well i never thought that i'd see the day in which america would sink so low...to elect a president who is deadset on ruining a wonderful nation in which the public has choice...we have just voted any choice away...say goodbye to abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights...say hello to conservative supreme court justices who will institute prayer into our public schools...ignoring the seperation of church and state...the religious right will have its way now, as well as the nra...say goodbye to social security...welcome in a new era of inflation...a nation where the top 10% get richer and the rest suffer at the hands of the powerful...goodbye clean air, hello global warming...i am truly dissapointed in you america...you have let me down...

Ship rolls left, cold water that has condensed on the ceiling coalesces into drops that fall onto my head to remind me again that I need to do something about the air conditioner. Slight swells in this part of the Persian Gulf push the gray steel mass from one side to the other in a series of undulations, light reflects off of the running lights in the Kaminski. Why the name was chosen I do not know, only that nearly a dozen ships sit stationary at anchor in the Bell. Waiting for one of the boats from this ship to nuzzle up to the side of the hull and dispatch a team of armed men and women to watch the crew for a twelve-hour stretch. The sounds of taxed electric motors whine through the space I am sitting in signaling the end of another day of watching. Everyone home, the RHIB is pulled back onto the ship and we turn off the few lights we had on to begin with. Tonight there will be no strobe on the tail of the helicopter when it comes in and leaves again for another round of sensor sweeps over the local area. No sense in broadcasting to everyone that can see that we're out and up flying. That and the red light plays hell with the night vision goggles the crews have perpetually mounted on the front of their helmets.

The early morning dawn starts with Fruit Loops on the flight deck, namely the crunching from my own jaw interspersed with sips from a Camelbak holding more than my fair share of ice-cold orange juice. Luxuries are few and far between here. You learn to become quite vicious in the face of those attempting to deny you Fruit Loops and O.J. when this is the last thing in which you take daily comfort. Watching them get ready to leave the ship is sickening. No prayer for the dying, just the soft click of rounds being pushed into magazines and the sound of water lapping against the hull. Somewhere forward of where everyone is standing the hoist from the rigid hull inflatable boat whines in an undulating song that resonates through walls. The boat hits the water with a solid thump as the motor coughs and then growls to life, soon it moves through the water in a slow circle to return to the back end of the ship for the first team to leave. I will not leave with them or with either of the two other teams on the list for today. Part of what I do means that I stay here and go nowhere. There are only a limited number of the people that are fully aware of how to do this job in this or any other part of the world; it isn't like I can just be replaced overnight. This does not aid in the improvement of my demeanor on the other hand. In a way I want to go, not to point guns at people or for the rush of climbing around on some weird ship, just so that I can have faces to associate with whom it is we call the enemy.

They are the enemy, aren't they? This is whom we are supposed to be fighting against? A handful of smugglers attempting to carve out a living hauling the most expensive thing they can find at any given time? This is the enemy, they have no face but these boats are apparently who I am supposed to hate with every fiber of my being. Devious, tricky, baby-eating boats that sneak around in the dead of night like insurgents trying to slip LSD into the water supply. I can't hate an inanimate object. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense. This is a boat. Much like a gun, a cruise missile or a nuclear weapon they possess no innate quality of good or evil. They simply exist. Humanity assigns this moral value to the object based on their perceptions, not based on some hidden inner truths of the material world. Saying a nuclear weapon is evil is essentially the same as saying that the Cadillac Coupe de Ville in your neighbor's driveway is in league with the devil. On the other hand the only thing that a nuclear weapon can be used for isn't a very good thing at all, then again the Caddy could certainly be abused as well. True, the warhead on the end of a Trident II isn't something that your kids could sleep in the back of on the way home from the mall.

Still I have no concept of whom it is that I am not supposed to like here. The Iraqis? The Iranians? Anyone in this area of the world or can I pick any group/individual on the planet? Is there a list of qualifications you have to meet in order to become an enemy of National Security and National Policy of the United States of America or is this a title the government simply bestows on random individuals every now and again? The ghosts of the Cole will never find any peace; there isn't any for them to have here. I heard news broadcasts before I left flatly stating that the crewmembers of the Cole died for their country, that they died protecting freedom and democracy from all enemies foreign and domestic. They died in a hollow stupid war. They died eating lunch. They died for nothing. Now what?

Fuel hose mates with pressure fitting, this time with a minimum of the fiddling the device has been requiring over the course of the last week. (As I work I sing a stupid little song that goes something like this: "Fuel hose is connected to the fuel port, fuel port is connected to the kniffler pin, kniffler pin is connected to the warp drive, warp drive is connected to the phone machine...ad nauseum.") Every time we go to fuel the airplane the fitting seemingly does not want to mate with the plane which requires whoever is handling the hose at the time to mess with it until the connector seats. I clip the grounding wire to one of the nuts on the 120-degree elbow and wave a single extended finger in the air to start the fuel pump. Darkness brings out the color of the fires on the horizon from oil wells belonging to the American consumer culture. Forty-foot balls of fire from vented natural gas burn as bright specks, painting the underside of the thin haze over all of the wells a sickly yellow. Some of the others burn red, orange, and magenta, depending on where we are and the impurities blended into the mix not worth enough to be canned up and shipped off. The fuel rushing through the hose I watch so attentively probably started here some time ago, a few million years before that I wasn't even alive but still prepared to die for the swamps blanketing this area. No, not prepared to die. I volunteered with a different set of aspirations. I have no idea who it is that I am supposed to hate. There is no enemy. Yes, there is. I am the enemy.

This makes sense. This works in the absence of any other rational explanation. This is the end to the means of my existing in this particular place and time. I am the enemy. I am the defiler of temples, the destroyer of women and children, the abuser of the weak. I am beyond redemption, salvation or forgiveness. I am the embodiment of all that it is evil and wrong with the world. I am the disease with no cure. I am hatred, pain and sadness given flesh and sent to run rampant over the face of the earth. I am the drunk, the rapist, the pedophile, the murderer, the serial killer, the sadist and the masochist. I am the monopolist with a chokehold on entire national economies. I shoot endangered species for fun and amusement. I am the Roman nailing Christ to the cross, I am the Nazi gassing Jews, I am the Stalin slaughtering millions of my own, I am the McCarthy persecuting shadows, I am the Khmer Rouge guerrilla shooting peasants in the head. I am the racist spitting epithets at anyone who is not my carbon copy; I am the Farrakhan and the Duke. I am the Imperialist subjugating millions and then lining my own museums with their identity, taking what they own and calling it mine. I am the arbitrary invasion of other countries, I am the puppet government, I am the democracy, the fascism, the communism, the dictatorship, the monarchy, the republic and the anarchy. I am the intolerable roommate, the absentee father, the senile mother, and the cruel stepsister. I am everything that is wrong with the world. I am cable television price hikes, gas prices, hanging chad on presidential election ballots, western devaluation of native culture, McDonald's, the Bible and the Koran. I am the antichrist, the infidel. I am Godzilla. I am the enemy.

Sighing, I disconnect the fuel hose from the side of the aircraft and smack the protective cover over the receptacle so it isn't damaged while we're dragging it across the deck. The hose always has about twenty to thirty gallons of fuel left in it after the pump stops so moving it around without damaging the end is a bit of a challenge. Karin yawns widely causing Trent to laugh. With the bird silent on the deck the characteristic squeak at the end of her yawn bleats softly through the night air in a momentary testament to strange quirks of biology. Karin and Trent are both shoes, meaning that they are part of the ship's crew versus part of the helo detachment. Not being a part of the detachment means they sleep in on Sundays, don't put up with phase maintenance and work on the world's most mediocre equipment. Our not being a part of the crew means no permanent home, suspicion of decisions we make that are critical of the ship, and we're not able to sleep in on Sundays. There is a good-natured rivalry between the two sides, they send us people looking for the keys to the helicopter or rotor wash and we send them people looking to ask the MAA to blow the JOOD. Since the JP-5 that the plane needs is a ship thing and we aren't exactly on an aircraft carrier, the shoes handle the dispensing of fuel and so forth. At least they run the pumps, filters, storage tanks and everything short of dragging the hose around on the deck and hooking it to the side of the plane. Two in the morning, both of them have a full day tomorrow and I have managed to interrupt sleep in the name of refined petroleum byproducts. Karin smiles and makes a quip about not messing with her at this hour. I lay the business end of the fuel line down near the hose reel and meander toward the hanger. Couple more hours until dawn, and another morning of Fruit Loops and orange juice.

"Trent, you know why we're out here?" The question comes in an offhand manner, the flippant tone is probably not the best I could have chosen.
"Nope." He climbs out of the fueling station where Karin is muscling the fitting back onto the mirror image of the port on the side of the helicopter, the pump starts a few seconds later and the trapped fuel drains back into the tanks. "No idea."
"I've been trying to figure it out for the last couple of days, that and who the enemy is."
"Hmm. Dunno man." Trent watches Karin gather up the last of the equipment used to take fuel samples, ground the hose and talk to the pump room several decks below. Eventually she steps up and out of the large rectangular and topless box set into the flight deck housing all of the fueling equipment.
"I mean, near as I can figure, we're the enemy."
"How so?" Karin asks, coiling the ground wire back into a state resembling a diagram of electron orbits. Some time ago the grounding wire was not put back right which is a condition that has persisted over the life of the wire. It now refuses to sit flat and instead flops into a wiry yellow ball despite any effort to the contrary.
"Think about it, we're the only fuckers out here really doing anything to Hussein. We're s'posed to be out here stopping him from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, but he's going to do it anyway. So really we're either doing nothing more than spending a whole pile of money on gas or we're here just because." Silence, or at least what passes for silence on a ship at sea falls for a few seconds.
"Dunno Yurei. I mean the way I look at it we're here because someone told us to go." Trent looks over at the dormant aircraft and shakes his head. "I can think of a few other places I'd rather be though."
"We're here because we're here. A.A. Milne, wrote a poem about world war one with the same title." I laugh at the usual deadpan humor and the futile nature of arguing with the current set of circumstances. "I don't think we're the enemy though." Karin says lightly. "We're just people."
"I suppose. But I still have no good damn idea why we're here."
"I know. Admiral got bored."
"Might be on to something there Trent."

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JeffMagnus node of the day: Lithium

Well today was a swell day, not really again I did not have my car. My good old trusty 1968 chevy Impala yea dam car mabey I should trade it in for a new one mabey a 69 na dont like the body. yea I have just finished having the one meal a day that I have. well I had no money so my friend clearpebbles spotted the cash we had 2 BK chicken sandwiches for 99 cents each. Thats a good deal for starving college students. I should be in my english 1301 class but I decided to skip I missed e2. All and all this day has been great I have spent time with the one I like (but doesnt like me back) I love it when my car breaks down because I am useless and have to bumb rides but that also sucks. Well thats about it my day.

Like lots of others, I come from (and still dwell in) a broken home. My parents divorced when I was... 8, I think. Why? Probably because of my father's mutant work ethic. His marriage to my mother was his third, and he has since remarried. But through all of this he has excelled in the business world, making upwards of $150-$200k annually. Understandably his family, his children, most notably myself and my 16 year-old sister (though he has had others from previous marriages, all of whom have gone on to lead non-productive lives) all take a backseat to his job. He, in spite of his revenue, has several times halted child support in the past, sending our (my mother's, my sister's and my own) living conditions to the brink of poverty. And still he expects us to have a (relatively) normal relationship with him. To keep up the visitations, and all that. At least he pays for the plane tickets to Connecticut.

The rest of my family hates my father for those reasons, as well as others. But whenever the family gathers to talk at dinner and slam my dad, I always defend him. Why? Because he's been there for me so often in recent years, most likely due to my depression... perhaps he's only trying to make up for years of neglect, but it's at least an effort.

This upcoming weekend is another scheduled visit. My sister has something else which she would rather attend. She's afraid to tell my father though. So, she asks me to break the news to him. I gladly accept. So, I call his condo in Stamford, and his wife answers. She tells me that he's at (surprise) a business dinner and won't be back till much later. She tells me that she will forward my call to his cell phone.

So, he answers the cell phone. I tell him that my sister will not be able to see him this weekend due to a prior engagement. He asks to speak to her. I tell him she's in the shower (a little white lie, she's in the other room). He sees right through it. Not to worry, he tells me that it's "not my fault" but thinks that I could have handled the situation better. He asks me to tell her to call him when she's out of the shower. I reluctantly agree.

I tell my sister to call him in a few minutes, and she's visibly shaken. I just head upstairs to do something else.

About ten minutes later, while playing Nethack and Final Fantasy VIII, I hear my sister run upstairs sobbing loudly. I head downstairs to ask my mom what happened, and she tells me my father is "being a prick." I figure nothing could be further from the truth if the result was the way my sister was crying. So my mom goes up to console her.

This was the first time my sister stood up to my father, as far back as I can remember. I would always hear her bitching about him, but just blew it off as exaggeration. But after hearing about the way my father berated her on the phone, I started shaking.

I've always defended my father before, but this kind of bullshit has no place in my family. I don't think I'll ever look at my father the same way again.

I don't think I'll see my sister the same way either. She's got much more courage than I do.

No, yesturday's bitterness about good 'ol Gee-Dubya being elected has not since passed. I am still I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!

I also decided today would be the Monday I would start my annual "post-Thanksgiving Diet-a-thon" until I loose the weight I put on since the Minnesotan Summer has drawn to a close. I won't stop dieting until I look just like those male models...you know: the ones with the six-pack stomachs and the lips parted just so. If I ever look like that, I guarantee a negative effect on my noding libido.

After waking up upset, I went to school. School went like it usually does: walk, sit, listen, talk, walk sit, listen, talk...until it was time to work.

At work somebody was sitting in MY chair, and it wasn't me. I read some more boring literature until he left. Damn California people...thinking they are better than us! All of the knowledge I soaked up came out in the form of technical ("informational") nodes.

I just finished a plate of supermarket sushi, now I am going to go home and do schoolwork until I must sleep. When does the fun ever start? Oh yeah, this is fun.

After three days of rain, everything seems so washed out and grey, as if the rain is slowly removing the color from everything.

I was awake until four this morning due to lack of painkillers for a body slowly rejecting the stiches put in it a week ago. Slept through my alarm and woke to a very dark late morning. In the shower I try to play it safe but still wince as the soap and shampoo residue somehow finds a way to seep into my incisions. I swear, these fuckers haven't healed at all. I could stick a goddamn chopstick straight into my abdomen and tickle my liver if I wanted to. Actually, if I could find a way to sterilize a chopstick I might actually try that...

The rest of the day was eaten up by a doctor's visit (I got a bag of shiny new bandages and other supplies. Alas, no painkillers) and the completion of a paper on the Martyrdom of Shakespeare's Flastaff. Dinner was Cheerios and whats left of the ginger beer.

It's still raining. Im not even looking out the window; you can tell by the sound of the cars as they pass by. I suppose I should be greatful: if this were snow we'd be buried by now. Still, snow would mean snowball fights, lewd snowmen, the feel of a snowflake landing in your ear. Rain just brings the smell of wet wool and floods the walk outside my window--everyone walking with their head down.

Tonight there are people banging around outside my door. God knows whats going on but they seem to be having a good time. Perhaps they're stir-crazy from the weather. Tonight I pray for reasuring scabs and sunshine.

I flew to Singapore yesterday. En route back to Kluang, my hometown in Malaysia.

The airplane I took was a Boeing 777, run by Singapore Airlines. Good airline, that one. Has personal entertainment screens for everyone, even those in economy class, with a choice of 20 video channels, 12 audio channels and a supposedly interactive system as well. For me, the video and audio worked fine but the interactive system crashed on me a few times. I wonder if it runs on Windows?

Thanks to the screens embedded in the back of every seat, I managed to catch bits of The Perfect Storm (didn't like it very much), Hollow Man, X-Men (seen it before but not bad to flip through it again) and that BBC series about dinosaurs. There was also What Lies Beneath, the Abyss and a few other things on (news, comedy, cartoons, sport) but I didn't have enough time for that.

Airline food is improving. There actually was ice-cream served during the flight as a dessert to lunch. Strawberry. Yummy.

---

While I'm here in Singapore, I'm looking for a new computer system for my parents to use back home. Hoping to replace the aging Pentium 100 system with something like a sub S$1000 700Mhz Celeron or equivalent system.

---

For those who are interested, a really good use of the Palm (or other handheld system) is as a star chart. The night before I left, I was at the Gap in Sydney with one back-illuminated Palm Vx, one Planetarium program and one suitably impressed and happy girl. :-)

This date will always stand out for me. It is a very special anniversary.

Two years ago today, my life got a very sharp jolt.

Two years ago today, the world stopped for a moment.

Two years ago today, my mother died.

Today, all I can do is honor her memory.

God, it still hurts.

9:03pm

Big day, started in Sydney. Presented our project 0.99 to all the bigwigs and finance people, over 90 mins, and survived. I think me and my team have been playing the right cards over the past week -- "no more frickin' changes or you're never likely to see this thing". Flew back to Canberra this pm, went straight to a SAGE-AU meeing to hear all about the new TransACT metropolitan broadband cloud that's rolling out here at the moment. 55Mb VDSL to your home. Yeah, baby.

My spectactles are amazing. Just watching some telly last night and looking at a PowerPoint preso tonight, I can hardly believe how blurry my eyesight had become. My optometrist says that most computer folks get slammed eyesight eventually. I bought her a great big bunch of flowers to thank her for getting me into these things so gently and deftly.

The air on the way home from SAGE tonight was filled with the scent of jasmine. Summer evenings are so livable here. Gemma made me a fantastic salad with crispy bits of German bacon and fresh chilli.

2 Everything Development Company shirts were waiting for me when I got in -- "Drugs" and "Nodespotting". They look great...

Word from sensei tonight: he has a flu but is warm and undoubtedly being taken care of. He is much loved.

[Dream Log]

12:58

Guess who woke up again a little bit too late??? =)

Damn it, last night I got... a bit further... in Metal Gear Solid... Blasted the tank and got to meet the ninja.

...they shouldn't release games that are this addictive... =)

Wellwell, time to face the challenges of the day.

20:23

Another wasted, wasted day! Sleep is a bad substitute for caffeine.

...but at least I noded something remotely interesting... =)

I was supposed to go to IRC with a fox, but apparently he either wasn't there, maybe the message didn't go through or something.

---

Other day logs o' mine...

Noded today by y.t.: Dream Log: November 28, 2000 Satama Interactive mystery meat navigation anon.penet.fi (supplementary)

Updated:

back | days | forth

11:50 GMT

Isn't it just grin-inducingly wonderful when you get an unexpected phonecall from your beloved? :-)

Hum, Hum. I have been given the task of maintaining our myriad webservers and sites. Most of these are internal, with one external site (no, I won't tell you the url, cos it would get hacked; it's a windows 2000 server and poorly secured right now...) So, this morning I have been refreshing all my stored web site development knowledge. (hence the dreamweaver node) It's funny looking back and seeing all the things I have accomplished; normally I view my time here at Sony as rather unproductive. But, here is the project website I designed 2 years ago, and here is the department homepage I designed 3 years ago which still looks quite nice.

I'm also reviewing all the different things I have accomplished on PhotoShop; why, oh why did I leave you alone, you wonderful piece of software? Seeing the old images I drew for the DVD authoring project, all the conceptual diagrams and mock DVD menus, seeing all these things makes me proud and warm. You know what? I did stuff. I'm proud to say that I have some artistic ability, something that seems to be very rare among developers and techie types. It's a pity that PhotoShop experts aren't paid as much as perhaps they should be, but if I can get a job where I am doing graphical work as well as web development and programming... Hmmm...

It's getting to the point where I am seriously considering removing Linux from my main work PC (I use it for email only) and install windows 2000. This would allow me to use ICQ, Photoshop, Winamp, DreamWeaver and all the other nice windows apps that I am missing out on... But of course, if I did that I would catch hell from the linux advocates/zealots, both inside work and without. I shall have to consider carefully. I also have to find a way of transferring my 4 gigs of MP3s from ReiserFS to NTFS.

12:45 GMT

Well, the rush is on. The Staff sales Playstation 2s have arrived and all the people who ordered one are beginning to queue for them. What's grimly amusing is the fact that I could have bought one for 250 pounds and sold it on for 600 pounds. An easy 350 quid profit slipped through my fingers... :-( Ah well, at least I won't have the temptation to spend loads of cash on controllers, memory cards and games :-)

15:00 GMT

Andy's new baby, Hannah was misdiagnosed with cataracts yesterday. 3 doctors couldn't get the red eye response which is apparently a test to see if the lens of the eye is letting in light. Andy and Yoko spent a sleepless night praying for a miracle and their prayer was answered when the senior ophthalmologist told them that their new baby wouldn't be blind or have deficient sight; Hannah doesn't have any eye defects. It seems that her asian heritage makes the red eye diagnosis difficult. I couldn't begin to imagine how Andy and Yoko were feeling last night; they had been told their baby's eyes would have to be operated on. Andy told me this experience has grown him considerably; I sincerely hope I don't have to have that kind of experience. I hope that if something like that were to happen to one of mine and Dana's children, then we would be strong enough to cope with the emotional trauma that would come with that amount of worry.

eugh ... Im at school and it is ever increasingly boring by the second. I have been on e2 for about 3 and a half hours now. And it feels like an eternity. If I get up off this chair the room is going to spin round and I will become dizzy. I shall have to sit back down at the computer and think of something to do to releave myself. I have used all ten of my votes up. I have had to sit here and wait. Wait for dinner time to come. Wait for something to happen.
I wait all the time. all I ever seem to do is wait for nothing. I sit and wait yet nothing appears or happens that I am waiting for. It goes on and on in an eternal loop. I miss nine9 yet I have never met him. People walk around me reading what I am writing. I quickly change the window to reveal a website on Dijkstra's Algorithm. They see I am doing work and walk away, and i return to my home and continue typing the story of my life.

I get home after a long windy walk. The air was running through my recently cut hair. The windwhistling by the sides of my ears. I walk past the trees and they sway side to side. The cars rushing past me to their destinations. Yet I walk slow, nothing bothering me as I am prowd. Prowd to be in love, prowd for the good part of the life that I have.
I walk over the Duel Carrageway the cars rushing beneath me. The sound they make as they dissapear underneath the bridge.I look up to the other side to see them reappear and make a noise once more.
I walk down, over the railway bridge where the train sounds its horn, not disturbing me ... as I walk proud. Proud past the fields, proud past the cars that fly past me, scaring a rabbit that has trapped itself between some water and the road. Does it dare to take the path across the road. Or does it take the chance, does it wait for the water to move, will it sink and the rabbit can live on?. Or will it rise, grasping the animal in its tendrils and pulling it beneath the surface. The last car flies past and the rabbit scurries across the road and into one of its tunnels. I carry on toward my home, slip off my shoes that had wrapped themselves around my feet for the past 7 hours. Grab a drink, and sink slowly into the large comfy chair infront of the television.

• 6:45, hit the snooze button
• 6:54, hit the snooze button
• 7:03, wake up
• 7:05, walk the cozmo
• 7:15, cigarette
• 7:20, get dressed
• 7:25, go to work

i painted last night, i haven't in a while. i like what turned out. it's interesting. mebbe i'll take a picture of it, and mebbe i won't.

tonight i am to have dinner with my sister. we will be introducing cozmo to phoebe (her border collie). i think they will get along famously. it will be nice for cozmo to have someone to beat up on that isn't 1/4 his size (my cat loves to play hide and seek, but cozmo gets too rough with her after a bit).

i think i will paint more tonight after i get home from my sisters'. i found some small canvasses and i'll see what i can put on them. if nothing wants to show up, then i'll see what i can do on larger canvasses. the larger canvasses are already painted, but they suck so i'll paint over them. i need more paint though. i really had to stretch out my colours last night. and i couldn't find green (dammit, i know i had a tube of green), so i had to make some (which ultimately worked out better).

my kalanchoe is blooming yet again. even after a very severe haircut. Also, I gave the mini roses a hard prune and it's got leaves coming out all over the place. the roses have black spot, and i wanted to prune anyway... so i removed most of the foliage, left the plants for a few days to encourage new bud growth, then cut back some of the long spindly branches. this really isn't necessary for mini's, you can leave them be and they tend to grow well and bushy -- but i'm anal. i want my minis to have branches which mimic the ideals of a large rose bush -- that means lots of branching so the plant is bushier. well, let me move my talk of mini roses over into a new, and more useful, location: miniature roses.

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more mundane my-life-shit-that-no-one-ever-reads later, as it occurs...

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it's just after noon right now and it's shaping up into an interesting day. today, the CEO officially resigned. this is fabulous news. he'd been running the place poorly. i'll leave it at that. i should've guessed that was coming given that the all-hands meeting where they announced it was called by our CFO who will be taking over the position of CEO. also, the fact that she was moving into his office shoulda been a hint, but i'm a bit dull sometimes.

finally ordered a ring for mom for christmas. she'd requested a mother's ring and so i got one. i decided on only getting two stones (one for me, one for my sis) instead of three (which would have included mom's birthstone) because while opal and amethyst look neat together, opal, amethyst and ruby really would look weird... red clear ruby in the middle, purple clear amethyst on the right and then milky white opaque opal on the left. didn't look right, so i left out the ruby. it saved a few bucks (which i really wouldn't have minded spending). i could have gone for pink tourmaline instead of opal-- but to me, opal is my birthstone, not tourmaline. i really like opal and as such it would be important to my mother to get opal.

in terms of christmas, i've tackled mom and dad. still left are:

1. grandma
2. jenn - sister
3. chris - brother in-law
4. craig - boyfriend

i know what i'm going to get/make for grandma, it's just a matter of sitting down and actually doing it. jenn wants a blender and something else i can't quite remember. i'll have to ask her again. chris is a pain to shop for. you can't get him clothes, jewellery, or watches, he's terribly picky. i could get him a computer game, but i always kinda feel like that's mean to my sis, takes her husbands' time away from her. i could go for a gift certificate to best buy but that's so impersonal. we'll see how that goes. craig is an absolute impossibility. whatever he wants, he buys himself. so finding appropriate gifts is difficult. he also has expensive tastes, and i am loathe to spend $200 for a tie (which is the only piece of clothing that i could afford to buy him given his preferences). oi. holiday shopping makes me nuts. not that i wasn't already, but more so.

I slept eleven hours last night. Patches in a ball at my side, Bahloo enjoying the warmth between my knees...I couldn't move, but I guess I didn't need to. The beautiful sounds of Garvin Bryars' Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet looped throughout the night like a lovely lullaby.

I met Sylvar the other day. He introduced me to the Gavin Bryars CD. What an interesting guy he is, eight hours of great conversation, beautiful acoustic music, and a drive through 5 acres of garden. A lovely time, indeed!

I am definitely going to the next Florida Everything Get-Together..

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On an unhappy note...a man from the mortgage company came by this morning looking for my landlord. Seems Henk's been slacking on his payments...I hope I am not homeless soon.

Well here I am again...

Well, I'm on E2, again. I'm always finding excuses to be on it. I've almost ended a date early so I could go use the rest of my votes before the server reset. I'm beginning to think I'm an Everything2 addict. I don't write many writeups, so it's kinda wierd. I mean... I sit here... and read and read and read...... Is this normal? My school (Etiwanda High) has a SSR reading period, and I actually sit on E2 and read for the 20 min pe