few of ours were just plain old, bad and scary, so we took the opportunity to throw them out and replace them with fresh, gorgeous, Cuisinart stainless steel beauties. The larger pot's lid even has a built-in strainer, which is perfect for us.

Okay, the salt and pepper grinders and glass container were "wants". Since last year, we've been using tiny little containers that June and Sean's wedding favors came in to house our easily accessible supply of sugar and flour on the counters. As cute as the containers were, they were way, way too small. Ben, actually, insisted on the upgrade. The salt and pepper shakers are just plain amazing.

On the way to the register at Crate and Barrel, Ben caught me, beckoned me over to a shelf and pointed to a pretty little set of rice bowls. "Don't you like them?" he asked, as I smiled and nodded appreciatively. "Okay, we'll get them, since you like them," he went on, much to my surprise and vague suspicion. When we got home, he made a point of reminding me, "See, I get you things! I even found these and picked them myself and thought you would like them! I want to make sure I get full credit for this!" Well, okay, he gets credit, lots of credit, because they are quite wonderful - pretty much the epitome of delicate and adorable.

One item at a time, I hope to buy that whole store!

Holidays

2010-12-27T11:59:00.004-05:00

Today is Monday, and I'm not at work! Hooray! Aside from the massive snowstorm that just hit Boston preventing most people from getting to work anyway, I have a few days of vacation for Christmas. Vacation time around now means seeing family, getting presents, eating lots of good food, and also making sure my World of Warcraft character is ready to raid when we start the new dungeons this week.

Our tree in the bright morning light of our apartment.

On Thursday night, we grabbed the Zipcar and drove up to New Hampshire to visit my family. On Christmas Eve (when my family traditionally celebrates the holiday) there was prime rib, Christmas movies and presents. Lots of presents. I'm pretty sure I could've opened a department store with the number of items sitting under the tree. I got to see my best friend Sam, who almost succeeded in ruining my Christmas until I found out she brought homemade Oreo truffles to my house with her. Sam's family is Jehovah's Witness, and she has always spent Christmas at our house since nothing is happening at hers. Good choice on her part, since my mother always provides her with food and presents along with the rest of us.

Some kitchen gifts, including a gorgeous cast iron tea kettle and casserole dish, and a rice cooker to make my life easier.

More gifts, including Windows 7, a Vera Bradley bag, and some new books.

My mother's big gifts to me - a red pea-coat (I've always wanted something so bold!), gray Uggs, and some black riding boots.

Ben and I got up early the next day and drove to Dexter, Maine to see his siblings. His oldest brother and sister just bought a beautiful vacation home up there this past summer and some of his family was gathered for the holiday. Unfortunately, the impending snowstorm forced us to leave on Sunday (a day early). It would have been really nice to spend some more time up there, since we only see his family once or twice a year, but I'm glad we left - even by the time we got to Boston in the early afternoon the weather was turning pretty hazardous. The wind was very strong, and the snow was already screwing with the visibility. It's still snowing a little bit now, and even the sides of buildings are covered in snow because of it being blown all over the place. Here are a couple of pictures from the sliding glass door onto our balcony.

Today, we watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (continuing our re-watching of the entire series), and I fully intend on not getting out of my pajamas until I'm forced to go back to work on Wednesday. In other news, we booked a ski trip to Jay Peak in Vermont for early March and will be staying in the beautiful Tram Haus Lodge and skiing lots of powdery, tree-filled slopes!

Tram Haus Lodge, Jay Peak, VT

Rally to Restory Sanity and/or Fear

2010-11-05T19:10:00.005-04:00

Okay, so I've been asked about my trip to Washington, DC - specifically, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. To start, I didn't get a single picture on the day of the rally. I'm WAY too short to have seen over the massive - and I mean massive - crowd. So the couple of picture I'm going to post here will be from Google. They pretty much convey the sheer number of people at the rally. I've seen estimates from reliable sources of numbers between 215,000 people to 250,000 people. It certainly seemed like a lot, on the ground.

It was really a gorgeous day in DC - fairly warm, not windy. The rally started promptly at Noon, after a countdown appeared on the screens. There was no possible way Ben and I (or anyone farther back than 500 feet) were going to see the stage; the rally planning was good, though, and Jumbo-tron screens lined both sides of the mall quite a ways back. We managed to get ourselves in at about 11:30am onto the outskirts of the Mall, sort of in front of a big screen. I realize now what an amazing feat this was, as a vast majority of the people there that day (I later found out) couldn't see or hear anything, stuck on the streets or way in the back.

The rally itself was decent. Not bad, but not great. As usual, Stewart and Colbert were in top form. The music seemed strangely out of place; the first act was some sort of rap, although the Cat Stevens/Ozzy Ozzborne thing was pretty funny. The Mythbusters experiments were neat. It took about a full minute for a "wave" to travel from the front of the rally to the back. That's a long time. Ben could see over people's heads and I remember him saying, "It's coming... it's coming... it's coming..." It took an inordinate amount of time for the waves to reach us, and we were only about halfway or 3/4 of the way back from the stage. Let me reiterate - there were a lot of people there.

Confession: we skipped out early, before what many would call the best part - Stewart's sincere speech. But, honestly, I'm so glad we did. Had we waited for the crowd to clear at the end of the rally, we would've been stuck there for hours. The streets all along the Mall and even a few blocks out were stuffed with people. Literally, we could barely move, even though we were trying to get as far away from the Mall as possible.

The best parts (for me)? The signs and the people. The signs were great. They ranged from "okay" to "extraordinarily witty". It was really nice to see people's sense humor. One of my favorites was a guy of Arab descent holding a sign asking "Am I acting suspicious?" There were many other good ones, too. Some were very political, but, frankly, this was not a political rally. What it really was was an excuse for Stewart and Colbert to do a live show in Washington, DC and watch giddily as hundreds of thousands of people came on a whim. Speak of that - the people were great. As early as the airport in Boston, we heard people talking about the rally. Saturday morning, the Baltimore train station was packed with people all going down to DC for that exact purpose, and all the trains were sold out all day. People were talking happily and reasonably to one another, and some people (on the Mall and in various lines) talked happily and reasonably to us.

So that was the rally: an awesome comedy show by two awesome comedians. I wonder how it feels to command that much power - to bring that many people together so quickly for practically no reason at all?

So what did we do the rest of the weekend? We stayed in Baltimore, MD at the Westin there. I spent a decent amount of time wondering if Ben had ever seen or heard of room service before, since he seemed positively delighted by it and wanted to take all of our meals in our room. I finally had to put my foot down and drag him down to the restaurant one night.

On Sunday, we went back into DC. I expected there to still be quite a lot of people there, but, honestly, there weren't. We walked from Union Station over to the Capitol Building, then all the way down the length of the lawn to the Lincoln Memorial and then back up to the Capital Building. I just looked at the map - that was about a 7 mile walk, not including all the walking we did in each museum. No wonder my feet were tired and it took us all day. Along the way, we stopped at the Washington Monument, as well as the American Art Museum (authentic Norman Rockwells from private collections!), the National Botanical Garden Museum (which has a jungle in it!), the Natural History Museum (skeletons and the Hope Diamond!), and the Aerospace Museum (space-suits and pictures of the sunset on Mars!). Neither of us have ever been to DC, so we got all sorts of touristy pictures (below).

That last picture there? Well, it was Halloween, so you have to expect to see a few crazy people dancing happily in the reflecting pool, right? Right?

How did I do it?

2010-09-30T07:46:00.003-04:00

I have no idea what happened, exactly, but somehow I managed to convince Ben to take me to Washington, DC for the weekend of October 30th. Happy birthday to me! I'm pretty sure this is the only gift I'm getting for a long time. I'm also pretty sure that as the date draws nearer, Ben will begin to glower about spending money. But anyway. You'll see us on the Washington Mall mid-afternoon on that Saturday - I will be attending the Rally to Restore Sanity while Ben will be running for his life at the March to Keep Fear Alive. (Jon Stewart is cooler than Stephen Colbert. Really really.)

We're actually going to be down there for the whole weekend, too. We're staying up in Baltimore, but will be taking the short train ride into DC to attend the rally and see the sights. Unexpected surprise: apparently, most of the attractions in DC are free! Huzzah! That makes our already awesomely cheap trip even cheaper. We may spend some time in Baltimore as well (they have a sick aquarium), depending on what sights we can think of to see there.

So what if I didn't get those Uggs I wanted? This is better, and there's always Christmas!

Highland Games and more!

2010-09-23T07:36:00.001-04:00

Last weekend, Ben and I went with my mother and step-father up to Lincoln, NH to attend the New Hampshire Scottish Highland Games. Last year we went on Saturday (it's a 3-day event) and saw big burly Scottish guys pulling boulders and tossing cabers, but this time we decided to attend on Friday and see the sheepdog trials. Also a plus - the place is way less packed on Friday, although the weather was a little spotty.

Note: sheepdog trials are sort of amazing. The dogs are all border collies, and fairly young. They are taught to run the sheep (in this case, it was three sheep) through an actually rather complicated course. There are points assigned for how fast it's completed, and how many of the obstacles (mostly fences that the dogs have to make the sheep go through) are completed correctly. The owners direct the dogs with a whistle, and different whistles mean different things. They also use verbal commands like "lay down" and "come by". The dogs are remarkably good at handling the sheep, and it's sort of crazy to watch them execute this complicated sheep dance pattern. We saw about six dogs do the trials, most of whom I guess go to national competitions for this stuff, and we also got to see them training some of the younger dogs. The pictures I got sort of suck, because the iPhone is far from a good photo-taking device, especially in the wind and at a distance.

Other than that, we also got to see a couple of harp demonstrations, Ben did a scotch tasting, and there were tons of food, clothing and merchandise vendors as well as awesome music.

We also took home a bunch of good food, including oat cake, fudge, Scottish candy, and shortbread, and we stopped at the orchard near my house in NH for some apples and other apple products.

Speaking of my house (well, my parents' house) in NH, here's a view from the back deck:

As if this all wasn't enough, Ben and I finally decided to take the jump and buy a TV (our first) and an Xbox. Well, my mother bought the Xbox for us, and a couple of games. I now play Halo (yeah, it shocked me, too) and I'm having fun with Dante's Inferno (the game, not the epic poem). It's fun to have a console after all this time, but it's really ruining my productivity. I pretty much didn't even bother making dinner this week at all, between having to finish the Halo 3 campaign and having to raid in World of Warcraft.

Ben is really bad ass, hanging out with Penny while playing Halo 3 multi-player:

And finally, for some occasion (did he do something wrong?), Ben got me flowers. I love flowers. Pretty good week, all in all.

My next challenge: convince Ben to bring me to the Rally to Restore Sanity.

Apple Picking!

2010-09-07T17:19:00.000-04:00

Bored and sitting idly on the floor of our apartment on Monday, Ben and I had the idea to go apple picking. I'd never been before, so we located a farm and called Owen to come join us. The weather was beautiful, all blue sky and breezes. The farm was nice, too - very large and with a cute little tractor-pulled wagon to bring you out to the apple trees.

I have a secret love of farms and farm stands - it's so nice to go out to a cute, rustic little store (probably run by family, or at the very least people who care about their job) and buy fresh food. There's an orchard in NH I love to go to for the same reason, and every week we buy food at Fresh Market, which is also awesome. This time, we walked out with a garlic spread, a fig spread, fresh apple cider doughnuts, and fresh strawberries - in addition to our 10 lbs. of apples (Cortlands, Galas and Macintoshs).

Seeing Owen and meeting his family was nice, and it was a beautiful day off to get outside, but unfortunately apple picking itself isn't terribly long, difficult or interesting. It took us maybe half an hour to fill our 10 lbs. bag, and we were going really slow. It's fun to pick fresh fruit, but it may or may not have been worth the 45 minute ride out there. I have a feeling it's more for the experience, but even that can only last so long.

And, seriously, what am I going to do with 10 lbs. of apples? I already made apple crisp, and ate a few and there's still most of the bag left! Maybe I could make apple sauce, too. I used to do that quite a lot, but I stopped when I went off to college and had less access to a kitchen.

After we picked apples, Owen took us over to Kimball Farm for some ice cream and to walk around the complex. It's amazing how many people were there, and the place looked like a lot of fun - bumper boats, golf, arcade, and they were even had a live animal show so we met Felix the lemur. We ended up leaving earlier than we anticipated, so we had the Zipcar for some extra time. It was a nice evening, so we stopped at the beach to walk around.

Next weekend is the Scottish Highland Games, up at Loon Mountain in NH. It was totally fun last year, so we're going again. I plan on bringing my aluminum mug from last year that guarantees me $1 refills of root beer and cream soda. Okay, okay, I'll probably forget. Hopefully I'll at least remember to get pictures of the sheep dog trials and the crazy Scottish men throwing cabers around.

Online Friends

2010-08-23T06:56:00.003-04:00

I had an excellent weekend. Saturday, we ran errands, leaving us free on the rainy Sunday to laze around. I like our normal Saturday pattern - get up early, drive to Hingham, sometimes get breakfast or lunch at Panera, shop at Fresh Market and The Fruit Center, and sometimes go to the bookstore or the chocolate shop or the beach or some other fun thing. Getting groceries at Fresh Market is fun - there are so many interesting things, so much ripe exotic fruit, so many good cuts of meat, so many cool bakery items. It makes shopping for our week's food exciting. When we went this week, I got a cactus pear. I've never had one, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully it will turn out better than my last week's experiment with sea bass (no likey).

This week we also had to go to the mall to get dress shirts for Ben, finally! All his shirts were way too short in the sleeves, so I insisted we go to Milton's and get him measured to find the correct size. His shirts fit now! Huzzah! I also had to go to the bookstore. A woman at work lent me The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last week and it was so absolutely awesome that I had to buy the next one immediately. I almost got the third one, too, but it's only in hardcover now and I abhor hardcover books. If I ever get published, I wonder if I can insist on no hardcover version?

Anyway, when not running errands all around the south shore, we basically spent the remaining waking hours playing Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 (SC2) was a video game released at the end of July. It follows in the wake of Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War which were released in the mid-90s. They were hugely popular games, so you can imagine the excitement and tension surrounding a sequel being released 15 years later. Blizzard Entertainment has an amazing reputation for producing high quality, high fun games (Starcraft series, Warcraft series, World of Warcraft, Diablo series) and SC2 definitely did not disappoint. Suffice to say, it's so good that I definitely don't want to stop playing anytime soon.

It's a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game along the lines of Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Homeworld, etc., and therefore it has single-player (storyline, human versus computer) modes and multi-player (human versus human) modes. I'm a multi-player person. I played through the storyline because it was there, because I wanted to know what happened, and because people will look at you funny if you haven't. For me, the fun comes with playing, in teams, against other people. I like working together with people online - I've been doing it for years now, first with Everquest and more recently with World of Warcraft (WoW). And because Blizzard Entertainment makes both World of Warcraft and the Starcraft series, many of the people I've been playing WoW with for years now are also playing SC2.

I've mentioned my World of Warcraft friends before; I've written about working together with them, about how hard it was for me to say goodbye to all of them when I disbanded my guild, and in various other scenarios where I try to describe our relationship. It's a hard thing to describe, mostly because of its newness - the idea of an "online" friend has only existed for, what? 15 years? Not even?

I think many people have a negative opinion of "online" friendships, or at least a speculative opinion. I've had many an annoying conversation with people about playing World of Warcraft - "But you don't know these people, right? They aren't your friends, right? Why don't you go out to parties/spend time with your family/do things in real life?" The people I come across who scoff at video games (especially multi-player ones) seem to have a very low opinion of only knowing people online, or perhaps a low opinion in general of the kind of people who play video games online. For some reason, these people don't consider online video gaming a valid use of time, even though it's not much different than watching TV or reading a book. Okay, so I would argue that reading a book is better for you, and watching TV is way worse, but still. It's a pastime like any other, although not in the league of training for a triathlon, or building a start-up company.

Specifically, though, people seem to bash video games because they take the place of "real" activities and ruin "real" relationships and friendships. Well, of course there are crazy and unstable people out there who get addicted to gaming (like anything else, really) and neglect other important parts of life, but honestly most people aren't like that. Of all the World of Warcraft players I know, I can only think of one who plays what I would consider "too much". And even he, I know, has a job. Everyone I know, either in real life or only online, has a job, a family, a relationship, a hobby - or some combination of those. I've met some people whom I would never think would play WoW - a banker, a classicist, a med student. I've met people I'm absolutely sure I would be friends with, if only we didn't live 3000 miles away.

Outside of the 5 or 6 people I know in real life who play World of Warcraft with me, I have about another half a dozen friends in the game that I do truly consider friends. In fact, I "see" them and talk to them way more than many of the real life friends I have. I know their names, where they live, what they do. I'm friends with them on Facebook, and have the phone numbers of those I'm closest to. I laugh with them, talk with them, miss them when I don't see them for a while, know what they like and don't like, have watched many of them as they've developed over the last two or three years - had babies, gotten into new relationships, moved to different cities. We have bonds like other friendships do. I cried when a fellow officer of my guild and the guild leader quite the game. (They are both back now - no surprise, really.) It doesn't matter to me one ounce that I've never seen these people face to face. If they ever quit the game forever (or if I ever do), I would make every attempt I could to stay in contact and, should that not happen, remember them fondly for the rest of my life.

Anyway, I mention all this because Ben and I had tons of fun all weekend playing SC2 with a couple of our "online" friends, and it was honestly the most fun I've had in ages. It was interesting, too, because I'm so used to playing World of Warcraft with these people that it's exciting to play a different game and see how everyone's style and skill level changes. Unsurprisingly, everyone's personality and whimsy are still present, regardless of the game.

Okay, I think that's enough rambling for now. Hope your weekend was as awesome as mine!

Eat Pray Love

2010-08-16T17:42:00.000-04:00

I just finished Eat Pray Love and have never been made more jealous by a book in my life. I'll admit, I was very skepitcal about it and opened to the first page with an almost frightening amount of self-consciousness. Wasn't this a self-help book? Isn't this the pathetically short fluff literature that I see middle-aged woman reading on the train into Boston every morning? Isn't it non-fiction, and don't I generally hate non-fiction? There were a million reasons not to read it, and I cringed every time I saw it on the shelf during my bi-monthly visits to Barnes and Noble, judiciously choosing other novels by whatever up-and-coming new fiction authors in whom I saw promise. But then I saw it on my mother's desk (read: it would be free) and said, rather too casually for my own good, "Can I borrow that? I've been seeing it everywhere." As a rule, I believe in reading anything and everything one can get his or her hands on, in the same way I believe it doesn't matter what one is writing as long as he or she is writing something. It's all knowledge and practice.

My mom confessed that she "couldn't get into it" and that I was free to take it. It sat - again, self-consciously - on my bedside table for a week while I lazily finished every other book on my list and couldn't ignore it any longer. I had heard so many mixed reviews about it, and had read snippets of so many different criticisms that (much like Inception) I didn't really know what it was about, and it turned out to be very different from my preconceived notion. I have a very big problem, after reading this book, with people who are being so blindly scornful toward it and I feel the need to inflict a little punitive justice upon their ignorance.

Firstly, Eat Pray Love is not a self-help book. It's just not. No where in there is Elizabeth Gilbert telling people to do anything, preaching her own opinions on what works and what doesn't, or promoting any places, methods or products. I can't possibly imagine she had any intention of people following in her footsteps or taking her words as advice. All she did was faithfully produce a recollection of her trip to be published, just like she promised her editor she would in return for the nice royalty advance she got to fund the expedition.

The book is simply, if not exactly masterfully, divided into three logical blocks - one for each place she visited - and 108 chapters (intentional, I assume, for 108 is appartently a spiritually important number). The writing is actually rather good, in a blunt and mirabile dictu way. It drags a little and tries to hard here and there, but her wit and palpable detail usually make up for it. The importance to Liz of what she is writing about is pretty clear and that alone would make the prose compelling enough to stick with to the end. Liz didn't need the decent writing to make the book compelling, though - she managed to hit on the hidden (or, well, usually not so hidden) desires of most of the American middle-class. Who doesn't want to completely pick up and leave their shambles of a life to spend four months eating good food in Italy, a few more months making spiritual peace with themselves in an actual Indian Ashram, and finally finding the love of their life in Bali while giving aid to various newly-made foreign friends? It fulfills so many personal and humanitarian dreams: learn new languages, explore new cultures, find a personal relationship with God, repair a broken heart, use connections and wealth to do something good for the people you meet.

Is it self-absorbed? Well, yeah, a little. But really - what book isn't? Generally speaking, in things like fiction and biography, the plot is incredibly absorbed by a single person or event that you have to deal with reading about for ~300 pages. Haven't you ever thought - even briefly, even jokingly - about writing an autobiography or memoir? (Don't lie; you have.) Guess what it would've been! Self-absorbed! Don't be jealous just because Liz Gilbert's self-absorbed memoir got published before yours. Her book is a good one. It's not scholarly, academic material, but it's honest and interesting and if you've lived anywhere other than under a rock for even a small portion of your life, you can probably relate to it.

Is it the story of a Yuppie woman exposing her ignorance of other cultures, poor choices and superficiality? Not particularly. I've heard a lot of negative talk about this novel that cites Gilbert's upper-class materialism and ignorance, but I just don't see it. Is she a well-off, young, urban professional who probably gets a latte at Starbucks every morning while in the States? Yes, definitely. But so am I. So are most of the people I know. "Yuppie" can have a negative connotation, this is true, but really, that's what Liz is and that's what I am. Might you not want to read her book because (A) you can't relate to her life or (B) will become far too jealous of it? Of course. I don't read a lot of no-doubt interesting material because it's impossible for me to care. Like... The Bible?

Everyone, of every social class, has problems. It's because we're human, and we share common human emotions like love, sadness, joy, etc. Her human emotions aren't less valid because she's rich and successful. She had problems in her life (divorce, uncertainty, obsessiveness) and chose to deal with them in a way she knew would help her: traveling, finding spiritual comfort, grounding herself emotionally. At no point while living in Italy, India or Bali did her American ignorance mar or ruin anything. At no point was she mean, malicious, or foolish. She got up every morning for months and recited verse after verse of Sanskrit chants as part of her life in the Ashram. You go do that, before throwing stones. I know for certain I couldn't. So, you're sickened by her high-class, Yuppie approach to life where she travels and moans about past relationships? Do you have the courage or devotion to try what she did? To change completely? To start over? I don't think I do.

Does Eat Pray Love have problems, as a written work and as a life story? Of course. Show me a book - especially someone's autobiography - where there weren't moments of self-absorption, poor choices, rampant emotions, doubt, insecurity, and other elements of normal life. I read Mussolini's autobiography a couple of years ago; it had its failings. Does that mean that Elizabeth Gilbert's attempt to explain her actions and provide an interesting, empathic and insightful adventure for her readers should be scorned? I hope not, unless you are also scorning practically every other book in existence along with it.

Facebook Friends?

2010-08-15T19:25:00.002-04:00

Inspired by Megan's blog post, I set out to categorize my own Facebook friends. Periodically, I go through and un-friend people that I'm not really in contact with anymore. I've never un-friended someone maliciously, or because of a disagreement or fight; I'm usually just un-friending because I'm out of touch with the person and not interested in their life anymore. I just went through a week or so ago and un-friended maybe 18 people. If any of them noticed, they haven't mentioned it. I probably don't notice when I'm un-friended (although I have on a couple of rare, mysterious occasions).

My list right now looks like this:

17 Close Friends. These are people I see regularly, communicate with regularly, love, search out, miss when I'm not around them, and will probably be friends with for a very long time. We actually have very little communication through Facebook, since we communicate in other ways more regularly.

11 Family Members. Some of these are close family, like my mom. Others are distant aunts or uncles or cousins I haven't seen in years.

7 Professional Contacts. These are people whom I've met through work and continue to interact with to some extent - we have lunches occasionally, they ask me questions, and we are otherwise interested in each other's lives on a professional-acquaintance level. We are probably also friends on LinkedIn, which is more suited to this type of interaction.

12 World of Warcraft Friends. This is a special category. I hesitate to call these friends "online friends", because they mean so much more to me than that. These people should actually probably fall somewhere in a category that borders on professional or acquaintance, except that I've only ever met them in World of Warcraft. In general, I "see" these people online every night, and we interact on a regular basis through the game. I know about their personal lives to some extent - sometimes only their name and location, other times much more, like birthdays, occupation, likes and dislikes, family, etc. I like spending time with them in the game, we generally work well together and know each other's strengths and weaknesses, we joke around, have fun, and it's likely I've known them for a couple of years now, at least. I might even be "real life" friends with them if we lived closer and were in a situation to so do.

38 Acquaintances. These are people whom I do not see regularly, probably due to some physical distance, but try hard to see whenever I can. I may have met them through a friend, or in college, or through work, and we attempt to keep some modicum of contact. I am interested in these people, and would love to see them more often, but it just doesn't work out that way right now.

159 College and High School People. These are people with whom I went to high school, had a college class, saw around campus, met through a friend, or otherwise hung out with once or twice and made the marginal effort of politeness to friend one another via Facebook. For maybe half or 2/3 of these people, I'm interested in knowing about their lives and like having them on my social networking system. For the rest, I probably should un-friend them because we probably aren't too interested in one another.

I have 244 Facebook friends. Could I be stricter with my friending? Probably, but I'm happy to say that I've never friended anyone I completely don't know and I've never gotten a virus through Facebook. I will probably go through again real soon and un-friend more people. It's not that I don't like them; it's just that their News Feed spam crowds out the information from people I do want to know more about.

I don't have a problem with social networking, or having tons of friends through a social networking site, or being friends with/communication with people you don't really know. It's the internet. It happens all the time. If someone wants to have 2000 Facebook friends, why not? That's what interests them. It's just that, personally, I want to use Facebook in a much narrower scope.

Change, and for the better.

2010-08-13T06:45:00.000-04:00

I’ve been more focused on my health lately. I’ve been getting increasingly annoyed at myself for my sedentary life and lack of focus on my nutrition. Lately, I’ve been reading books and blogs that prominently feature people who are working to make themselves better (physically, psychologically, socially, etc.) and it’s inspiring me to do the same.

I’ve been thinking about ways to make my life healthier physically, and honestly there’s no reason I can’t achieve those ways with only a tiny bit of willpower. I don’t lead a terribly unhealthy life to begin with, so the steps to changing are not difficult. I’ve decided I should:

1. Drink more water.
2. Try harder to stay within my daily Calorie range (about 1900 for my body type, age, and lifestyle).
3. Take a daily multivitamin and a fish oil supplement.
4. Switch to eating more whole grain/low fat foods, instead of white bread, white rice, etc.
5. Take a daily walk or visit the gym a couple of time per week.
6. Get outside in the fresh air and sunlight a little more often.

As I said, these are not terrible onerous goals. Things like drinking more water, taking a multivitamin and getting outside more often are practically effortless. Staying within my Calorie range is probably not hard – my preliminary research shows that I’m probably right around it each day anyway. Switching to slightly different foods might be slightly more challenging. I share most of my food and meals with Ben, so that step requires his approval as well. Given his perpetual stomach issues, it would probably be a good thing to switch away from more processed foods anyway and onto healthier whole grains.

The most difficult step for me to complete is exercising more often. Even just taking extended walks outside or visiting the gym once or twice per week are difficult activities for me. I always think of something else I want to/need to do. I make other excuses. I’ll do pretty much anything instead of exercise.

I think there are three things that primarily stop me from exercising: boredom, laziness and fear. Going to the gym is boring for me. Even with my headphones on. Even with something to think about. I know it’s worth the couple of hours a week in the long (and short) run, but I can’t help thinking about all the other things I could be doing with my time. I’m also lazy. If I get home, sit down and start something, I don’t just want to interrupt my evening to go to the gym or out walking. This is just purely inexcusable, and working on getting rid of my laziness will probably help in other aspects of my life, too.

The last reason is fear. Well, it’s not exactly fear, more like annoyance at the permanence of my existence. I’m worried to start getting healthier because I know that regardless of how healthy or fit I am, I’m not going to look like Megan Fox or Alessandra Ambrosio, or any pretty, trim, fit lady I see walking down the street. I’m worried that I’ll get to my body type ideal and, well, I’ll still be me. Not something spectacular. C’est la vie.

I’ve also recently thought about some mental and spiritual cleanup I can do for myself. I’ve been writing more often, which is very good, but there are things I could focus on in life to make myself happier. Mainly, finding out how to be happy by myself. Thinking of things I can do (like writing) in a solitary state, to strengthen myself. I haven’t thought as much about this aspect of my total makeover, but some things (again, not very onerous things) spring to mind: taking more alone time to think and organize my thoughts, reading books that are new to me instead of stagnating in old ones (now, I think it’s perfectly fine to re-read favorite books as long as you read new ones, too), varying my writing styles and topics, getting up earlier in the morning, connecting with friends I don’t see a lot.

Change is hard for me. Even very small and good change. So… this will be interesting.

Marching Bands of Manhattan

2010-07-27T07:04:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, Ben and I went to New York City to visit Hunter and Cara. It was brutally, horribly, unbearably, awfully hot. I hate the heat. So, well, the indoor parts were nice.

The first stop we made once in the city was Google. I signed (well, electronically agreed to) an NDA that I probably should've read before clicking yes on, but I was told it essentially says I can't tell you anything about the inside. Other than the fact that it's awesome. You all missed out on so much! Aren't you jealous now? Now you'll all need to get your own friends who work at Google so you can visit them.

Anyway. Hunter and Ben and some Googlers and I went out to dinner at Paradou. It was awesome - the kind of restaurant I totally love. We were in a partially outdoor courtyard, cozy, low lights, long table, lots of silverware and glasses and wine, delicious gourmet food and desserts. It started to thunderstorm pretty badly, which was fun, and Googlers make for very interesting and stimulating conversational partners. Who apparently all love foie gras. Who knew?

Breakfast the next morning at The Grey Dog, if only to prove what hipster yuppies we all are. Big, crowded, noisy breakfast that was actually really well-made, if only they had given me more apple juice. Then onto the American Museum of Natural History, which is totally cool. I love dinosaurs, but I could've done without all the stuffed birds and mammals. The minerals room, as promised, was awesome, and housed an 82 Carat black diamond. Sheesh. It was loaned to the museum by "Anonymous", which for some reason confused the hell out of Ben for a few moments.

Cara joined us at the museum for a pretty, although (as Hunter put it) not very intellectually stimulating, Planetarium showing. Then we got some quick food at Shake Shack before going back to Hunter's apartment. To escape the heat, and to get delicious tea and dinner, we went to Think Coffee with some board games and stayed there until closing playing Munchkin and Carcassonne. Beer, grilled cheese and cheesecake were had. Fun was had, too.

The next morning, we went on a tour of the Atlantic Ave tunnel in Brooklyn, a tunnel which housed the first subway system (of a sort). It was closed off and only rediscovered a couple of decades ago. It's half a mile long, and dark and scary, but thankfully cool. The tour was interesting and related the scandalous history of the tunnel.

Honest to god, I will never complain about Boston heat ever again. Boston is positively cool and breezy right now compared to New York City!

Gift-giving!

2010-07-17T22:31:00.003-04:00

I've been told I'm a generous person. I like to give people things. I usually give people things that I want myself, which is both good and bad. Ben is a very generous person, too, but lately he's been even more generous (and sweet) than normal. He's been giving me things for, well, no apparent reason which is... actually, perfectly fine with me. (:

I've gotten flowers (twice!), and the most comfy chair I've ever spent time in. I sat in it for like 10 seconds in the store and I was like, "I want that chair! It's even in a gorgeous shade of red, too!" and poof - he got me the chair! And it is awesome. Best chair ever, seriously. Best boyfriend ever, too.

I'm reading this over thinking that it makes me sound a little vain and materialistic, but who doesn't like some nice, sweet things occasionally?

Pictures of my recent acquisitions. Now I just need a working camera so that I can stop taking crappy pictures on my iPhone. Or maybe just that new iPhone with the better camera in it. Hmm...

I am in a story!

2010-07-13T10:36:00.002-04:00

For three years now I have been following the Clarion West writers' workshop, ever since an acquaintance of mine (lucky devil!) attended and earned my eternal jealousy. This year, they did something a little different to raise money: if you donated at least ten dollars to their workshop, Michael Swanwick (an awesome sci-fi writer who has won a bunch of Hugo awards and other awards) would write you into one of the short stories he is creating and posting on his blog for each day of the month-long workshop. Well, why not? I thought. I like Clarion West and I like stories! So I sent the money (maybe someday I will be able to send myself), along with the required bit of personal detail, including full name and a few other random facts about myself.

So, today is the day of my story. I hate to be biased, but I think it is the best one so far (okay, okay, they are all pretty good). You can read them all at Flogging Babel, each post has one or more stories, all with Clarion West donors in them. My story is here, and I love it.

Thank you, Michael Swanwick, and thank you, Clarion West, for having a workshop dedicated to a genre often disparaged and overlooked by readers and writers alike. Personally, I'm proud to read and write sci-fi and fantasy, and am glad that Clarion West is so encouraging.

Boston Harbor Islands

2010-06-23T07:45:00.001-04:00

This past weekend, we received a visit from James and Eleanor who were up from Philadelphia. A few weeks earlier, Ben and I had talked about going out to the Boston Harbor Islands (about 30 minutes offshore by ferry) and what better to do than drag visiting friends along for the adventure?

It was very, very hot in Boston/Quincy this past Saturday, but once we were on the ferry the weather was beautiful. Perfectly breezy and cool.

The islands were just as awesome. We went first to Georges Island, the home of Fort Warren which was actively used in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, and the World Wars. It was kind of crazy, lots of dark spaces and scary, crumbling buildings, mixed with the open field in the middle of the complex. The beach on Georges Island is rocky, with lots of crabs and barnacles. We had a picnic by the water after exploring the fort and got to briefly listen to a few bands from Berkley which had come out for the day to play.

Because of the rough water and ferry delays, it took us a while to get over to Spectacle Island in the afternoon, but our ferry driver was nice enough to tell us jokes and apologize profusely for getting us all wet because of the bumpy ride.

Spectacle Island is a cool place. For a long time, it was used as a dump/landfill. When the Big Dig began in the early 1990s, the city took all of the extra dirt and dumped it on top of the trash on Spectacle Island, and resurfaced it as a park. So, the island is dozens of feet of dirt mixed with trash, with a couple of feet on top of top-soil for plants and conditioning. Regardless, it's quite pretty. They've made paths everywhere, and planted trees, and put gazebos up. We had a second picnic here under an umbrella-covered table.

The India Association of Greater Boston was hosting their Reach for the Sky event, so there were kites everywhere. Even though we weren't part of the event, we found a crashed and abandoned kite in the brush, so we adopted it and flew it around while we walked.

After missing one ferry back to Boston because it was too crowded to get on, we finally returned around 5pm to get drinks and food in Boston. After being told abruptly by our server at Kingfish Hall that if all we were having was drinks and appetizers then we'd have to move from our table (even though there were barely any tables filled at the time) to the bar, we finished and left, walking around Boston until settling on Wagamama for delicious noodles and teriyaki. Wagamama is great for groups, since it's got a huge restaurant and they seat you at long benches. Ben and I were dead exhausted after dinner, so we left to go back to Quincy.

I really can't believe I've lived her my whole life and never been out to the islands - they are totally cool! Definitely an awesome day trip!

The list of me.

2010-06-08T15:07:00.014-04:00

Filling out Megan's mini-questionnaire in my last post made me want to write more about myself. It's very easy for me to ramble on about, well, anything. I figure, if I'm going to ramble anyway, I might as well tell people useful information. Because, I'm sure you don't care what the beam spread of a 26 degree Source 4 Ellipsoidal stage light is, right?

1. I can't make decisions easily. I attribute it to the fact that I'm a Libra, a moon-sign are famous for that trait. But, it's true. If I can make a decision about something at all, it will generally take a long time. I will mull things over, look at the situation from all angles, think about how I'll feel after I've decided, and just generally check and double-check my thinking. I will hesitate, go back and forth, but I won't usually tell what I'm thinking until I'm sure of it. Then, I will decide, and that will usually be my final decision. It generally has to be, because if I waver, I'll have to go through the whole deciding process again. I consider this to be a character weakness. Some people would say that it's good to be slow and careful, but honestly, it gets in the way more than anything else. Especially when the decision is something stupid like what do I want to order off a menu, and I can't choose!

2. I'm a generous person. I want to share with you. I want to lend you my things, give you gifts, cook you food, take you out for drinks. I remember details, and will incorporate things I know about you in my plans. It generally makes me happy to make you happy.

3. I'm extremely nerdy. I like science. I play video games. My head is almost always buried in a book. I'm proud of my nerdiness. I will defend my World of Warcraft playing, and not hide it. I will unabashedly tell you that I'm a database consultant and that it's awesome. I don't care if I'm a girl and we don't do that stuff. I don't care if you think video games are the devil. I like being a little weird and different.

4. I have Bi-Polar Disorder. If you read my blog or are close to me, you probably know this already. I go on and off medication for it. I have years/cycles that are better or worse than others. The majority of my life consists of extremely normal days with the occasionally weird one where I feel unreasonably depressed or (rarely) unreasonably manic. I get overly-emotional over some things and suffer from some anxiety because of the Bi-Polar as well. These days, 99% of the time it's completely controllable and doesn't affect my life in any way. 1% of the time, I cry for no reason or become oddly irrational. But, hey, doesn't everyone do that occasionally?

5. I like to clean. Really, I do. I'm not offering to do your dishes to be nice (well, maybe a little) - I just really like doing dishes. Most cleaning (save for vacuuming) relaxes me and gives me time to think about things - usually a story that I'm cooking up to write. I don't mind getting on my hands and knees and scrubbing the floor. It's my mellow time.

6. I'm afraid of heights. Funny, right, since I used to do lighting design and technician work? My fear isn't paralyzing. Actually, if I'm working up high for a while, I can get over most of the fear and manage to get acclimated to it. That goes away if I don't do it for a while, though. These days, I'm never up high for long, so that means I'll be quite scared when looking over the side of a mountain, riding a chair lift, etc.

7. I'm also afraid of the dark. It's okay, you can laugh a little. I used to get horrendous nightmares, and now I'm afraid of the dark. Sleeping with someone helps. Leaving the window open so that I can see the streetlights and hear the cars helps. Watching something, reading something or hearing something completely innocuous before bed (ie. not something scary) helps.

8. I love dressing up. I love any excuse to put on a nice dress and heels and go out. I love eating at fancy places, going dancing, or otherwise doing things that require me to look fabulous.

9. I like to talk aloud to solve my problems. I don't usually do this at work or in crowded locations, but it really helps me to talk things out when I'm dealing with something. I like to speak dialogue aloud if I'm writing a story - I can figure out if it sounds natural or not. I like to tell my love problems to the grapefruit I'm cutting up on the counter. (That grapefruit gives great advice!) Sometimes I talk to my cats. Yup, I'm a little crazy - but you knew that from number 4.

10. I look down on people who are mean to service-industry workers. Do not be mean to the waitress, hairdresser, bell boy, shoe shiner, etc., in my presence. They are providing a service for you. I don't care if it's "their job" - that doesn't give you the right to be rude or ignorant. More than likely, they are doing something that you would never want to do. What that means is that they probably deserve your respect even more.

11. I love to dance. Honestly, I wish I could dance as well as Shakira, but even though I can't, that doesn't mean I don't love a good night out dancing at a club. If the music has a catchy beat and I have a good partner, I could literally dance all night.

12. I'm a Grammar Nazi. I also look down on people who use bad spelling, punctuation, syntax and grammar around me, whether it's on the internet or not. I know people make mistakes or don't know every single obscure rule there that exists. Even I make unthinking mistakes, or intentionally ignore recognised rules because I think they are dumb. But, really, if I can't read your writing because it's all one sentence with no capitalisation, punctuation, and half the words are spelled using one letter, I'm probably going to raise my eyebrows and you'll go down a notch in my book. I don't care if you think that's pretentious; learn how to communicate.

13. I love animals. I love all animals. From cats and dogs all the way up to horses and all the way down to snakes and everything in between and beyond! I'm interested in animal health and behavior, and will spend hours reading about animals or observing them.

14. It is extremely easy to hurt my feelings. I'm very emotional. I want constant reassurance. I honestly do want to be liked and try my hardest to achieve that. I don't like being left out of things, or lied to.

15. I'm intentionally politically apathetic. I don't vote, I don't align myself with any political party, and, generally speaking, I try to not notice what's going on in that realm of stuff. I just don't care. I'm not interested. I don't want to learn about it, and I don't want to make uninformed judgments or decisions. I just want to be left out of it. This isn't up for negotiation, and I'll really hate you if you waste my time (and yours) trying to convince me to care. I've heard every argument. Now leave me alone.

16. I think the work I do is very important. I provide database/data solutions and advice for companies in the financial industry. If you are a serious investor working with any investment managers or funds in the northeast, chances are that my company is behind some of their data decisions and business intelligence. I think that what my company does helps drive good decision-making in finance. You're welcome. (:

17. Flowers, chocolates, hugs and good food can fix any problem. Period.

18. I love to write with a pen and paper. I know, it's less efficient and a lot more annoying, but sometimes I just really like to sit down with a notebook and a good pen and write away from my computer. I used to do it more often, but since I've gotten two computer and an iPhone, it's less necessary. It's still quite fun and relaxing, though. I admire beautiful notebooks and pens all the time and promise that some day I'll get one.

19. I love driving. I like just hopping in the car and going. With good music (or a good audio book) on a good day, I could literally drive for hours and hours. Especially highway driving, where I can pick up speed and just cruise. It doesn't necessarily matter where I'm going, either, I just like to go.

20. Songs and quotes resonate very strongly for me. I will often attach a quote or song with a person, event, season, or day, and then every time I hear it, it will bring me back to that moment. This is more bad than good; generally the sad things stick more than the good ones. It is then very hard to break that connection. A good number of songs have been ruined for me because of this weird emotional attachment. I was told by a friend once that I "felt more" than anyone he knew. I wonder if he's right.

That's all for now. There are many more things to know about me; these were mostly just chosen at random.

I'm stealing this. Take that!

2010-06-08T09:20:00.004-04:00

So, Megan over at Snow Covered Hills put out a few questions to her blogging buddies as part of a survey tag. I'm stealing them to answer, because (A) I've had nothing interesting to blog about recently and I'm itching to write and this will get my fingers moving, (B) I think they are interesting questions and (C) I admire Megan a great deal and love to steal her awesome writing and ideas. Yes, yes, I'm shameless.

Here they are:

What do your love interests have in common?

Engineering. I swear to god. I've dated the electrical engineer, the sound engineer, the civil engineer, and I've had a fair number of crushes on industrial engineers, aerospace engineers, computer engineers, etc. I'm a software engineer myself, so I guess there is some commonality going on. They also all play video games and are generally nerdy (in a good way, like me). Other than that, I can't think of much. It's actually quite amazing how different they all are, aside from those things. I've gone through a succession of looks and personalities, and it's interesting to see how my interactions have changed depending on who I was with. My current boyfriend is very calm and gentle, which has actually mellowed me and grounded me quite a bit (yeah, I used to be more hyper and crazy and emotional than I am now). But now I'm rambling on.

What is your guilty pleasure?

Lady Gaga, mini powdered donuts, singing really loudly when I'm alone in my apartment or car, cheesy musicals, chick flicks, trashy fantasy novels (even though I'm a Lit. major, too, so when I go out I feel compelled to carry something around like Lolita or The Decameron to prove my worth), expensive clothes from White House/Black Market that I can't afford... oh, I'm sorry, you only wanted one?

What makes you angry?

It angers me when people don't believe what I say. I can't lie. I mean, really, I don't lie about anything aside from the occasional practical joke that doesn't last long or slip up where I say something that that gets misinterpreted or is unknowingly false. So, yeah, it really makes me mad when people think I'm lying. It also makes me mad when people (especially people who are close to me) treat me like I'm dumb, or don't take me seriously, or think I don't work as hard as they do for the things I have. Oh, and the stupid people who crowd the entrances to subway trains! Seriously! This is Park Street station, people, everyone is getting off! Move out of the way!

Who do you dislike?

Hmm. Okay. Well, this is tough. I rarely put up with people in my life (like immediate friends) that I dislike. I rarely make or keep contact with people I dislike. So, generally speaking, there isn't anyone I am close to that I dislike. If I'm speaking to you, hanging out with you, etc, I probably like you to some extent. I'm way too selfish to waste my time on people I don't like. Unfortunately, I don't know much about people who aren't close to me, either. I'm not going to say I dislike the CEO of BP. I don't know him. I don't care if there's an oil spill; I can't say I don't like him just because of that. See what I mean? Most of the people I dislike are fictitious - really good villains in books, etc. I'm super nerdy.

What was your first job?

My first real job (that wasn't weeding the garden or working for family members) was when I was 15 or so. My high school had a really nice theater that they rented out to dance groups to have recitals in, community theaters to have performances in, etc. I did lighting and sound work for these groups when they rented the space. Yeah, I know, right? My school hired a 15 year old girl (and a few of her similarly-aged friends) to interact with these groups as clients and completely run their tech work. I didn't think about it then, but it sounds rather crazy now.

A New Beginning?

2010-05-27T07:27:00.003-04:00

The Blog Share is over. Whew! What an exciting weekend. It was a pleasure to participate. The best thing that can happen on a new adventure is having something good come out of it. A lot of good comes out of the Blog Share - people feel relieved, loved, welcomed. But also, to my happiness, something tangible appeared.

Out of the ashes of this year's Blog Share rose a new idea: an anonymous blog where a group of people can post freely about topics they'd rather not openly talk about on their own blogs. There are already many contributors.

Welcome to The Web That Is My Own.

I am a participant. The rules state that I cannot reveal which posts I wrote, nor identify the other members who participate, nor tell you which posts they wrote. Well, why would I want to? If I wanted to identify myself, I would've written on my own blog, right?

Feel free to read the posts, but do not identify me if you are tipped off by my writing style or content in a post. In fact, it would be better if you read without trying to pick me out at all. Read as though all the posts are mine, or none of them are. I have a feeling humans all boil down to the same basic matter, and that many of the posts will contain emotions and events shared by other contributors. Read them as a love letter (or hate letter) from humanity.

I think that TWTIMO (see what I did there?) is a great exercise. I hope that someday we can expand to many, many, many more contributors. Friends of friends of friends of friends. I hope we can expand. I have dreams that this will be the PostSecret of blogging, if we let it. But, let's start small. Watch us as we begin down this path.

Blog Share: The Stepford Syndrome

2010-05-22T22:23:00.005-04:00

The below post is not written by me. It is written by an anonymous author as part of a blog share event. Please see my post here about the Blog Share if you have no idea what's going on. And, give a warm welcome to my anonymous friend.

First things, first. I'm on three medications for depression and anxiety.

But, I don't want anyone to know.

You know the movie about the Stepford Wives? Where everything is perfectly perfect on the outside? Or, basically, any other portrayal of Suburbia... where there's chaos inside, but nobody knows about it, because we women have to put on a perfect front?

I don't know if it's just a personality thing or if it was something about the way I was raised, but I cannot let people know I have imperfections. I'm always happy, work is fantastic, and life is wonderful!

Thing is, it usually is. Things for me are really awesome. And I usually am really happy. And I adore my job. There's just this one thing.

I have depression.

Maybe part of my fear about sharing is that it seems nobody understands depression. NO, I'm not sad all the time. NO, nothing traumatic happened in my childhood. NO, I don't want to kill myself. And NO, my medication does not turn me into a robot or make me a different person.

I just have a debilitating illness that prevents me from sleeping well, gives me neck pain and headaches, and sometimes forces to me to lay on the couch for hours not doing anything. The ONLY way I can help alleviate that is with my medication. It makes me feel normal. It allows me to get up.

So, why can't I tell anyone?

Blog Share Approaching!

2010-05-21T11:10:00.006-04:00

I've taken the below text from my fellow blogger Megan over at Snow Covered Hills, and changed only a few of the more personal references.

The Blog Share is going to take over this weekend, starting tomorrow, so there won’t be a new post from me for the next few days. But you should still come back: there will be interesting new stuff here that someone else has written. (Bonus!)

Blog Share is all about revealing things you can’t say on your own blog for one reason or another. Maybe it’s a secret; maybe your boss reads your blog; maybe it’s just something that’s totally out of character for your own site. Think about how weird it would be if I suddenly started to blog about David Hasselhoff’s thighs. Disturbing and wrong, right? That’s why Blog Share is awesome.

People from all over the world agree to host anonymous posts on their websites and to write anonymous posts that will be hosted on other blogs. That’s happening Sunday night and Monday morning. The participant list is at the bottom of this entry. Please review all the talented posts across all blogs!

The rules say that I cannot reveal which post I wrote. If you recognise me, please don’t say so. If too many people identify themselves, the entire chain of anonymity breaks down.

New readers: Welcome! I live just south of Boston, MA. I'm a software developer who usually writes about a mixture of things - events in my life, books, things I see on the internet. This is a personal blog as opposed to a themed blog. I'm happy to open my blog to the Blog Share event! Please enjoy and admire the hard work done by all the participants to make this happen.

Participant List:

A Little Coffee With My Cream and Sugar
And You Know What Else
Another Bloody Mary
Bright Yellow World
Cake or Death
Dispatches from the Failed Mommies Club
Feel Me Don't You
Heidikins
Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men
Kirida
Malfeasance
My 33 People
Nothing Is Easier Than Self-Deceit
Postcards from Inania
Rediscovering Me
Snow Covered Hills
Tales of a tree-hugging 2L
The Gay White North
The Little Goat
The Opposite of Classy

Goodbye, Omgeo!

2010-05-20T08:18:00.003-04:00

It’s time to say goodbye again. A month ago, it was to my guild; this time, to my current job. This is the good kind of goodbye – the kind that brings career advancement and new adventures – but a hard goodbye nonetheless.

I’ve never been good at letting go, especially with good things. Omgeo is a good thing – a completely random choice that ended up being the best decision I made in four years. Omgeo was my love where Bennington vexed me. Omgeo taught me while I hassled myself and bored myself while trying to fit in at Bennington. Omgeo gave me the money that Bennington so mightily stripped away. Omgeo was in my favorite city, my home, while Bennington was at the other end of a lonely 150-mile road. Omgeo kept me afloat when the rather poor decision of Bennington might have drowned me, and for that I cannot be more thankful.

Omgeo’s success, in my opinion, is almost entirely embodied by its employees. Omgeo is extremely, practically impossibly, successful – ergo, Omgeo’s employees are the best one can imagine. The best one can, as a 19-year-old internship seeker, hope to meet, work with, and study. The depth of knowledge, determination, creativity and integrity I was met with in every person will continue to humble me and inspire me for years to come.

There is so much individual talent, willful collaboration, strong decision-making, and endless determination in my department especially that I truly cannot imagine Omgeo surviving without Business Information Systems (BIS) to support and care for it, just as BIS has supported and cared for me. There isn’t a better group to learn from and bond with, I’m sure of it. I am moving on because BIS’s teaching, and the teaching from other Omgeans, is allowing me and enabling me to do so. I wouldn’t be in this very good position – to be able to find employment and opportunity doing something I love despite these difficult times – without the furtherance, succor and respect I received while working here at Omgeo. I am extremely lucky and grateful to have met and worked with all of you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you and take care. Si vales valeo.

“When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
`Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
`The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.”

Concert 2: Coheed and Cambria/Circa Survive

2010-05-18T07:23:00.001-04:00

Last night I went to see Coheed and Cambria and Circa Survive play at the Boston House of Blues (which is an awesome venue in terms of style and atmosphere, but could use some better acoustics). Drinks were overpriced, but I don't really drink so I only had one anyway, but the space was actually pretty nice to hang around in before the show. I'm a dork and stared at the soundboard and lightboard for a while, as Kevin kept trying to engage me in conversation that wasn't so dorky while we waited for his friends to join us. We had walked there with them, but then they had to meet a friend outside of the club.

Circa Survive played after the crappy opener-for-the-opener, Torche, and Circa was actually pretty good. The lead singer was the epitome of Emo, unbuttoned shirt and clutching his chest a lot, but the lyrics were catchy and the songs were well-paced. I had actually heard a few of them before, nullifying my previous statement that I had never heard Circa Survive.

After them and a 20-minute break, we finally got to see Coheed. Don't know who Coheed and Cambria is? Here are a couple of promo pics:

They are a rather interesting heavy-rock-bordering-on-metal band that uses their music/albums to tell a complicated sci-fi story. The story is really long (and, as I said before, complicated), but very interesting. I'm not going to tell much about it here, but suffice it to say that 'Coheed' and 'Cambria' are characters that appear in part of the work.

They have a rather huge following of people - mostly crazy people, as I came to find out last night. I've been in the pit (ie: ground floor general admission near the stage) for a couple of other concerts, but none so crazy as this one. Coheed fans are totally mental - there was flat out brawling happening around me. I got hit hard in the face no fewer than three times, and my nose and jaw still hurt. The tops of my feet are covered in bruises from being stepped on. I was also covered in beer for most of the night and (other people's) sweat. Without my friend Kevin standing behind me almost the whole night fending off wild people, I might have sustained serious injuries. I'm actually surprised that his friends, who were part of the flat-out brawling matches, didn't. Kevin may have actually sustained injuries in my place that he didn't tell me about; I probably should've asked! No, really, he's the best and I wouldn't have been able to do stand where I was standing without him.

Anyway, I know that all makes it sound like it really sucked, but it actually didn't. The concert was really awesome and everyone was dancing and singing the whole night and I loved it. I actually felt kind of bad for the people who were up on the second and third level mezzanines - they looked really bored compared to us on the floor. They were all just sort of standing there listlessly. It was completely incedible to hear Coheed live and I'm glad I got to, especially since they played two of my favorite songs near the end ("Far" and "Welcome Home")! Even though my hearing still hasn't returned to full. It sounds like a bomb went off next to my head - all fuzzy and muffled. I seriously said to co-workers all day, "I can't hear you!" I was surprised and mildly alarmed that it hadn't fixed itself over night, but it seems to be getting better now.

Because of the completely craziness and massive amounts of people and general disorder, I couldn't really get pictures. I got pictures before the show and after the show (I love watching them strike the stage at the end - that's the tech theater kid in me), but I only attempted one shot during the show (while they were playing "Far", a slower. calmer song) and it still came out blurry and indistinguishable. So, in order: pre-show, Coheed during "Far", and post-show strike:

For most of the show, I was standing slightly closer than where I was when I took that last, after-show picture (we walked a little ways off for water when it ended), so you can imagine how awesome my view was, even with tall people in front of me!

Long Weekend

2010-05-02T19:25:00.005-04:00

We had a busy, exciting 3-day weekend. Friday we got up early and, despite massive Red Line delays due to a fire the previous day, got into the Museum of Science at a reasonable hour. Even though the MoS is in desperate need of a makeover, many parts of it are still fun and they definitely bring a lot of nostalgia for me.

I'm told this triceratops' name may or may not be "Cliff", so everyone say hi! It's the only really good picture I got, since I'm terrified of the butterfly garden and could barely walk through it, let alone stop to take close up pictures. That's my second time in there now, and I was really hoping I would be better about my fear. Oh, well.

After a lightning show, butterfly garden, museum exhibit halls, an Omni show and browsing the gift shop, we decided we would walk over to the Prudential instead of take the T. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and there were sailboats all over the Charles River, so it was totally worth the two-mile walk. When we got there, Ben insisted we have ice cream, which was perfectly cool with me, and then dinner with Kevin and Owen, which turned into "walking all around town with Kevin and Owen until 11pm going to different places and bars".

Getting up early, even on weekends, is a recent habit of ours, so when Saturday came, we were up at 7:30am with basically nothing to do. Ben got his offer letter for his new job last week, so per his promise of earlier, it was time for him to get his own iPhone (so that he would leave mine alone). We hit the mall when it opened and got the phone and a case, did some other errands involving food shopping, and then I had to go with my mother to do some stuff for a while. After that, Saturday was dedicated to watching "24" and hanging around, ending with dinner out at the Fox and Hound.

Sunday was pretty humid and sweltering for a while, so at about 3pm, Ben decided that he really wanted to take a picnic to the beach. We live about a 1 minute drive from the beach, so this was a pretty easy affair. There were more people there than usual (obviously), but it was nice to just sit in the sun and read for a while.

Other cool (or not so cool) things that happened this weekend:

1. Laura Staley sent me a return mail gift!
2. A big water main is Weston sprung a leak, so we have to boil all of our water until further notice. That will probably be over today or tomorrow.
3. Finished Season 3 of "24". Hooray!

Success

2010-04-27T07:20:00.009-04:00

Now that I've officiall signed the offer letter (and the NDA and a bunch of other documents), I can feel free to talk about my new job. My new career-home is with Advanti Solutions, a small-but-very-successful database consulting firm in Boston, MA. Since I joined Omgeo 3 years ago, I've been steadily working toward a career involving databases. This new job is extremely special - not only will I be doing database development/database administration work, it will be in the form of consulting for financial services companies helping them make their databases and data management systems better. What that means? I'm the expert. I tell people how to do things the right way. Well, Advanti will obviously have to train me first a little, but I was extremely fortunate to learn so much so quickly while at Omgeo.

I really can't say enough about how lucky I am to have a job like this one. Consulting is an extremely desirable field, and being so young and yet in such a senior position, making more money than anyone really has a right to make fresh out of college, is remarkable. It makes me feel really successful to have had job offers to choose between and to have intentionally picked this one for what I thought it could offer me and vice-versa. Yes, I am bragging a little. But, it makes me feel as though my choices in college (which I have regretted for some time) might not have been so terrible after all. I certainly could've minimised their damage, minimised my debts, etc., but having secured the life I have now, I worry less and feel like I can handle the responisiblities I took on all those years ago.

Right now, I have a college degree, a job I love, an apartment I love, two cats I love and a boyfriend I love (who just secured his own job for after he graduates in a week). Ben and I are lucky to both have the success we've been having lately. We are in a position now to have and do a lot more than many other people in the world are able, and it's important that we realise that and appreciate it.

I have a lot of friends who have graduated recently or are graduating soon. I've seen them all go down different paths; some are looking for jobs out of college, some are continuing to graduate school, specialised programs or study-abroad programs, some are married, some have kids, some never went to college at all and have been living 'real' lives since right out of high school, some are professional dancers, singers or actors, the list goes on and on. I've often regretted not doing some things differently, but I can honestly say I wouldn't want to be anyone other than me right now. I have myself all lined up to do exactly what I've always planned to do: have an extremely successful career, travel, do non-profit work, write and read more in my free time, and otherwise continue to expand the breadth of my knowledge.

Relaxing

2010-04-25T10:21:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day! It was sunny and warm, and this is the first weekend in, well, forever, that Ben hasn't had to do schoolwork all weekend. It's also the first weekend in forever that I haven't done work on the weekends, too. (I used up all my hours this week taking care of the McAfee Crisis that struck Windows XP machines earlier in the week, including all our computers at work.) So, basically, we had a free couple of days to relax!

So, by "relax", what I really mean is "run around doing a bunch of fun things". Yesterday, we cooked a big breakfast like we always do - eggs, toast and bacon. After that, we went to The Fruit Center, our favorite place to get specialty foods and really good fruit and made huge bowls of fruit salad. Following that, we went down to the Thomas Crane Library in Quincy Center and got a few books. Going to the library and not finding some of the books we wanted inspired us to actually go to the bookstore.

The bookstore we go to happens to be right next to The Apple Store, so we couldn't help but pop in quickly to play with the new iPad, which is awesome but something we agree we can't really afford right now and something that we don't even have a need for between our desktop computers, my Macbook and my iPhone.

The first stop once at bookstore was obviously the Starbucks, where we got to enjoy a delicious piece of raspberry-white chocolate cheesecake and frozen drinks before ambling around the bookstore shamelessly admiring everything we saw. We both left with a small stack of books each. I ended up with Columbine by David Cullen, Little Bee by Chris Cleave, and The Lost Men by Kelly Tyler-Lexis. I randomly grabbed the first two on impulse, as I so often do, and the last one was recommended to me. We'll see how they go.

After we left the bookstore, we went home and spent the rest of the day relaxing, reading, and playing video games. It was very nice to not have to worry about anything, really.

This morning, I had promised blueberry pancakes after picking up all that fruit at the store yesterday, so here's me making good on my promise. I don't have the kind of flour you need to make really good pancakes, so... thanks, Jiffy Baking Mix!

And one more good thing! GameStop and Amazon are offering Starcraft II beta keys with pre-orders of Starcraft II (regular or collector's edition), so we have a beta key, too! I'll get to see it more than just that one time at PAX!

Books: Part IV

2010-04-22T13:00:00.005-04:00

This time I went for a few young adult books and series. I really remember beginning to read a lot when I was in middle school and early high school. That's when I went from reading a book every week or two to reading a book a night. I used to get young adult fiction from the library, and I still re-read some of my old favorites and remember them fondly. Here goes!

His Dark Materials Trilogy
(Philip Pullman)

Possibly better known as The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, the series in its entirety is called His Dark Materials and is possibly one of the best series I've ever read. What makes it so good is that it can be read at two levels. Level 1: Lyra, a young British girl who lives in an alternate universe version of England, finds out information about her family and the world that sets her on a quest to save, well, everything. This is what makes Borders stick it in the young adult section, I think. It has a deeper layer, though: it is a loose and vague re-telling of Paradise Lost, Milton's famous epic poem outlining the fall of Satan, the destruction of the Garden of Eden, etc. It is fun to read it first on its own, and then go through the plot again matching it up to Milton's work.

Stargirl
(Jerry Spinelli)

Stargirl is a very heart-warming novel. It has a sequel, called Love, Stargirl, which is not as good as this first one, but the first one can be read alone and still mean a lot. It's not a hard read or a long one, but very cute, sweet and endearing. It tells the story of a high school girl who calls herself "Stargirl" and her injection into a new school that doesn't accept what they think to be her strange mannerisms. The point of view is from Leo, another student of the school and eventually Stargirl's boyfriend in their confusing and doomed relationship.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
(Stephen Chbosky)

An epistolary novel (a novel composed solely of documents such as letters, diary entries, etc), the story details the life of high school freshman Charlie, who struggles with being shy, introverted, sexually confused and unpopular. It generally hits home in describing the very awkward and troubling times high school can be in a very eloquent and compelling manner.

Young Miles
(Lois McMaster Bujold)

This book in the first is a long series that details the exciting life of Miles Vorkosigan. Set in the future when other planets have been populated by millions, Miles is a young man who is a "mutant" (physically disabled) on a planet that is generally fearful and intolerant of abnormalities. This first book contains three stories, two novels and one short story between them, introducing you to Miles and his interstellar crazy adventures. Bujold is extremely witty and compelling when writing all of her characters, and very fast and cohesive with the plots. Definitely don't miss out on this one.

A Great and Terrible Beauty
(Libba Bray)

This first book in a trilogy (followed by Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing) really makes you want to read the two that follow it. It is the story of Gemma, a teenage girl in 19th century London high society, who is not only burdened with the pressures of marriage, family and school, but also with her inherited magical powers, a legacy left from her mother who was a member of the mysterious "Order", a group of women who control the magic-infused "Realms" and keep them safe and separate from the human world. Something is happening with the Realms, and it is Gemma who must figure it out. The plot is fresh and fast, although the characters, other than Gemma, could use a little work - they definitely get better in the following books. It is definitely worth picking up if you enjoy the fantasy/Victorian England genre.

Books: Part III

2010-04-16T20:27:00.002-04:00

This time I decided to pick five books of non-fiction. I'll admit, I don't read nearly as much non-fiction as fiction, nor do I read nearly as much as I probably should. But here are some that I picked at random while looking at my bookshelf. Don't worry, I spared you the boring ones like Mussolini's autobiography and the Marquis De Sade's Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings, which is not nearly as interesting as it may sound. Here goes!

Kabul Beauty School
(Deborah Rodriguez)

I randomly picked this book up last minute when I was checking out at Borders with about half a dozen other books. I saw the cover and just grabbed it. I actually do this quite often - especially with music. I'll hear something in a TV show or in a store and I'll just buy it right that moment. But, anyway.

This is Deborah's personal account of going over to Afghanistan and starting a school there to teach women how to run their own salons. Deborah, an American hairdresser, left her abusive husband to go on a mission to Kabul. Upon discovering that she was the only hairdresser among nurses, doctors and engineers, she decided to take on this enormous project herself. After numerous trips between the US and Afghanistan, she finally established a school that could train women to have a profession in a culture where it is hard for women to do anything at all. This book is a mix of personal stories, a little bit of history and the telling of how she trained many successful classes of women to be self-sufficient, despite the odds against her.

Into Thin Air
(Jon Krakauer)

This might possibly be my favorite non-fiction book. I love Krakauer's writing - it is clean, to the point, and very compelling. He is very good at bringing clarity to extremely complex and confusing situations, such as the Mt. Everest disaster of 1996 that he happened to be on the mountain for. On May 10th, 1996, eight people died attempting the summit, including two guides of expeditions, when a storm rolled over the mountain. Krakauer, an experienced mountaineer, was in one of those expeditions. He begins the book by explaining some of the history behind Everest climbs and moves into talking about his own experiences in his team, and the decisions leading up to the summit attempt and deaths of those 8 people. He handles a hard situation very well and, although received backlash for some of his commentary about the others on the mountain at the time, appears to explain things very clearly and unbiasedly. This is a very, very good book.

The Mother Tongue
(Bill Bryson)

This is a very quick, fun read that gives a light account of the history of the English language. Bryson is a decent writer and can be witty, explaining things with passion and vim. My personal opinion, having studied this topic more in-depth, is that he fudges the facts a little, but it is a fairly accurate read and is interesting enough to make you want to read further about the topic.

The Prince
(Niccolo Machiavelli/Harvey Mansfield)

I've read The Prince twice now, and this struck me as the better translation by far. It is a little dry, primarily because many of the direct examples Machiavelli uses are not translatable to today's world, but the themes and general goals of the his writing come through even still. This book is about more than 'the ends justify the means', as there is more to Machiavelli's philosophy than that, and it is interesting (in the same way it is interesting to read Mein Kampf) to study the work of this kind of mind.

Geisha, A Life
(Mineko Iwasaki)

Skip Memoirs of a Geisha and go directly to this book. Although both are compelling and full of drama, Geisha, A Life is the autobiography of Mineko Iwasaki (she was the most successful geisha of all time) and is, therefore, real and all the more interesting because of it. It even includes photos of her! The life of a geisha is extremely heart-wrenching - sometimes enviable, sometimes not so much. This is an extremely well-written account and I couldn't put it down.

Books: Part II

2010-04-15T07:00:00.002-04:00

So, books just keep popping into my head! I think I'll post more. Remember, these aren't being posted in anything more significant than completely random order and there are many, many more still hanging out in my head, waiting to be blogged about.

The Carpet Makers
(Andreas Eschbach)

This novel was an incredible find - a random recommendation from a friend's mother that turned out to be a complete gem. It's sort of a sci-fi novel - set in the future, in a different kind of world - and follows an almost stream-of-consciousness plot that starts by detailing the lives of mysterious "carpet makers" - men who spend their whole lives weaving a single, complex carpet of their wives' hair, only to sell it near the end of their life in order to provide for their son and his family, who will do the same thing. The plot slowly moves into other people and places, ultimately revealing the purpose behind the weaving of these carpets. The prose is really clean and the structure of the story is fresh and exciting.

House of Leaves
(Mark Danielewski)

Oh, House of Leaves. You are not for everyone, are you? Ben always eyes me a little funny when I read this book - he doesn't understand why sometimes the text is upside-down, in the form of a spiral, in different fonts, or why only one word appears on each page, or the why the word "house" (in any form or language) is always printed in the color blue. What an oddity of a novel, but utterly beautiful, too. It is art, as well as prose. It's a complicated read, but very rewarding.

The story is extremely complex - at it's base is a horror story: the Navidson family moves into a new house, only to find out that the house is not so perfect or average as they thought. Doors start appearing in places they weren't before, leading down hallways and staircases that don't match the proportions of the house. Will Navidson, the head of the family, is a famous photographer and journalist. Originally, he had set out to do video documentation of the completely innocuous move, only to change the story into video documentation of this strange phenomenon and his and his family's attempts to deal with it. What you are reading in House of Leaves is in multiple frames. You are reading the story of a young drug addict who moves into the empty apartment of an old, blind man who recently died. The drug addict, Jonny, spends his subsequent days digging into all the items and writings that the old man left behind. Among these writings, he finds 'House of Leaves', which is a textual review of the film that Navidson created. It gets more complex and rich from there - Jonny discovers it is possible that this film never exists, or that Navidson and his family never existed, although the old man had written as though he had most definitely seen the film at some point. It goes on and on from there, and I won't try to sort out the entirely of the story for you.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
(J.K. Rowling)

I'm listing Deathly Hallows here because it is, indeed, the best book in the series, but to get here you do have to read the previous six books. For a teen/children's book, the story is rich enough that to truly capture the characters and the gravity of the situation they are in, you must have followed them closely through the plot, not just the wikipedia article summaries. So, bottom line, read the Harry Potter series. But pay special attention to Deathly Hallows. Rowling's story-telling is genius, and the empathy she evokes from her readers is very telling of the quality of her characters.

The Mists of Avalon
(Marion Zimmer Bradley)

This is one of the first books I ever put on my top ten list. It might have dropped down from there, who knows, but I continue to appreciate it greatly. In short, it is the story of King Arthur's reign from the point of view of the woman surrounding the legend. It starts with telling the story of his mother, Igraine, and her love affair with Uther Pendragon to birth Arthur, and from there moves through time to talk about his aunt, Viviane, the Lady of Avalon; his sister, Morgaine, a priestess of Avalon and slated to be the next Lady of Avalon; his aunt Morgause, queen of Lothian and her cunning schemes; Gwenhywvar, Arthur's barren, Christian wife; and a few others. It is a cohesive story, following many of the commonly known events of his reign as well as the mystical, magical side of Avalon. It is a very compelling read, although it gets a little lengthy in the middle and seems to end too quickly (possibly because of having been bogged down in the middle).

Oryx and Crake
(Maraget Atwood)

Surprisingly enough, I've only read this book once. I can't ever seem to pick it up again, although I continually say that I should read it again and I look at it on the bookshelf periodically. I don't know why this happens to me, because it is an excellent book. Atwood always does an incredible job of crafting and shaping her future dystopian worlds. This is yet another one. In this novel, the narrator is Snowman, who we discover is on earth after the destruction of humankind. He is the last remaining human and interwoven with his struggles to survive in the ruined world, he tells of how it came to be that way, detailing the lives of himself as a young man, his brilliant friend Crake, and a mysterious woman named Oryx. The story is simple, but fresh and startling, and the characters are intense.

Books: Part I

2010-04-14T10:58:00.007-04:00

I absolutely love to read. More than anything else in the world. I'll ready any genre, books of any length or shape, anything I can get my hands on. When I find a good book, I pick up more by that author, and I re-read them again and again. I buy books constantly, and go through them like a child goes through candy. Here are a few of my favorites. I don't have a single, "favorite" book. I have many, many favorite books. This isn't a definitive list of books I like (it will be added to), but there are some that spring to mind quickly. Enjoy.

The Annotated Alice
(Lewis Carroll/John Tenniel/Martin Gardner)

Everyone knows the story of Alice in Wonderland. It is beyond classic. What makes this version of it special: the gorgeous drawings/sketches, the beautifully-bound hardcover, and the extensive footnotes. Ever wanted to read "The Jabberwocky" in French? Or German? Here it is, along with other cool and obscure information about Lewis Carroll, Wonderland and its characters, and Alice.

The Poisonwood Bible
(Barbara Kingsolver)

This novel of (partially) historical fiction tells the story of Nathan and Orleanna Price, who travel with their four daughters to the Congo in the 1950s to do missionary work. Nathan is a hell-and-brimstone Baptist minister, and the heart of the story is told from the alternating points of view of his four daughters with a frame (prologue, section beginnings, and epilogue) by his wife, Orleanna. As well as detailing their difficult lives in a small Congo village surviving and trying to bring the word of god, Kingsolver intersperses the social and political upheaval of the time into the narrative. This is one of the most heartfelt, well-written, and compelling novels I have ever read.

Don Quixote
(Migel De Cervantes/Edith Grossman)

Another classic novel. I was lucky enough in collge to take an entire class dedicated to this masterpiece, where we read it twice through (closely!) and read so much criticism on it that I still haven't been able to pick it up again because I'm still overwhelmed by the original reading. I am recommending Edith Grossman's translation especially - it is new (2005), and very easy to read, witty, and clear. I was also lucky enough to meet her during the aforementioned class (her and my professor are good friends), and it was so interesting to hear about the choices she made in the prose in her own words. But, enough about her.

The Quixote is an epic novel of epic proportions. It is very long, but it continues to push quickly through the material so it doesn't feel long. It is the story of Alonso Quixano, a retired man in La Mancha whose obsession with books of chivalry leads him to style himself the knight-bachelor-at-arms Don Quixote, take up an amusing sidekick named Sancho Panza, and go off in search of quests to complete in the name of his lady-love Dulcinea, who is an ugly girl on a neighboring farm who knows nothing of Quixote. Quixote, seemingly crazy, galavants to various places, and hilarity ensues.

Ender's Game
(Orson Scott Card)

A science fiction classic, this time. The story of Ender, who is being trained to command the Earth International Fleet against the Buggers, aliens who invaded Earth years before and were driven back. Everyone fears another invasion, and seeks a commander who can end the Buggers once and for all. In addition to 6-year-old genius Ender's experiences at Battle School, the narrative also relates the experiences of his slightly older (and equally brilliant) brother and sister as they move into controlling the politics of this future earth. The novel is fast-paced, fairly short, and thoroughly interesting.

The Secret History
(Donna Tartt)

If I could ever manage to pick a favorite book, this one might be it. I'm a snob. And, apparently, so is Donna Tartt. In addition to this novel's extremely interesting characters and plot, it is littered with Greek and Latin phrases, obscure references to masterpiece novels and authors, and big words that even I had to look up periodically.

This book is a mystery in reverse - within the first page, you are told by the narrator (Richard Papen) that he was party to a premeditated murder of a friend. The novel then goes on to detail his college experience that led to the murder (at a small New England college, much like Bennington College - the school both Tartt and I attended). Papen is one of 6 college students studying classic Greek at the college, and is caught up in the philosophy and isolation of the group. Tartt's greatest success in the novel aside from the smooth and rich prose is the depth of the characters and how they become so lovable and hatable as the novel progesses. Highly, highly recommended.

Saying goodbye is too hard, sometimes.

2010-04-11T11:49:00.007-04:00

Earlier this week, I did one of the hardest things I've ever had to do - as the guild leader of the World of Warcraft guild "Limited Edition", I called a halt to the guild's progression in the game and essentially disbanded it.

Limited Edition (LE) has pretty much been around since September of 2007, when my real-life friend Kevin decided to start a guild of his own called "Chaos Inc". A couple of months later, after beginning with a small core group of 10 or 15 people, we merged with a guild named "ZooT" to created Limited Edition proper, giving us enough players to be able to do 25-man raids. Limited Edition's creation date was 11-28-2007.

I didn't think back then that LE would have amounted to everything it ended up being. It's hard to start a successful guild, but it is a tribute to Kevin's good planning and leadership that we became what we did. At our highest point, out of the dozens and dozens of guilds that play on our server, we were the 5th best one around. People knew the name of LE and its members. Even after Kevin stepped down from his position as guild leader, we had Orgodemir to lead us, and Orgo brought us through another 1.5 years of in-game success.

When Orgodemir stepped down a few weeks ago, I knew it might signal the end of the guild. None of the other officers wanted to step into the position, or take on the necessary workload to make the guild remain good. It was unfortunate, but leading a guild is hard, and many of the officers had been doing it for years, and we were burnt out, jaded and not hopeful enough to keep it going on our own. It was a group decision to end LE's progress and allow our members to seek guild memberships elsewhere at their choosing. It was an extremely hard decision and not one which was made lightly or easily. I've pretty much been crying for a straight week as people leave and I send them notes and well-wishes and gold with which to continue their journey in the game. Although I know its my fault that LE couldn't continue, I also knew that I couldn't have, in good faith, kept people in a failing guild with a guild leader who did not really want to be leading them, when so many of our members are incredible players who deserve more than that.

I cannot adequately explain the magnitude of the effect that Limited Edition has had on me over the past 2.5 years. Some of LE's members have been in the guild since its creation, and 2.5 years of playing together, sharing experiences in-game and in real life, makes people into quite a bit more than just "online" friends. LE was a community, one to be proud of and one to love. I wasn't close to every single person in the guild, but those who I were close to I will always remember and count as friends regardless of not necessarily having met them in real life. The officers (ie. the governing members of the guild) I will especially remember fondly and lovingly, even long after I finish with the game. LE helped me though many tough times in my life, and its spirit of friendship and camaraderie is one I will be hard-pressed to find again in another group.

I've written about World of Warcraft and Limited Edition before, because I loved it. I loved the members, I loved the principles and I loved our progress and success. I'm proud of myself, for helping to create LE, and I'm proud of its members - my friends. I've been sending out notes and bonuses of gold to everyone who leaves - and the overwhelming gratitude and respect I see in the responses tells me that the creation of LE was a good thing, if it can evoke these feelings from others.

Take care, everyone, you will be in my heart. All my love.

Limited Edition after our 25-man kill of Professor Putricide.

The LE 10-man group, who got as far as the final boss in the game, but didn't get the chance to kill him.

Jaden's Ladder Gala

2010-04-11T10:09:00.006-04:00

Last night I attended a charity gala for Jaden's Ladder, a non-profit dedicated to helping female victims of domestic violence get out of their abusive relationships and get back on their feet in a new life. It's actually a really great organization - they give people all the tools their need (which mostly consists of money for rent, groceries, etc and resources for jobs and support groups) to be able to break their tie to their abuser. One of my co-workers (technically, my boss) does web development for them and is on their board of directors, so a few of us from my department at work had a good time there last night.

It was held in the gorgeous State Room at the top of 60 State Street in Boston, MA (a great place for a wedding, if you're looking), and was everything you can possibly think of as a high class event. The food and drinks were great, there was a silent auction (I bid on and won some salon services at a great salon on Newbury Street), a live auction with some awesome items (cruises, Sonoma wine tours, a Ben and Jerry's ice cream party for 100 people, Lady Gaga tickets), and some really heartfelt presentations by the founders of Jaden's Ladder and some survivors of domestic violence.

The best part about this foundation is that pretty much everything is donated - the spaces they work in, all the time of the volunteers, and even all of the items being sold last night, so the money they receive from events like this goes DIRECTLY to women in need. The second best part about this foundation, in my opinion, is that they really require the women they help to WANT to leave their bad situations. They have a two-year program, in which the women are required to attend meetings, cut of all contact from their abusers, etc, so you know money is going to women who really want the help and will really succeed in their goal because of Jaden's Ladder's help.

Silent Auction items were going anywhere from $25 to $1000, and all ten of the live auction items sold for between $500 and $2500. The cost of attendance was $175/plate, and various other things, like raffles and jewelry, were being sold for the charity. Although I can't really do the exact math to come up with a number, I'm sure the event raised quite a bit of money.

It was a great night and I'm attaching some photos (albeit crappy ones since they are from my iPhone).

The view of Boston from The State Room, including the second photo which is a bird's eye view of Fanueil Hall at night:

The State Room and the band which performed (they were awesome!):

The silent auction room, which included a lot of celebrity-signed posters, guitars, sports jerseys, and gift baskets and gift certificates for various things:

A really terrible picture of me in the dress I wore:

Decisions, Decisions.

2010-04-05T20:41:00.004-04:00

I received two job offers today. I don't know which one, if either, I want to take.

A little background. I graduated college in December with a degree in computer science and literature. I've been working for a long time as an intern at Omgeo, LLC. Last November, they hired me as a contractor (higher pay, more responsibility, real job, etc) until May. Because of the economical hardships of, well, the whole country, they cannot afford to keep me on as a contractor or hire me as a full time employee (despite what I hope is their extreme desire). So, it stands to reason that I am now looking for a full time job.

Currently, I work with databases. I intend on staying in this field. I absolutely love the work I do, and want to continue. I've been interviewing on and off for about 8 months now for a database developer job of some kind, in the Boston area. Lately, I've been having more luck. Probably do to the "real job on my resume" thing, and the hopefully improving economy.

I'm not going to go into the details of the two companies, jobs or offers here; it's inappropriate and not really what I wanted to blog about anyway. What I really wanted to talk about is how I feel about my indecision.

Not being able to decide things sucks. It just plain sucks. It's like every time I think about it, I make a new decision. Every time I talk about it with someone different, I make a new decision. Every time the wind blows, I make a new damn decision.

Indecision is good, in a way - I know that. What it means is that I've been offered two desirable jobs that I cannot choose between, presumably for good reason. That's a good thing, right? They have slightly different pay grades, but they also have slightly different commutes and slightly different responsibilities. Also, they will push me into slightly different career paths. These all affect their pros and cons. It's not unjust indecision, but that doesn't make it any less awful.

I thought that writing about it a little would help the ache in my stomach go away, but it hasn't really. I know what will - making a decision. F*ck. Here's a picture of Penny being cute and upside-down to make us both feel better:

We're staying!

2010-03-30T14:25:00.011-04:00

Despite all odds against it, we have decided to renew the lease on our current apartment for another year! It was certainly a hassle - the leasing company gave us a renewal package that raised our rent by nearly $300. Finding this unacceptable, we put in our Intent to Vacate notice. Tina, head leaser at Archstone Quincy or something like that, called me almost immediately asking why we were leaving. I gave her the whole spiel - jobs uncertain, location uncertain, oh, and you're asking too much money! Turns out, whatever they gave us was a typo - the $300 figure was a little off, they only wanted to raise our rent by $220. I, still, politely declined.

Fast forward to later that afternoon, Tina calls me back and says that she is going to talk to their Revenue department about getting us a lower rate. Sure, sure, that's great, but it'll probably still be too high for us to accept, Tina, but whatever - do what you want. A few days later, she gets back to us - the lowest she can go is still $160 more than we are paying now - an $80 per month increase for each of us. Eh, well, still a little high.

Now, I love our apartment - we were really lucky to have found such an awesome place. Beautiful kitchen with dishwasher, disposal, and other awesome appliances. New carpet, new shower, new counters. Clean and sparkly tile bathroom. Two bedrooms with plenty of closet space. Air conditioning, good water pressure, good insulation, bright and sunny. Nice little balcony. Amazing maintenance company that fixes everything immediately when we ask, including shampooing the carpet when our cat knocked red wine all over it. Gym on the first floor and concierge for packages and other things. Free parking for us and our guests, the North Quincy T stop only a minute's walk away, and plenty of awesome supermarkets and restaurants around.

We originally rented a one bedroom, but moved to a two bedroom last October - the one bedroom was nice, and certainly not too small, but I must admit, having the little extra space of the two bedroom is even better and makes it feel more like home. So, as I said, I LOVE our apartment. Combine this with the fact that I HATE moving (all the packing of little things, the moving of big things, the number of people and amount of coordination, the last minute cleaning, the general upheaval), I was loathe to have to leave it in a couple of months.

I've been pushing to renew the lease, even despite the cost, but Ben is, fortunately, a lot smarter and more conservative than I am about it. He was concerned about us finding high-enough paying jobs, paying our very high loans, and what would happen if suddenly he or I had to move for work and we needed to break the lease. I worried about these things, too, but... this place had become home! I liked it! It would suck to move.

With Ben leaning toward not renewing our lease and waiting a while to decide on a new home, I was pretty upset and depairing about the whole thing. I was thinking of who we'd have to drag in this time to help us move, lining up our move out date with moving into a new apartment, where we would get enough boxes to pack everything, if and what we might not be able to fit into a new place, and all sorts of other things that extremely micro-managing, organized people think of constantly.

So... I was pretty much stunned when Ben said to me, "Okay, I think we should renew the lease."

What?? Could it be?

Apparently, it could. Signed the lease last night, and home will stay home. As long as we both get jobs in the Boston area.

Now, time to find a job. I have my final interview tomorrow morning with a company that I'm almost certain will make me an offer, and another interview with a different company tomorrow afternoon which I hope will turn out well, also. I'm not nearly as worried as I used to be about finding a job now that my interviews have been going so well recently.

A tour of our apartment:

Ada Lovelace Pledge - Mary Shelley

2010-03-24T11:19:00.001-04:00

Today is Ada Lovelace Day. I'm sure many people wrote about her, so I won't bother giving a description of her, her work, or her life in this post. I did consider writing about her as well, but it didn't feel right. I also considered Anita Borg, Amelia Earhart, Mary Somerville, even the fictional Lucy from "I Love Lucy" (that was a strange consideration, which would take a while to go on about), and a few others. None of them really felt right, either. I wanted to write about someone whom I felt a connection to, not just a random woman who, granted, might have done something brilliant and great. I wanted to write not only about something scientific and technological, but something that encompassed humanity as well.

I ended up choosing Mary Shelley (AKA Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin), the author of the 1818 publication Frankenstein. She had a troubled life - her mother died when she was young, she lost a child, some of her love affairs were wrought with heartbreak - and that troubled life probably led her to the creation of that dark and gothic novel. Indeed, Victor Frankenstein's passion for his created child (the monster) is an echo of Shelley's own desperation.

But the novel is about more than the themes of family, children, social mores, prejudice - it is about science. It might very well be one of the first true science fiction novels (H.G. Wells, who crafted many of his own, was born after Shelley died, same with the famous and brilliant Jules Verne). "Frankenstein" is a demonstration of power of greater scientific understanding - the power of Victor Frankenstein to create life, and the horrible things that may go wrong when one's power is allowed to run rampant and unchecked. The novel encompasses terrible events - murder, betrayal, vengeance - but it also allows hope. Victor Frankenstein's story is a sorry one, and the monster's story is a sad and misunderstood one, and in the end they both reconcile their mistakes. Their story went awry. But it may not next time. The fact that the monster, an unnatural product of meddling with forces unseen and unknown, can understand his actions and feel remorse tells me that some other Victor Frankenstein, somewhere, should try again, but differently.

This is a metaphor. There was no Victor Frankenstein, nor his misshapen monster, but there are others like him and his doomed and dangerous child – nuclear power, stem cell research, space travel, and other frighteningly complex and harrowing ideas. Victor Frankenstein worked on the monster in secret because he couldn’t not. He had to push farther, to figure out more. Our current scientific development should be the same – we should be testing limits, for it was the monster’s creation that taught greater possibility.

I'd also like to mention that Mary Shelley was the second wife of Percy Shelley, the author of the very famous poem (and one of my absolute favorites), Ozymandias. It is not about technology, but instead about the Pharaoh Ramses II, but it has an echo of what may happen to us as a civillization and culture should we halt progress in favor of conservativism. His writing and work was sometimes similar to Mary's, and was a compliment to their relationship as a couple. The poem:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I am thanking Mary Shelley for Victor, who, in many ways, could be considered a role model, someone to aspire to, for his knowledge and his daring.

This post is honoring my pledge to participate in Ada Lovelace Day.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

2010-03-14T11:17:00.003-04:00

Frankly, I don't know much about you other than the fact that you like David Hasslehoff, Girl Scout cookies, good grammar and Stevie Nicks, but you're my boyfriend's sister, and you're pretty cool, and you always take time to put up videos for people's birthdays (even for me!), so here's one for you.

Cheers, Megan!

Awesome week!

2010-03-07T13:45:00.006-05:00

Here are some pictures from my three day trip to Sugarbush, and then the Silver Sun Pickups/Muse concert I went to last night!

Sugarbush, including views from the top of Lincoln peak and the trail sign for what became my favorite trail, Jester:

Fast forward a few days to the Muse concert. Here's the stage as I was taking my seat and everyone was filtering in. The pictures make my seats look sort of far away, but they were actually really great seats and I'm glad I went with them:

Here are some pictures from Silver Sun Pickups. They were pretty good, but unfortunately, their set ended up being overshadowed by Muse's intense lighting and staging.

Here is the very opening to Muse's set. Unfortunately, my phone sort of flipped out on me and died right after I took these two pictures, so I don't have any from the really intense parts with the crazy lighting:

The three columns that you see were amazing; not only did the lower halves of them rise and fall (the musicians started up high on them, and they alternated between being high and being at stage level throughout the show), but they also acted as projector screens which projected close-up, live images of the musicians along with other things.

This was the most incredible concert I've ever been to, and possibly one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. When I started college, I had an intense passion for lighting design, and eventually wanted to design for shows like this. My path sort of diverted away from lighting, but seeing this show made me wish I had stuck with it so that I could produce such marvelous effects. It was absolutely mind-blowing.

Cheers!

Bath Time!

2010-03-07T13:26:00.010-05:00

For the cats, that is. About once every two months, we decide the cats are looking sort of gross, oily, dandery, smelly, or otherwise in need of some grooming.

Here is a picture of Loki, peacefully reclining this morning before the impending doom of a bath:

Here is Loki a few minutes ago after his close encounter with warm water and soap:

Now for Penelope. She is actually, amazingly enough, the calmer of the two while in the tub, although she is a long-haired cat (whereas Loki is a short-hair), so she has a much harder time drying afterward. Here she is this morning, unaware of what would happen to her in a few short hours:

Now, let's fast forward to after the bath:

The best part about all of this is that they pretty much hate us for a couple of hours after the bath, and then when they are fluffy and dry, they won't stop sitting on us and purring and rubbing up against us and just generally expressing what can only be thankfulness at being clean.

I figured it out! Sort of!

2009-10-26T14:19:00.006-04:00

I've been raiding a lot lately in World of Warcraft. Like, pretty much every night for the past three or four weeks, which is much more than my normal 2-3 times a week.

("Raiding", if you don't know, means that I get online and team up with either 9 or 24 other people to kill an especially hard "boss" monster. These "boss" fights generally involve much more communication, skill, attention to detail, teamwork, and experience than other parts of the game. Generally, people have to perform specific jobs or roles while acting in coordination with everyone else.)

I never used to like the idea of raiding. When I first hit max level in the game, about 2.5 years ago, I pretty much decided I would never raid. I didn't like the idea of having to team up with so many other people, or that you have to sink so much time into raiding (a typical raid night will last about 4 hours). When my friend Kevin made a guild, he cajoled me into raiding. Currently, I am the guild's Main Tank, a role which I'm not going to bother explaining here for those that aren't familiar, but suffice it to say it's extremely important and rather one of a kind.

My guild has three official nights of raiding a week: Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. This is when we get the whole group of 25 people together to do the difficult raids for that week. On top of that, though, a smaller group of us use the non-raid nights to do 10-man raids. So, between the two, my week is pretty booked.

Raiding 4 hours a night for 6 or 7 days a week is tough, and I often wonder why I choose to do it. Granted, sometimes I get really sick of raiding, but on the whole, I really enjoy myself.

The first thing that came to mind was that I really love my other guildies. For a long time, I raided with as many as 6 or 7 other real life friends who also played the game. This has since dwindled - the only ones left in this guild are me and my boyfriend. The other 23 or so people are now "online" friends. But, really, they are more to me than that. As I said above, I really do love all of them. Some I'm closer to than others - I know their names, where they live, details about their lives. Others I don't know quite as well.

No matter what, though - being forced to work together in raids forms a bond between a group of people. I know everyone's play style, I know what they talk about, what they like to do, what roles than can adequetely fill versus what roles I should never assign to them. These people are important to me; when I don't see someone for a while, I'm genuinely concerned, or curious as to what happened. Just last night, a guildie signed online who none of us had seen all summer, and who I, personally, am not very close to, but everyone greeted him warmly and had missed him.

Last night also entailed the end of our over-six-month journey to get our guild leader (and Main Healer) the best weapon currently available in the game. I was honestly surprised that everyone was so happy for him and willing to work so hard to get him this weapon. When we killed the bosses we needed to for it, no one seemed to even care about the loot (usually everyone's favorite part) and instead only cared whether our guild leader had gotten the pieces he needed and quests done to ensure getting the weapon. Everyone jumped up and down, cheered, and stood around admiring him for a while.

The people are, indeed, the main reason I continue to enjoy raiding. But I discovered, while thinking last night, that there's another reason I like it so much, too.

When I first hit max level and started raiding, I slowly began giving up one of my favorite hobbies - lighting design for theater productions. Hangs, focuses, rehersals, tech rehersals, etc, for shows all happen at night around the same time as raids. About the time I started raiding, I was getting jaded with theater anyway, and had decided to quit. Raids filled that empty spot.

Doing Yogg-Saron (one of the hardest bosses in the game) last night made me realize how close to theater raiding can be. Yogg is an extremely difficult fight, requiring nothing less than perfect execution by all 25 people present. If one person fails, we might all very well fail. Everyone has a specific role, has to be in a specific spot at a specific time, do specific things, and act in coordination with everyone else. This is extremely close to what happens in a theater production. I never really recognized it before, but that giddy feeling I get in my stomach and that irresistable desire to smile at the end of a new boss kill or really difficult boss is the same feeling I used to get when the curtain would close on a successful show that I had been in or designed.

I didn't specifically give up theater for raiding -- I was almost out of it even before raiding came along -- but I'm glad I found something to fill its spot, at least a little.

Okay, I know I should be grateful, but...

2009-10-19T13:16:00.003-04:00

I'm going to whine just a little. There were people I was disappointed about not hearing from on my birthday. One person, mostly, but others, too.

I was originally going to stop the post there, but laying in bed last night I realized I have very few close friends left. I don't have many people I relate to really deeply. That is depressing. In fact, many of the people I enjoy "hanging out with" the most are people I don't know in real life - they are a few of my guildies in World of Warcraft. A night doing stuff with them is as fun and meaningful to me as a night out with my in-person friends, generally.

I don't really know what happened, and it's not that I'm unhappy right now per se, I just think this is a sad realization. In fact, things are going pretty well - a new/bigger apartment, schoolwork getting completed realtively easily, my car is getting fixed and will hopefully work well, and I'm a millimeter away from a full-time job, as far as I can tell. So yeah. Humbug.

Week One Alone

2009-07-04T16:49:00.009-04:00

Benjamin left on Tuesday for his five week trip to Delft, Netherlands/Paris, France. It's now Saturday. I've talked to him three times on instant messenger and exchanged a couple of emails. It's going to be a long five weeks.

It was around this time last summer that Ben first mentioned the trip, which is a study abroad program for his major (civil engineering) sponsored by his university, and at that point in time, with the trip still only a dim possibility and so very far away, I didn't care much about it. We had hit it off pretty well, but we had only been together for a few months and at the time, we were actually fighting and disagreeing more than I would have liked. When he got accepted to the program in the later part of the fall, I was slightly more worried about it. I knew that there would definitely be a time when he would be gone for at least a month. This made me distraught. I don't remember if we had yet agreed to live together or had signed our lease, but we were definitely doing very well as a couple and I didn't really want to lose him for that long.

Now, in July, we've been living together for six months and our relationship, minus a couple of blips, has been better than it's ever been. I've never lived with anyone before. I'm an only child who had a surprising lack of roommates in college. I've spent lots of time with other people at my house or at theirs, but I am normally a lone-wolf as far as my living situation. I'm also usually extremely clean, organized and a control freak. I was, honestly, surprised at how well we get along as roommates. Things like money and cooking are extremely relaxed and easy to figure out, cleaning isn't necessary to figure out since I do almost all of it, and Ben is surprisingly fatherly with our two kittens. He might actually love them more than I do, and they definitely love him more than they love me. This has become startlingly evident even in the four days since he's been gone.

By the time the beginning of June came around, I was dreading him leaving for five weeks. It was hard, for a few reasons. Firstly, I knew this would be a good experience for him and one that would be cruel to selfishly take away, but at the same time I knew it would just really suck. Secondly, there is a certain allure of being alone when you've been living in the same 750 sq. ft. as someone for six months. I had a taste of this for the spring, when I spent three days a week in Bennington, but, honestly, that three days was quite enough each week. In fact, the four days we've been apart so far have pretty much been enough alone time for me to recover anything that needed to be recovered.

Because, I've discovered, as nice as it is to be alone, you get used to having someone around all the time. It's nice. It's comforting. Yeah, sure, it's annoying sometimes, but I miss it terribly. A lot of stuff that is annoying or unrewarding becomes less so when you have someone to do it with or for. Going to the grocery store is more like fun and less like a chore when you have someone to keep you company (and pay for it!). Cooking is better when you have someone to do it for (not that it isn't fun on it's own). Sleeping is better when the bed is warm and welcoming.

It's going to be a very hard five weeks. It's probably for the best in the end, but I can't help being a little jealous, somewhat lost, and quite lonely along the way.

Cooler blogs than mine

2008-08-07T10:48:00.002-04:00

I'd like to take a few moments to point out two absolutely spectacular blogs that should not be overlooked.

The first is this blog, whose posts contain witty criticism about various signs/labels/etc that use quotation marks incorrectly.

The second is this blog, which posts pictures of gloriously horrific professional cakes with witty commentary.

Enjoy!

Some things just aren't equal

2008-07-31T11:10:00.005-04:00

This morning on the subway, I was bored with my book and decided to listen in on the loud, onbonxious group of three people standing not-too-far away from me. The group of three were all around my age (20), and consistented of a flamboyently gay guy, a girl who later in the conversation reveals her homosexuality, and another girl who didn't speak all the much and whose personality and sexuality were unidentifiable without more information.

The conversation was mostly between the gay guy and lesbian chick. They were discussing where they worked, and the girl (who was clearly a hot-head), was griping about how her workplace has signs posted around that said something along the lines of, "This workplace does not discriminate based on race, gender, or sexual orientation" and she was saying how just saying that is a form of discrimination and singling-out. I sort of smirked at that, because I have my own issues with people who clearly think like her, but the latter part of the conversation was what really ticked me off.

They were later discussing "take-your-etcetera-to-work" days of all kinds. You know... daughter, son, dog, chimpanzee, and so on. The guy was a very relaxed and cheerful young man who said that there should be a "take your significant other to work" day. This, as the young man then immediately pointed out, would obviously require seperate days of the year in order to function properly, because it's a rare incident where each significant other could be at the other's work and at their work at the same time. Logically, he suggested a "take your boyfriend/husband/etc to work day" and a "take your girlfriend/wife/etc to work day", splitting by gender.

The lesbian chick (and this is the part where I actually find out she's a lesbian) was outraged! Completely outraged! It was almost comical. She declared her sexuality loudly and obnoxiously and raised the (I guess equally logical, in a way) point of, "what if there are two girlfriends/wifes/husbands/boyfriends in any given relationship? How do you split up on these days?" She went on into a tirade about how it is completely unfair that anyone should have to assume the role of another gender, etc, etc. She was practically yelling.

Well. You know what? You know what I think is unfair? Right-handed scissors. They suck, man. Really. Same with right-handed saws. And how soap dispensers in public restrooms are, like, always on the right! When I first started my job, my desk at work had initially been set up for a right-handed person. Totally unfair! Everything is right-handed!

Well, because... guess what? Something like 1 or 2 in 10 people are left-handed. It's just practical, in most of these circumstances, to align your products/services with 80% or 90% of the populace. It comes to the point where sometimes going with what will work for/please the majority is perfectly fine in certain cases.

So, listening to this girl go on and on annoyed me. Firstly and foremostly, because she blatantly contradicted herself in the span of a few minutes. First she says it's wrong to single out different people, then claims it's necessary. But, also, honestly, what did she want? Did she want four different days, two for the straight couples and two for the gay couples of the world? I thought gay people in general were trying to assimilate themselves and not trying to stand out at every opportunity. I thought that singling them out was prejudice of a kind (like this annoying girl had earlier implied)? I thought they just wanted to be treated like everyone else.

Which annoys me, because you can't want to be treated the same as everyone else, yet claim that things need to be different for you at every turn. After a while, you just have to accept that "being treated like everyone else" means sometimes having the special things about you ignored by society in favor of doing the best for the majority. Just like how I didn't get mad when I needed to learn to be right-sided to operate my car, or my computer. I wasn't being targeted. I was just being part of a statistic.

I hate annoying, stupid people.

Kudos to the guy, though, who managed to calm the girl down quite nicely by the time they got off the Green Line train and had joined me down at the Red Line platform. He could have almost been her boyfriend. Gay boyfriend.

Which now makes it necessary to link this song/video, which is inevitably played constantly at my hippie, vegan, stoned-out liberal arts college.

On Video Games.

2008-05-14T12:56:00.000-04:00

Ok, so, I have this serious problem with people, most especially when they insult things I love. Now, I know, I mean, who doesn't get insulted when something they loved is dissed, right? Exactly. Which makes me wonder why people go around flinging rocks at other peoples' fondest material possessions and activities.

My fondest activity is gaming. And honestly, I could build a castle out of the rocks that have been flung at me for that. Better yet, I could take out all my frustration on those rocks, pummel them to sand and fill half the Pacific. Either way. And damn, I'm sick of having my hobbies verbally thrown up all over.

The problem that I come across the most is when I mention that I play MMOs. Heaven forbid anyone insult the saintly Wii in all its bowling and tennis glory, but you start throwing names around like 'WoW' and 'Everquest' and people look at you like you've got Leprosy... or an addiction.

Ah, addiction. Now we've gotten to the root of the problem. The motivation behind every bitter eye-roll at MMO gaming is the dearly beloved parent/sibling/significant other that so-and-so "lost" to the game. And because this parent/sibling/significant other clearly couldn't control themselves, apparently this means that (A) the game is evil and (B) it can't be played without incurring an addiction.

And god, I want to go postal whenever I say, "Yeah, I play WoW" and then hear, in response, "Ah, so you're addicted, huh?" And believe me, I've heard this numerous times... from different bitter, eye-rolling people. And believe me, I'm not addicted. Yeah, yeah. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Ekaterin (my level 70 Night Elf Druid) and that, yeah, I have about 90 days played on that character alone (I've been playing for about a year and a half) and yeah, I'm often thinking about gear, or enchants I need, or how much more defense rating I need until I'm critical-strike-immune... but the word "addiction" implies a dependency upon the game that I do not have.

I do not roll out of bed in the morning feeling a need to sign on the same way my mom rolls out of bed and feels the need to light up a cigarette. I don't cut activities/things/people out of my life to play. I'm lucky enough to have friends/family that wither play the game themselves or understand that when I say I need to attend a raid, I need to attend the damn raid. But I don't allow my real life to flounder in favor of my life in Azeroth/Outland/soon to be Northrend. The same was true back when I played Everquest and Dark Ages of Camelot, and it's true with World of Warcraft. So yeah, it pisses me off when people call me addicted. Y'all can call me addicted when I stop going to work, stop going to class, lose my scholarships and 3.5 GPA, stop eating, stop sleeping, stop seeing friends, and my boyfriend dumps me (we won't get into the fact that the WoW characters he has number in the dozens). Hell, you can call me addicted if only one of those things happens. I'm just really sick of people not getting it.

Ok, so, I was going to end my post there, on my own bitter and angry note, but I saw this article about Second Life on CNN today, and became infuriated.

For those of you who don't know what Second Life is, feel free to read the Wikipedia Article or the Official Website. I hope both scare you. They scare me. But basically, Second Life is what its name professes to be: it's a virtual world in which you can create an avatar of yourself, a house for yourself, a job for yourself, pay real money (in our world) for things in Second Life, and wander around in a world very similar to our own. It's like a chat room with graphics. It's like the Metaverse from Snow Crash, but not as cool. You do real things in a virtual world. It's not even as interesting as The Sims, because there are no goals, no gameplay elements - you just live a life. A second one.

Now, the fact that people are perfectly willing to accept atrocities like this, yet look at me funnily for spending hours a night playing World of Warcraft baffles and angers me. WoW has goals, has activities, has events. When I'm playing WoW, I'm usually playing it with real people I know (gasp!), and often because I can't see them in person while I'm 150 miles away at Bennington College. In addition to the real people, there are plenty of online friends who I may or may not know more about than I know about some of my own family from spending time with them (hell, I know my guild's Main Tank's birthday). These people are friends - and it doesn't matter that I don't call them by their real names or meet up for dinner occasionally.

But, friends aside, the thing that I consider the biggest distinction between waste-of-time-Second-Life and productive-enjoyment-WoW is goals. And I've said this before. World of Warcraft has goals. There are things to do. It's true that you can never "finish" or "beat" the game, but there are steps that you can go through, accomplishments that you can complete. Three nights a week, I gather with 24-other people (ranging from such intimates as my boyfriend and closest friends to acquaintances that I only see on WoW every couple of weeks) to work together to kill bosses and progress through the game in a show of teamwork that impresses me more and more each time we do it. How often do you see 25 people who barely know each other follow directions, communicate, form strategies together, help each other and work in perfect coordination for hours at a time? And when I'm not with those people laughing at our jokes and enjoying our successes (there's nothing better in the game than downing a new boss and hearing 25 simultaneous cries of "YES!" and "AWESOME!" over Ventrilo), I'm out doing other things. I quest to progress myself through the world and through the story, I farm materials for money or for items, I mess around doing fun stuff with my friends. But all the while, while I do everything, I know the long term and short-term goals. Whether it's getting through all these bosses each week with my friends in order to fight the final boss, or farming 8 Primal Lifes and 8 Primal Waters for a new gear enchantment, or tearing through an old dungeon with another person just for fun, I understand what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and I know how I'll feel once I've completed it - accomplished at something.

I feel absolutely nothing similar in Second Life. And, yes, I have played Second Life. At the coercion of my friend DM, we installed in on my computer one rainy Bennington afternoon, named and designed our Avatar and wandered around in the poorly rendered world it provided - penniless, of course, because neither of us were invested enough to spend real money to purchase in-game money. Second Life felt like wandering around in the halls of my old high school - I couldn't help but feel I was out of place and had graduated past this point in life long before. We'll leave aside the technical issues with the game (confusing to get from place to place, buggy as all hell, etc.) and just talk about its fundamental principles. Of which I could find none. I mean, what were you supposed to do? Get a job? Get a house? But... I have these things. I'm most likely currently entrenched in them in real life, as I play. Do I meet up with people? Well... why? If they're friends, why aren't I seeing them in person, and if they're complete strangers, why do I even bother? It's not like we have to go kill a dragon together somewhere.

People tell me WoW is a waste of time and that I should be out doing real things all the time. I even have friends who self-loathingly play WoW and complain that they wished they had something better to do. I have friends who don't play WoW because they claim to have better things to do, yet have dabbled in Second Life or at least don't balk at the idea. This mystifies me. At least I'm... doing something, in WoW. It's a game. It's something to pass time. Second Life is not a game. It's not designed to be a game. It's designed to suck your soul into living a virtual life and ignoring your real one. I play WoW because I don't get to kill dragons or turn into animals (my character's main feature) in real life. In real life, I do get to go to work, sleep, eat, drink massive amounts of Jose Cuervo, etc. I feel it's pointless to do that all over again in Second Life.

And yes, I get it. Enjoyment of anything is subjective. I can't presume to tell anyone else what they enjoy or why. But really. Really, really. Think about it. Is there enjoyment in repetition? In doing more of what you already do? I play WoW to escape work and papers and stress, for just a little while. And it works. What do you play Second Life for? To add more of all that to an already busy day? And honestly, what makes you think that you can diss WoW and not diss Second Life? For the people who aren't me, what's the distinction?

Scotland!

2008-05-09T16:25:00.006-04:00

I thought it might be a good idea to tell a little bit about my recent trip to Edinburgh, Scotland (and surrounding areas) for those who haven't heard or seen the pictures.

I decided spur-of-the-moment to make a 5 day weekend trip to Scotland to visit a Northeastern student friend, Sean, who was taking his winter/spring co-op (work/internship thing) over in Edinburgh. He agreed to play host and tour guide and the trip was set for mid-April.

The first day I was there, we mostly spend the day walking around Edinburgh, followed by some fun in a pub with friends that night. The second day we walked to Holyrood park in the center of Edinburgh and climbed Arthur's Seat, the hill in the center of the park. The third day we took a Highlands tour up to Stirling Castle and Loch Lomond. The fourth day, we visited the Edinburgh Castle, and spent some time enjoying the nice weather outside. We did a lot of walking. The fifth day, it was time for me to leave, so I boarded a bus for the airport in the late morning and went home.

Here are some pictures of the trip:

Above: Loch Lomond

Above: Holyrood Park

Above: Holyrood Park/looking out to Edinburgh

Above: Loch Arklet (on the way to Loch Lomond)

Above: Loch Arklet (the road on the way to Loch Lomond)

Above: the streets of Edinburgh

Above: Victoria Ave. terrace, Edinburgh

Above: Holyrood Park/looking up toward Arthur's Seat

Above: Holyrood Park/looking out to Edinburgh

Above: Edinburgh streets

Reviving the electric car?

2008-05-06T10:53:00.017-04:00

Saw this today on CNN and couldn't help but reminisce about my "Our Energy Future" class of two terms ago. Among the past, current, and (hopefully) future sources of energy we discussed, the ending of the class touched upon the idea of the electric car.

If you haven't seen one or even heard of them before, you probably live on the correct coast of the USA. Although electric cars are seen here and there these days, the biggest debacle over them occurred in California in the 1990s. General Motors produced the EV1 electric car - it got roughly 75 miles to the charge (depending on the battery type), went from 0-60 mph in 8 seconds, adhered to and enhanced the California Clean Air Act, and people who managed to get their hands on these things absolutely loved them.

Then, all hell broke loose.

I recommend you find a way to rent Who Killed The Electric Car?, a documentary on the entire event (please take it with a grain of salt - it was produced by a Bennington alum and is nothing short of completely biased towards the cute little EV1), but if you need a quick overview, I called this a debacle, but it was more like a scandal. People practically clawed their way onto the wait lists for these little slices of green heaven, so I'll leave you to wonder how all the other pissed off car companies (the ones who make gasoline cars and cringe at electric car success) managed to convince GM to shut down the whole enterprise because of "a lack of consumer interest". To boot, not only did GM stop production on the cars, they took away any cars that were currently being leased (leasing was the only way to get one of these babies) and destroyed all of them. This stinks of conspiracy if you ask me... and thousands of other conspiracy theorists.

My point, though, wasn't to shine light on the plight and fate of poor little EV1... I was going to talk about electric cars in general. First of all, I'd like to state that as cool as it is to think up neat things like lithium-ion-powered or hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered cars, I am of the opinion that we should first develop research pertaining to providing alternative energy to the main power grid... especially if we plan on things like electric cars which, although they run completely cleanly themselves, currently need to be powered by the majority of people from an "unclean" source.

Right now, the above stated is probably my biggest issue with the fully electric car. Find a way to power them cleanly, and I might take a second glance at them later. Two other huge issues which stop me from considering one seriously for my lifestyle are drive-time and power-up time. The EV1 got anywhere from 50-150 miles to the gallon, depending on the battery type. Frankly, for me personally, that is not enough charge. The sports car in the recent CNN article boasts 225 miles per charge. That's roughly a trip from Boston to the other end of Mass Pike at the NY border and back. Passable, for a person who doesn't ever leave a city, doesn't drive more than 50 miles a day, or whatever; limiting for everyone else.

My other gripe - they take too long to charge up. Now, I understand how batteries charge up as well as anyone who's taken high school and college physics and chemistry. It's hard to rush a chemical reaction and all that. The EV1 took nearly 8 full hours to gain a full charge. The CNN article mentions a plug-in time of under 4 hours. We're getting better, I guess, but not good enough.

"Not good enough", you say? And yes, yes I do... because, honestly, people, especially people in the USA, want normality. You can't go proffering stuff to them that has limits that their previous state of being didn't experience. You can't take away their big, pretty, rugged SUVs that take 6 minutes to fill up on gas and go for the same amount of time as a new electric car and tell them that suddenly, you're limiting how far they can go and how long it takes before they can do it again. Most people won't go for that. It's a matter of comfort, and man, are we spoiled in terms of that.

This post is getting mighty lengthy - to conclude succinctly, it will be a long time and will take much more development before I, or other people who live on my coastline and in my area (you know, where we have to drive long distances every day), would consider getting a fully electric vehicle. I think we need to either improve the car to provide significantly more flexibility, or find a different method all together.

Robot squirrels! The wave of the future!

2008-05-05T14:11:00.002-04:00

Those fools down at Hampshire College (Hampshire College and Bennington College have a small rivalry, you see, both of us being hippy, liberal, pot-smoking, flora-and-fauna-loving establishments) are messing with nature again. Check out their robot squirrels here.

Need I say more?

2008-05-05T14:08:00.005-04:00

I lol'd.

Facebook Relationships

To be God, or not to be God...

2008-05-05T13:09:00.015-04:00

I've recently been put onto a book series which stirs the blackest, coldest depths of my writer's soul with threats of kraken-sized plot holes and violations of modern science so extensive, that Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, in my opinion, deserve permanent spots in the mouths of the three-headed Satan of Dante's The Divine Comedy, possibly supplanting Cassius and Brutus - or perhaps sharing the damp, infernal places with them.

Although I have purchased all seven books of the damned series and read them with fervor that I normally reserve for the novels of John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver, Joseph Conrad, Philip Roth, and the like, honestly, most of the time, I just feel the need to whip out a red sharpie and cross out paragraph after paragraph.

This is not to say that I don't like these books. Don't even open your mouth, uninformed reader of my blog. I swear to whatever higher power I currently have faith in that I'm enjoying every torturous moment in this particular literary hell. In fact, if nothing else, these books give me something to feel intensely passionate about. I rarely feel anger at or frustration with books - this is refreshing. I've always recognized, from a very early time in my life, the sanctuary that books can provide. I feel like I've lost myself lately in books that make me feel happy, and good, and safe, instead of rejoicing in books that provoke thoughts and provide a playground for my mind.

There is one particular thought that has stuck with me since almost the first book (I'm almost done with number four of the 400-page monsters) lies in an area of sociology/psychology/theology that I normally wouldn't go near with a 50 ft. pole and latex gloves, but in this particular case, I feel the need to admire it - from afar.

The books are high fantasy, and concern themselves with the goings-about of two extremely powerful, magical races of people, the Sartans and the Patryns. Now, the Sartans have won out in a big war against the Patryns, and have taken the "lesser" races (ie: humans, elves, dwarves, for all you fantasy-illiterates) under their white, puffy, caring wings. The Sartans are gods to these people, "the closest things to gods they would ever know" or some other such idea. This is all perfectly fine and normal and, in fact, completely uninteresting, as it's been done over and over again. The interesting part lies not in the mindset of the "lesser" races, who have found their "gods", but in the mindset of the Sartans, who seemingly have none. Not only do they have no gods themselves, but they go so far as to wonder whether they are the gods in this universe.

To me, there is something inherently mind-bending about the idea of not knowing whether or not you are a god. Shouldn't it be necessary to first assess and identify your own place in the world before you go about directing the lives of others? Obviously, this would not matter to the people beneath you, but wouldn't it be necessary for one's own peace of mind? If I were Sartan (and believe me when I say, I want to throw every single Sartan off a bridge into boiling lava one by one and watch them all scream and writhe in agony and they're not even real) I'd be really, really confused.

I don't intend to go deep into this idea, as I said, I merely wanted to admire it. I've read other books which place such a relationship upon beings - gods, caretakers, what-have-you - but that higher beings in question always seemed to have a clear knowledge of their goals and purpose. The Sartans, so far, seem to lack that outside of vague allusions to "perfection" and "greater good". Uncertainty in a god-figure is something I rarely encounter.

I'm sure as time goes on, I'll have far more to say about these books. Actually, you know, I already have far more to say, but all my complains lie entrenched in the story itself, or in the worlds themselves, and short of spending paragraphs summarizing the plot, I couldn't adequately convince someone who hasn't read them of the justification of my vexation.

Love is.

2008-05-04T21:26:00.001-04:00

Wiped on Al'ar the Pheonix God again. This time, it was not my fault. I feel like I need some inspiration right about now.

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered,
it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always preserves.
Love never fails.

Corinthians 13:4