May 2nd

                Sorry for the absolute lack of information but, as I say, these dratted popups annoy me no-end...
                The weekend was very busy. Briefly put, the Aragon meeting was a blast, the Bedlam's Rest game was so-so (it had it's moments, but I doubt I'm going to return) and yesterday's trip to Berkeley was great fun.

                I will now go into further detail for those serious gamer wonks and movie fiends. The meeting for Aragon went really well. About ten players showed up and got into the spirit of things - including a hastily-decided 'silent auction' for some nifty things - a favor from the Tremere, a boon from the elder Nosferatu and the right to Sire a childe from the Prince. We told the players to get creative with their characters' bids, and they did. Adam scored a few chuckles by offering unconditional love - of another character, not his own - to the Prince...
                The unusual-bid theme was repeated on Sunday as the Prince of Bedlam's Rest put a bunch of magical items up for sale. Because I had decided that it was probably my last game with the group, Rebecca went for broke with the bids and won a few for Clan Tremere. Of course, when the other characters heard I had won something just by bidding a damn good cup of Turkish coffee, they were a little baffled. C'mon kids, the Prince is 600 years old and hails from Persia - it's called playing the man and not the ball... Other than that, though, the game was pretty blah for myself. Between the lackluster quality of plots and the increasing demands of Aragon, I doubt I'll return to that game, any time soon, although DJ's call for new elders did appeal to me. Still, I'm playing a Prince in Aragon, so why should I hanker after being an elder in a mediocre game?

                Yesterday was time in Berkeley, and nifty-keen it was too. At lunchtime, I stumbled across a troupe of Morris dancers celebrating May Day round the back of the Jupiter pub. I've got pictures and but I'm not uploading them until I know where this site's permanent home is going to be. But they were very cute! All decked out in their spring finery and dancing to live accompaniment. Just the sort of thing one shouldn't be surprised at finding on a sunny spring day in Bezerkeley.
                Contrast was immediately provided by an afternoon viewing of American Psycho, which was very good. Christian Bale was a bit of inspired casting. I don't care how closed the set is, or how great the screenplay is, it takes chutzpah and nerve to be filmed wearing nothing but a gleaming white pair of Reeboks and wielding a chainsaw. Creepy stuff. But the reports of the gore being off-screen were true and I was able to sit through the movie while munching a sandwich with nary a quiver. That's an accomplishment for me, given as I am to squeamishness at movie violence. The adaptation of the novel was well done - there was some major editing and minor re-arranging, but it all worked. The theme of the book is still there. Go see it kids, or get the whole thing on DVD when it comes out.
                And, for the topper, I did another four hours of psych testing with Erin. Last night was a battery of intelligence tests - no word if I've passed. :) But it was a lot of fun - putting puzzles together, or arranging sequential images to create stories. The verbal/math problems gave me a headache but, heck, even that was interesting. Erin hasn't given me the hairy eyeball, yet, so I figure I'm coming up as a reasonably sane individual.
                To my great suprise, I did not dream of chasing a Morris dancer with an axe yelling "How does that make you feel?". Maybe tomorrow night...

      ***

      May 4th

                After nearly 14 hours of psych testing, I have been told that I'm a intellectual with a tendency to brood.
                It took fourteen hours to figure this out? I could have told them that before we even got started! Still, now it's (semi) official because, y'know, tests have been given and paperwork has been filled out. Whatever. I helped a desperate PhD student finish her labwork for the semester and that was the important part.

                Today is the Quattro De Mayo party in my office. It's happening today, rather than tomorrow, because it has been rightly figured out that this place empties at 2PM on Friday and no force on earth can keep anyone here - not even free tequila. No doubt I will be dragooned into the party-prep squad later today. I don't mind, as hanging tacky pinatas and plugging in silly lights will make a break from all this offsite prep that has been eating my week.

                There'll be no entry tomorrow morning, as I'm off to my Assertive Administrator class. I believe Mr. Prickles is going to be a keynote speaker... I have lately begun to fear for Mr. Prickles' safety, as an office prankster has asked me if Mr. Prickles has ever gone missing. Hrm... I warned said prankster that kidnapping my fabric enforcer would be a very bad idea - for the kidnappers! Unlike the rest of this department, I've made friends with the coporate paper-pushers in HQ. I'm sure they'll happily nuke a few paychecks in return for my gratitude and a bottle of wine. ;)
                Well, the "I love you" virus has hit the office in a hard way, our e-mail has been cut off. Incidentally, kids, the virus is a nasty one and has apparently made a very significant appearance today so, if you get an e-mail with "I love you" in the subject line, delete it immediately! Of course, one wonders who is stupid enough to open up an e-mail from a stranger anyway - although I'm told that this is one of those viruses that immediately mails itself to everyone in your Contact List if you use Outlook. And guess what all of MM uses for e-mail...?
                Just another exciting day in the office!

                Way cool! SuperDave has just loaned me his two DVDs of "Queer As Folk" - a fabulous TV series from the UK. I didn't even know it was available in the US. Yippee! Now I've just gotta find time to watch the dratted things...

      ***

      May 7th

                Friday's Assertive Administrator course was amusing but - as expected - not very enlightening. The fact that it was clearly designed to sell as many (overpriced) accompanying books as possible was a bit annoying. "We're going to go over blah in some detail in this session, but if you want the full scope, you can read it in this book we happen to be selling in the lobby...". Yeah, whatever. I was deeply amused by one constant refrain - the "Pass the butter" voice. It was apparent to me that the proper tone of voice for making demands in the office (the inoffensive please-pass-the-butter-voice) is about a quarter shade away from my Johanna-is-going-to-kill-you-all voice. Obviously the people who had designed this course had never dealt with the British habit of getting quieter as one gets angry...

                Friday night was Dave's 7th Sea game - a blast as usual. Elena got her obligatory spooky-spooky moment in, so I was happy. Heck, I'm easy to please. Katerina (Jennifer's character) discovered her fiance is the son of a gypsy chief and, following a rather tense meeting between the PCs and the fiance's family, she married him on the spot rather than waiting to return to her father's house. I thought that was rather romantic really - a wedding in the forest and all that. Meanwhile, James' character was very much a fish out of water - rather, a sailor stuck on land - and he seems determined to get himself gutted by Katerina's in-laws. Of course, I'm looking forward to the next installment...

                Saturday was meant to be spent cleaning but none of us could get started on the day - so we went to the movies instead. Like the rest of the damn country, we went to go see Gladiator. The story is dreck, of course, but the digital effects were marvelous. Oh look, you think, there's ancient Rome. The city looked gorgeous - not precisely realistic, but amazing nonetheless.
                My major complaint (aside from historical inaccuracies, and Dave and I made a pact not to ruin the movie by bitching about those) was the constant use of under-cranking the camera during combat scenes. Apparently Ridley Scott wanted to give the audience an impression of the speed of war and fighting. To me, it just came across as an amateurish device. It was too obvious that the filming was done at about 18 frames per second and the resulting exaggerated movements were jarring and my suspension of disbelief snapped each time I saw characters moving too quickly. Interlacing said scenes with a pseudo slo-mo affect at odd moments did not help... Directors, if you want to suggest the deadly speed of a fight for life, get a decent editor - and the film had one of those, poor sod.
                I was also damn surprised to see Derek Jacobi in the film. Admittedly he was a secondary character but whereinheck was he during the advertising campaign? Surely his following in the US hasn't dwindled that much? The part was obviously a rent-payer for him, but it was fun to see him in yet-another Roman epic...
                Another comment about Gladiator: Look! The black guy didn't die! That's a departure from the norm!
                Oh, did that sound bitter?

                Tonight is Alex's Port Townsend game. The PC's have finally made it to Port Townsend, after three games in Seattle and Alex is very much looking forward to throwing us into the thick of things. I'm still a bit disoriented from 7th Sea on Friday night and the dregs of fallout from my last Bedlam's Rest game - there is talk of a tabletop continuation, and I'm trying to make up my mind if I want to be involved in that.
                And don't even get me started on what I have to do for Aragon, today.
                Housecleaning? Oh, yeah. Um, I'll get to that soon, I'm sure!

      ***

      May 10th

                Today's excuse for not writing: 35 engineers flying in from all over the world and a manager who decided to pile a few tasks on top of me, just in case I didn't have enough to do. Sure bossman, I can write six one-page documents on processes I don't understand by Tuesday. Aren't you going to be trapped in the same two-day meeting as me at the end of this week? Yes? Good, I'll know which plate to poison at lunch...
                Actually, the engineers-from-all-over thing wouldn't be that stressful if it wasn't for one little comment made by SuperDave. "Put together a package of useful information for everyone," he said. "You know, the agenda, a map, a little notepad. Since we're engineering, no-one is going to expect anything superb like the Experience Group puts out.". This, of course, was construed as a challenge to my administrative womanhood and I promptly went nuts. Honestly, the results aren't that great, but at least I went to the trouble of making colorful little labels for the featured folder and formatting everything nicely (and printing that in color, too). I figure that it will at least curb the belief that engineers are unaesthetic whatsits.
                Thinking of challenges to manhood, the local IS department came through in spades with the laptop - which has been affectionately nicknamed The Great Old One, because it exists outside of its proper time and drives men mad. After discovering that slapping a network card into the machine and installing Win 95 via the network wouldn't work out, one of the guys managed to find Win 95 on diskette and painstakingly cram it onto the hard drive. For an encore, Office 97 was also installed. Wow! Although what use Outlook is going to be on a machine that doesn't have a network card, I don't know... Never mind that it would take two hours to start it, too...
                Matters have been further munged in that Erin's tape recorder ate itself, so we're meeting at my office tonight to go over five rorsach cards, the results of which got lost with the tape... With luck, I'll be able to remember what I told her - and not suddenly see something entirely different, although I'm sure that would liven up her paper. I'm not too keen on losing the time - tonight is going to be my last quiet night until the weekend - but Erin has to do her presentation on Monday, and Rorsachs are notoriously time-consuming to score and analyze. I figure I can lose a couple hours of sleep for someone's PhD...

                Uber-mega congratulations to my father, Christopher, who got promoted last night. Yay, dad! Next step is world conquest, right?

                Wow, the Irregular Ramblings turns a year old tomorrow. Whodathunkit? And the anniversary of the journal means that my wedding anniversary is just around the corner. I'm wondering where the time went, but I'm grinning like a fool, regardless.

                Must run, a boss is asking me Powerpoint questions. He's the one who remembers to thank me for work I'm doing, so I try to help him when he gets that kicked-puppy look.

      ***

      May 11th

                As you New Englanders already know, the heatwave on the east coast has broken. Why, oh why couldn't it have waited one more day?
                Thanks to the storms shutting down every airport in New England, half a dozen of the Engineering Summit guests were stranded at JFK or Boston airports clear through the night. Sensibly, they gave up at 9PM (after propping up a bar in the airport all that time) and went home for some sleep before catching an early flight in the morning. What worries me most is that SuperDave cannot be reached and he spent at least three hours in a plane on the tarmac. Whatever happens, I think a very cranky boss will be arriving at some point during the day.
                As for me, between needing to give Erin some time last night and baby-sitting the phone until the east coast crew gave in, I decided to take advantage of one of the canceled room nights at the hotel I had arranged for the out-of-towners and stay in the city for the evening. I wasn't too thrilled about it - I would preferred a night home with my hunny - but since I wasn't done in the city until 9PM and I needed to be back by 8AM, the slog home on BART wasn't very appealing. I've been doing that all week and another night of getting home and thinking 'oh great, I'm gonna be back in the office in nine hours' time' was just too dreary. This way, I got a whole eleven hours' break...
                This entry was typed up on a loaner laptop in a tiny (but very nice) hotel room half a block away from my office, accompanied by the growling of my stomach. Naturally, room service would cost a bloody fortune and the fiends at housekeeping keep the minibar snacks out, rather than under lock and key. By ten PM, I was thinking that eight bucks for a can of cashews wasn't too much to ask… Fortunately, I had a stashed Cadbury's bar (glory be to the English modemites who brought me some choccy) and half a snack-can of Pringles in my bag. Nutritious it wasn't, but it saved me from bankruptcy. However, I was a bit thirsty…Two-fifty for a can of soda...sigh.
                Staying in the city was very lonely, but slightly exciting - a change from the usual routine. I allowed my imagination to run wild for all of fifty seconds, which encompassed a solo dinner, mysterious strangers and action worthy of John Woo (or Danielle Steele, it was one of those days). Then the reality filter kicked in. Wearing the same clothes for two days in a row was more than enough to destroy flights of fancy.

                Today, the Irregular Ramblings turns a year old. I must admit, I didn't think it would make it this far - and that's not allowing for the current popup box setbacks. I'm sometimes a tad disappointed that this journal isn't a little more introspective than it is. After all, aren't journals meant to be venues of relentless self-analysis? Maybe they are, but I can't fight my instilled hatred of excessively wankerish behavior, so I always stop short of relentlessly selfish exhibitionism.
                Oh, was that critical? Whatever. Anyways, here's to you, readers unknown and otherwise. It's been a lot of fun for me, so far - let's see where we go from here…

                Postscript: SuperDave has just lived up to his name. At 7:40AM, he walked into the office, looking fresh as a daisy and blithely declared that he had brought most of the missing East-Coasters with him. Nothing like an incipient coronary to wake one up in the morning, but I'm damn glad he made it.
                *giggle* and SuperDave is so pissed that our CEO couldn't make it out here that he's named Mr. Prickles Chairman Pro Tem of the company. Whee! Although the fact that I'm now outranked by a small fabric hedgehog is hardly worth boasting about...

      ***

      May 14th

                Oh, I'm one tired little gamer, this morning...
                Last night was the first prelude of Rich's new Vampire LARP, Casting The Runes. Being a history wonk, he's running preludes, starting around the 14th Century or so, and moving up a century at a time, from there. For a fellow history-wonk such as myself, this was like manna from heaven... Last night's meeting was set at 1600AD, or so, and that's one of my favorite eras...
                I was afraid that the evening wouldn't go well - four clueless humans amongst a coterie of vampires who are quietly determining their fates. At best, I thought, we would get some roleplaying done. At worst, our characters would be found wanting and all the work I put into Lady Leicester, Sarah Devereaux, would have been wasted. Still, once I had accused the assemblage of being spies and/or murderers in the pay of the French government (two of us humans were courtier-spies for the English), I didn't care too much if my character got eaten. After a ringing soliliquy, one can die happy. That probably explains why Shakespeare was so fond of the things...
                But, as might be guessed from the above-mentioned soliliquy, the group warmed up very quickly and we got some great roleplaying in. The Lasombra Antitribu and the Ventrue (Devereaux is a Ventrue, now, as I had hoped she would be) are already forming a coterie and woe betide the city that we end up ruling... The four members of the coterie are RoommateDave (Lasombra neonate), Greg (Ventrue elder), myself (Ventrue neonate) and Dom (Lasombra elder). Those who know us, know that that's a real potent combination. Heh.
                Unsurprisingly, Dave knocked many peoples' socks off with his roleplaying ability. Several of us think we're pretty good at the LARPing biz, but then we play with Dave - who is an actor - and we realize that, gosh, we suck. Fortunately, Dave's the only professional actor in the game, and a sweetie to boot, otherwise we'd all be glooming around with lousy self-esteem... But it's a delight to watch Dave have fun with a character. He just oozes glee and the other players can't help but pick up on that (as well as tighten up their own performances in an attempt to keep up with him). I'm told that Dom (Dave's character's sire) is just as devious as Dave is, so I think things are about to get even more interesting...

                Otherwise, I've just been recovering from the Grand Ol' Offsite meeting. Two days of scurrying around, frantic note-taking and one of the guys I relied on to help me did the absolute minimum and then left the office - leaving six bags of ice dripping onto the floor and me with no idea it had even arrived yet, let alone the fact that it was not in a tub, chilling the beer as it should have been. Sigh. But, overall, that was a minor setback and I think the event went very well. Come Monday, I'm talking to my bosses about that pay raise I was promised three months ago and have yet to see...

                Anyways, must run. It's Mother's Day here in the US and I have to go get my mom a card before I see her at dinner-time....

      ***

      May 17th

                Not much to say today other than the Irregular Ramblings will be temporarily dossing down here - a location that is sans popup boxes - until I can get moved over to a new, permanent host.
                I'm still wiped out from last week - ugh - and I'm slightly poleaxed by Things going on in the homestead. Nothing bad, I assure you, just nothing I'm going to talk about in this venue (ooooh, mysterious, isn't it?)
                Prep for Aragon is going well, and I can't wait for my trip to Connecticut in two weeks!

      ***

      May 21st

                Okay, okay, so I didn't write an entry all week. Mea culpa, I've been busy.

                Work has been really busy in the past couple of weeks. The recruiting effort has picked up steam, one of my managers has tossed me into a couple of teams that I don't particularly care about, but have to produce documentation for and a huge project is coming down the pike that requires I spend a lot of time tracking were two of the other bosses are at all times.
                So, of course, I'm thinking about another job. Actually, the workload at MM has nothing to do with it. It's more because the corporate culture is crumbling and I really don't give a damn about web-engineering. Sure, it's somewhat interesting, but I've found documentaries on spore molds somewhat interesting, too. I have also received word that if I get the raise that SuperDave promised me, I have to wait until July for it. Damn.
                Meanwhile Maxis are looking for someone to support the Executive Producers in their Walnut Creek office - a commute of 20/30 minutes for me, as opposed to my current 75 mins to SF. So I sent them a resume, for the hell of it. If nothing else, I figured it would give me some leverage come July. I asked for a salary $5K above what I'm currently earning and ungodly benefits, figuring I would get laughed out of the running.
                I've got a phone screen on Monday.
                I don't see any harm in going on with the process. Even if I get as far as receiving an offer, I don't have to take it. As they say, the best time to look for a job is while you've got a job. And if I turn Maxis down, I might not stop looking... I like MM to a point - mostly the people, and the people are leaving - and the commute is a pain. Although, I must wonder how wise it is to pick up a new job when Alex and I are thinking of trying for a child at the end of the year - nevermind the whole will-we/won't-we-move-out-of-the-Bay-Area thing...
                Gack, this being a grown-up thing is tough.

                One more note about work - Chairman Prickles Addresses The Engineering Summit

       

                On the lighter side, I've been having some great fun on the gaming side. RoomateDave's 7th Sea game was the other night. Dave made a real point of trying to involve Laurel's character in the plot - as she had spent most of the last game 'guarding the camp' and not acheiving much of anything. That was changed, with a veangance, and I think Laurel appreciated it. It was good of Dave (and Alex, who helped create the plot) to make the effort... I know Alex, Jennifer and I can be GM hogs and I was feeling a bit guilty about Laurel...
                Meanwhile, within the space of one night, my Elena managed to go from being welcome within a Wayfarer camp to facing execution. Whee! I'm reasonably confident she'll survive, but god only knows what Dave will put her through to earn the forgiveness of the camp. Heh. As I keep saying, a character that isn't in trouble is a boring character...
                Casting The Runes is unfolding nicely and I'm having a good time. It looks like Jennifer, Dave, Gregg, Dom and myself are going to be in a coterie together - that's three elders (Gangrel, Ventrue and Lasombra antitribu) and two very ambitious neonates (Lasombra and Ventrue). God help the city we end up ruling... Although I'm not sure if I'm entirely thrilled by Dom's character's idea to make my character his subbie. I think he's going to find Sarah (the character in question) a much harder nut to crack than he anticipated. Sarah has far less tolerance for such things than Johanna does. Still, I'm sure it's all going to be very amusing...
                Tomorrow is another episode of Port Townsend, Alex's vampire game. I adore playing Janice, so I don't really care what happens in that game. Janice is spending some time fretting about Aidan (Dave's character, a human with Strange Luck). Janice wants to make sure Aidan isn't going to betray the Kindred, but she doesn't want to ghoul him (unless he asks), but she - mistakenly - believes that such a thing is the best way to look after Aidan and her own interests. Can we say 'trouble brewing'? I knew we could...

                Of course, this is assuming the household doesn't spontaneously combust before tomorrow afternoon. It was very warm in Concord, today and we just barely managed to stay sane with the blinds down and all the fans roaring. I finally resorted to dunking my head into a sinkful of cold water and sitting in front of a fan to stay cool. The guys had it a bit easier, because they've got short hair... Fortunately, neither of them were scandalized by my decision to walk around in a sports bra and shorts all day. All of my shirts are pretty heavy, you see...

                No, Dennis, I'm not feeling secure yet - and the rest of ya can just wonder at what that means. ;)

                There goes the rest of my life...I just installed ICQ on my home computer...

      ***

      May 23rd

                Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. We stayed home, ordered Chinese and watched wrestling with Dave and Britt.
                And they say romance is dead.

                Life continues to lurch along. Dave failed to get another job he interviewed for, last week - ugh. The poor guy is getting really demoralized and I don't blame him. I would tell him to apply for mine, but he's underqualified. Oh, was that catty?
                I had a foul day at work yesterday. I had to leave work early on Friday to go to the doctor (a minor infection) and, over the overheated weekend, managed to forget everything I needed to do Monday morning. To cap it, I had lost the documents that I was supposed to update. Not just misplaced, but flat-out lost. I've got a bad feeling I threw them away at some point. Argh. I was in a piss-poor mood from sleeping all weekend and that Alex hadn't said anything along the lines of "Happy Anniversary" before dropping me off at the train station and looking like a goober in front of the departmental managers (the lost dccuments were required for their meeting) was the icing on the cake.
                Fortunately, the managers attributed my overwrought state to the fact that I had to throw together an interview for a candidate - from Canada, for the Canadian office - having received word on Friday that he would be here today. It was a tad aggravating, I admit, but not as aggravating as i had apparently communicated to said managers. I had no problem putting on my martyred-admin face, rather than my unnecessarily-sentimental face... Thank heavens for small mercies.
                As I say, I really like the people at my office, they're tops. But the job is definately starting to pall. Between being expected to play executive ass't to four managers and do all the usual support for a department of fifty on a recruiting binge, I'm starting to feel like a very well-used tug-of-war rope. No, I haven't talked to Maxis, yet, but they're interested in me. Knowing my luck, the Maxis job would turn out to be more of the same, and I would rather stay at MM. Hell, I've been commuting to the city for two and half years - why stop now?

                On a happier note, I received some nice words from a random netizen who devoured a large chunk of my character archive and enjoyed it a lot. At least I had a little smile to start the day...

                I've been reading Ian Fleming's Thrilling Cities, a collection of travel features he wrote for the London Express in the late '50's. It's a hoot! I still have my treatment for a James Bond fanfic, partially set in Hong Kong in '56 (and Australia, and Turkey - after all, it's a 007 story) and Fleming's articles on Hong Kong, Tokyo and Macao all provided lots of grist for that particular mill - which is why Logan loaned the book to me, I think.

                Well, that's all for now...

      ***

      May 24th

                It seems I spoke too soon about romance being nearly dead in my house. No, Alex didn't show up at midnight on Monday with a bouquet of roses and a mushy poem. Instead, he got a kidneystone and spent five hours in the ER late Monday night/early Tuesday... Romance isn't nearly dead in our house, it's entirely dead.
                Alex is feeling much better now - having received the full gamut of medical science and a godawful huge prescription for vicodin - just how long do they think this thing will take to pass? He's been given a prescription good for fifty tablets, aiyee!
                Meanwhile I, of course, felt godawful guilty for being so bitchy all day long - and for telling Alex to quit worrying, it was probably gas... Bad wife, no donut!

                Otherwise, life lurches along. I've not yet caught up with Maxis. It seems we are playing phone tag - or they've found someone else and not had the nerve to tell me, yet. I've got an awful huge backlog of work to catch up on before I head out to CT this weekend and never mind the fact that I still haven't called to book us a shuttle ride to the airport...
                I blame the heat for everything right now - from my brain cells futzing out to Alex's little situation. For the first time in nearly a week, it looks like Concord won't be breaking 95 degrees and I'm eternally grateful for that. Yesterday it was over a hundred and more humid than it usually is...I like the heat but that was pushing it. Dave, Alex and I just lolled around the house, guzzling soda and sticking our heads under the cold-water faucet. Sure, it was cooling, but pretty it was not. Even the cat - a heat-luvin' beast as all cat-owners know - was spread out on the kitchen floor looking befuddled. Well, more befuddled than usual...

      ***

      May 25th

                This will probably be the last entry for a few days, unless I have some spare time and access to a machine while on the east coast. I'll be back late on Tuesday, but I doubt I'll have an entry together before Wednesday. Today I'm frantically doing all the little things that need to be done to cover my ass while I'm away. Such tasks are annoying, but not nearly as annoying as coming back from a holiday and finding out one has been fired...
                Alex and I have a ludicrously early pickup time, tomorrow - 4:30AM - but it saves us a few bucks on the transit fare. I suppose we can sleep on the plane.
                As usual, money is tight - sigh. I must admit, I honestly thought Dave would have a job by now, back when I was buying the ticket in March, so I didn't give it much thought. Oh well... It just means that I doubt Alex and I will make it to NYC over the weekend. Train fare, admissions and food all add up very fast in the biggest of cities. It's a shame, though, as I love visiting New York, and Alex has never been. Next time, I guess. The important part is seeing my friends again, and introducing Alex to the east-coasties he hasn't met, yet.
                And I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to cramming myself into a Southwest budget-o-rama jet for 3,000 miles. Oy...

                Work is busy and annoying - I'm being asked to write documents on processes I just don't understand - but the Maxis front is looking up. I have an interview there, next week. After talking to Maxis' recruiter, the job definitely sounds like same-old admin grind, but as long as I get decent money and the people are okay, I can cope with that. I think they're balking at my salary demands but to heck with 'em. They want someone with three years' experience to support executive positions. Given that most admins just use their job as a stepping stone to get somewhere else, those with three years' experience are very rare, I've noticed. Ergo, I want more money. Yes, I'm a greedy little black duck.
                For a laugh, I put in a resume for a line producer position over at Oxygen. It's a job that's two parts administrative and one part writing and (here's a nifty twist) entirely remote - I would be required to work from home. However, I don't think I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting in, but there's never any harm in applying, non? Oxygen is an interesting venture - a broadcast/online content provider by and for women - and that was part of the attraction.

                *Giggle* Who says managers are stodgy all the time? Curtis - who is a perennial favorite of mine - made a business card for Mr. Prickles. My favorite fabric enforcer is now the departmental Sgt.-at-Arms. Mr. Prickles is currently sitting on the card - on top of my monitor - wearing an MM cap and telling me most firmly that if I'm leaving the company, he's staying right here...

      ***

      May 31st

                Brace yourself, this is going to be a long one. Be happy I didn't take notes while I was away.

                The trip was very nice, as I expected. A whole bunch of things that I twitter on to Alex about now make sense to him. He thought Connecticut was very pretty and conceded that - should something turn him off California utterly - he could consider it as a place to live. Irony of ironies, by the end of the weekend, I was thinking that maybe Washington State would be better... More on that, later.
                Anyways, we stayed with Brian for the first couple of days. He's got a nice apartment in Manchester, next door to a sizable cemetary (quiet neighbors, he says) but we didn't spend much time there as Brian took Alex and I out on what we called our "Near Death" tour of the town. The tour simply consisted of blasting through the old neighborhood and pointing out all the places we almost killed ourselves, either by vehicular suicide, teenage angst, or both. Amongst all the other little revelations, Alex now knows why I don't turn a hair at his occasional high-speed driving on the highway. As Stephen put it, our Lunatic Velocity (number of people in car, multiplied by miles per hour) was pretty steep in our high-school/college years.
                While Jon was doing his best to re-enact some of the highlights of the tour - he was determining if his just-bought-that-morning Jeep had a governor on the engine - we were pulled over doing more than 110mph on I-384. Unsurprisingly, Jon was convinced that he was about to be arrested, possibly even shot. Frankly, if the notion worried him that much, perhaps he shouldn't have been driving so fast, hm? As it was, the cop wasn't able to clock Jon with the radar until Jon had managed to slow down to 85 (Jon saw the cop that crucial moment too late) so he merely got hit with a $300 ticket.
                Of course, Jon complained that he's never pulled over - otherwise he would have many more tickets than he does. We all laughed at Alex's joke that the military has planted a chip in his head that summons State Troopers. We laughed clear until Brian got pulled over in Portland on Saturday afternoon for failing to signal a lane change - which wasn't true - and for going (as the cop put it) "a little too fast" which, translated, means: "I left my radar off but I really want to ticket you, anyways". Fortunately, Brian got away with just a written warning, but there was little laughter about Alex, The Cop Magnet after that.

                Saturday night, the whole gang - Brian, Jon, Stephen, Asha, Alex and me - headed out to the movies and watched M:I-2. It was another sturdy example of Woo-Americana, and I'll get into that much later - probably another journal entry. Suffice to say it was certainly more entertaining that its predecessor.

                Sunday and Monday, we were with Stephen and Asha Shipman who are amongst the ever-diminishing minority that doesn't own a television set. I feared Alex's brain was going to seize up, but it had already been eaten by the pollen, so I needn't have worried.
                We had a very interesting visit to Stephen and Brian's office - they both work for the local Board of Ed - which occupies the former G. Fox building in downtown Hartford. For those of you who don't know, G. Fox is/was a large department store in New England - imagine something between Penney's and Macy's in terms of size and class. About half of the building has been converted into office space - all of it with that overcramped/underfunded air of civil bureaucracies everywhere - while the other half remains precisely as it was when G. Fox closed down and has been quietly decaying ever since...
                A trip to the upper floors provided some great picture-fodder for Aragon - including cavernous rooms flooded with dusty sunlight and crumbling fixtures, and an utterly fabulous assemblage of walled-up escalators and an abandoned winter-grotto. The pictures I snapped away on my handy digital camera - about fifty in all - could be used for anything from the setting for a Brujah rant to a tale of spooooky hauntings. Additional pictures of New-England-Gothic brownstone churches and graveyards can only help. Yes, I went 3,000 miles for game materials, wanna make something of it?
                In contrast to rampant retail-decay, the afternoon was spent down on the newly remodeled waterfront. The whole development - curvy walkways, grassy knolls, a scattering of historical markers - stank of desperate-expenditure-of-tax-revenues, but it was rather pretty, I must admit. Hartford, despite being a riverside town, has been cut off from the river because of the ill-advised placement of the crosstown highways - the owner of G. Fox had such political clout, she insisted that both highways have exits immediately adjacent to the storefront. But now that the city has been able to regain control of its destiny - so to to speak - they've been busily laying down pleasant little pedestrian routes and parks (trying to circumvent the highways, with some success) to the riverfront. As I said, it was quite nice. The day was sunny, but not too warm and - it being a Sunday afternoon in Hartford - very, very quiet.

                Monday was a barbecue at the Shipman homestead, as per tradition and inclination. I'm afraid my hard-bitten reputation - which had managed to linger on the east coast (mostly because of my absence) - has been blasted to smithereens thanks to Ehlana. Ehlana is the seven-month-old daughter of Stephen and Brian's co-worker/boss, Bob. Ellie was as cute as a button, extremely well behaved and managed to have me wrapped around her chubby little finger in nothing flat. I believe there is photographic evidence of my playing with her - I must start negotiating for possession of the negatives. I blame Bob for the entire incident, as he is one of those chaps who immediately christens all acquaintances as 'Aunty/Uncle Whatever' to his daughter and I think the phrase 'Aunty Johanna' had some fundamental, bizarre, affect on my state of mind. For about four hours straight, I was a gurgling moron - unlike the baby...
                Meredith managed to visit, briefly, but she was wiped out from going to the wedding of one of Stephen's ex-girlfriends over in Boston, and we didn't have too much to say to each other. I don't feel too guilty, as we saw each other just a couple of months ago at Sarah's wedding...
                Alas, it was too early in the season for fireflies. Drat. And we were too broke to go to NYC. Ah well, Alex agreed we could go next time we come to the east coast, although I'm not sure when that will be - see rant on Southwest Airlines, further below.

                Late Monday night, Alex and I got to talking - no big surprise, there. I think Alex was a little stunned by the strength of my desire to leave the Bay Area. Actually, I was a little surprised, too. Sure, I had spent a bit of time singing the praises of New England, but most of it derived primarily from the fact that it wasn't California. I am fond of Connecticut, always will be, but I'm slowly realizing that it might not be the best place for me to relocate to. I've gotten hooked on being near a big city and - sorry guys - Hartford ain't it. However, San Francisco ain't it, either.
                So, of course, Port Townsend came up, again. We're still planning to go visit it over July 4th weekend - if we can find a hotel up there - and Alex and I chatted a little more seriously than we have been about what the work situation is like up there, cost of living, etc. To my utter non-surprise, Alex has been examining the job market up there and, in addition to the expected assortment of galleries (it's a big art/history town) and tourist industries, there are several small web shops and an ISP that are keeping away from Seattle rental rates. That, of course, perked me right up. I had mentally resigned myself to - if I was lucky - shuffling papers at a local gallery or hotel, if we moved up there. The possibility of a strong geek-culture (well, relatively strong, the town is only 7,000 people) was a big plus, in my eyes.
                Then I pointed out that, hell, if we're serious about wanting to relocate up there, the best time for us to do it would be this summer, while Alex is on his terminal leave - he'll be drawing pay, but not working for six weeks. I suspect this occurred to Alex a while ago but, in his diplomatic way, he's been waiting for me to mention it. The practical upshot is that, come July 4 weekend, we don't see any harm in scattering a few resumes about the vicinity while we're up there.
                I doubt it'll come to much - plans conceived in haste rarely do, and Alex and I tend to move at glacial speeds, as it is. Never mind the fact that we've got a roommate dependent on us for survival, Alex isn't entirely keen on leaving his family (although he much prefers west coast to east) and never mind what my parents would think... My mother has made vague noises about not wanting us to take their (potential) grandchild away from them, but I've got my own feelings about that, which I'm not going to get into just now...
                All in all, a very informative chat was had in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. We'll see what - if anything - comes out of it.

                I am done, done, done with flying economy airlines - at least for the moment. The trip east was via Kansas City and Baltimore, and westbound was punctuated by stops at Baltimore, Nashville and Las Vegas. Southwest Airlines' seating sharply defines the word 'snug' - most sharply in my lower back. The open-seating plan combined with a 'bring it all on board' attitude of the passengers makes for a very trying experience. Next time, I'll spend the extra $100 and wait for American to do their perennial east-coast special.

                Alex and I arrived home very tired and a little cranky. Airline air/pollen/god knows had conspired to make Alex feel awful and I had a grotesque incident in Vegas involving a tick that must have made its acquaintance with me back in Connecticut but somehow managed to elude detection for 2,800 miles. All I will say is that it started a headache that hasn't quit yet, four hours later, and leave it at that. Great, now I'm gonna worry about Lyme disease.
                I love Dave dearly - well, okay, I like him a lot - but man, oh man, the Aragon update could have waited until the next morning...

                Pictures, for those who are curious, will be posted soon.

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