Up To Date

I finally tore open my copy of Final Fantasy XIII over the weekend.  I’ve been waiting for this game for a while now, eager in my anticipation, ready for an excellent story and classic RPG experience.  So far, the game has been more than beautiful, and the HD viewing makes it even more eye-pleasing.  I only had time to play for about and hour-and-a-half, so I didn’t really get very far into the Exposition, but the plot seems like it will be grandiose.  The only negative thing (besides the occasional eye-rolling cheesiness) has been the voice acting/ character development of Vanille.  She’s quickly getting on my nerves.  Other than that, so far so good.  Now, if I can only find time to play the game…

I also started two new books over the weekend.  Coming off the dark, grittiness of Best Served Cold, I wanted to read something different.  Why You Say It, provided to me by Thomas Nelson Publishing House, traces the history to over 600 common everyday words and phrases, and it’s definitely a different type of reading for me.  The other, The Good Thief, has been on my TBR pile for a while.  Neither are in the typical genre I read, but I’m ready for a break.

The Sunday School class had a board game night on Saturday.  Several of us got together and ate and played a few games.  Good fellowship.  Great food.  Excellent time.  Then, on Sunday morning, we started a new study (which I think I mentioned a week or so ago) called Forgotten God, a book by Francis Chan.  One chapter in and I’m already hit hard.  Should be a challenging book.

I started a new regime today.  I normally get up near 7:00am, which gives me the amount of time to get ready and commute to work.  Today, I set my alarm for 6:16am.  I rearranged our study over the weekend, pulling the desk closer to the window and moving some bookshelves around.  Now, in the mornings, I fully intend on reading and studying Scripture before I head off to work.  I’ve sadly been neglecting the Bible for a while, reading only a verse or two each day (RSS Feeds!) as opposed to reading and meditating on a passage.  I pray that I’ll glean from this and get closer to God.

My boss is on vacation all week, which worked out great for me taking off early on Wednesday to go see Pat Rothfuss.  I didn’t realize it until last night, but Wednesday is St. Patrick’s day.  Pat has mentioned on the Facebook event page that he might do something special for this reading.  Heck, maybe he celebrates it for a completely different reason, as he shares the name with the Irish (?) saint.  To me it’s just another day, but not this year.  No sirree.  But I need to think of some sort of memento to bring and give him.

I’ve been listening to a lot of harder music here lately.  Mainly Coheed & Cambria.  As some of you know, I usually listen to folk or bluegrass or acoustic music, stuff that’s mostly soft and simple.  C&C, on the other hand, is really pretty heavy.  They’re a prog-rock band telling a complex narrative through concept albums, with titles like The Second Stage Turbine Blade, In Keeping the Secrets of Silent Earth or Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol One: From Fear through the Eyes of Madness.  It’s hard for me to follow or understand the story, but it’s interesting and surprisingly entertaining.  You can check out one of their more famous songs here or here.  These videos are silly, and the lead singer, Claudio Sanchez, definitely doesn’t match his voice.  Good songs, though.

I’m not entirely sure how to manage my layers with MicroStation.  I have my USGS Quad map on one scale.  I have my different contour layer on another, which is matched and scaled differently, anchored to a certain point location.  Getting the two aligned is proving more difficult than it should be.

Sophie and Stella are getting along better, though there’s still a way to go. 

A Daily Dose of Aimlessness; A Taste of Things to Come

First—the taste!  Oh sweet, sweet taste, like a warm and gooey Pop-Tart® on an oatmeal-less morning.  Like Sarah McLachlan fumbling towards ecstasy, only to find that it’s not really Sarah McLachlan or ecstasy, but the Great Somnambulist eating a warm and gooey Pop-Tart®.  Finally the long wait draws near an end.  Soon, oh so soon, does it begin anew, afresh, again.  I’m talking about Lost’s final season, folks, and I think it’s obvious I’m excited.

Here on Rememorandom I’ll likely be postulating my theories on each episode.  For those of you that read my blog and don’t like Lost, you’ll likely not read these posts, and that’s fine by me.  I’d rather you not than have the greatest show on television ruined for you.  For those of you that watch Lost religiously, like I do—where you demand absolute silence, high-definition, crisp audio, a bag of popcorn, a comfy seat, a beautiful spouse, and a wonderful puppy—then I hope you find it in your heart to postulate with me.

That’s the beauty of Lost.  The fandom is huge.  The enthusiasm of the fans is overwhelming.  The creativity of the fans is inspiring and wonderful.  Check out The Lost Underground Art Show if you want to see some awesome fan art, which was commissioned by Lost’s producers.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (Is that an acceptable transitional phrase?)  I went to the gas station yesterday and bought a pop.  The lady in front of me bought a lottery ticket.  She won $500.  The cashier gave her 25 $20 bills.  The winner, an elderly lady, didn’t look very excited.  If I’d’ve been her, I probably would’ve been jumping around the gas station like an excited bunny rabbit, glad to be emancipated from the vile clutches of the Evil Cage.  But she didn’t seem like she cared.  I cared.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (Uh?)  I got my guitar fixed.  For free.  I took it to a different shop and the guy looked at it, fiddled with it, turned some knobs, plugged it up, and it worked.  He said dust was likely the culprit.  And to think, the local guy wanted to charge me $50 just for looking at it.  Sheesh.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (I still don’t know if that’s an ok transy phrase.)  My love affair with parentheses (totally the coolest of all punctuation marks) will never end.  (Why should it?  Supplemental, useless information is always welcome here.)

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  (I don’t care.  It’s a great transition.)  I did something last weekend that I haven’t done since The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which was 2006.  I reserved a video game.  Final Fantasy XIII.  The game looks beautiful.  And it’s enormous.  And it’s Final Fantasy.  I bought XII but I’ve never had time to sit down and play it.  One day, hopefully.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to playing the game.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  Jai guru deva om.  Nothing’s gonna change my world.  I finished Firefly last night.  So sad.  I know I’ve already said it, but I can’t see why the show was canned (other than Fox’s horrible choices of airing episodes out of order, among other things).  Each character was memorable and intriguing.  There was humor.  There was camaraderie.  There was a vast universe to explore and a load of story to uncover, but it all vanished.  There’s nothing to do about it now except watch Serenity and hope it wraps up some of the loose ends.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  I took the test to get on Jeopardy last night.  I made homemade shrimp scampi, which wasn’t the best ever, but definitely not the worst, either.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!  Goodbye JD Salinger.  Thanks for making a great and inspiring novel.  Catcher didn’t have a huge impact on me, like it did so many others, but it did help some world-view thoughts start a-churning in the head.  And reading it as a teenager was perfect.

Hoist up the John B. Sail!

A New Phase of Life

Today starts a new phase in my life. My wife begins her final semester of actual classes at UofL, as next semester she'll be student-teaching and won't be in lecture. Unfortunately, Stewartland is located 120 miles from Louisville, and Keisha will be commuting a few days per week to class. This is a two hour drive and a time change, meaning that if she leaves at 10 am she'll arrive in Louisville around 1 pm or so. Yuck. Neither Keisha or myself are thrilled about this, but it's what we have and we're confident this semester'll go by quickly.

I pray that she'll be safe on the roads and while in Louisville. There are aspects of city life that I like, like the conveniently located stores/attractions, and the many things to do. But there is the darker side of the city, too, that exists, where laws are broken and danger resides. I'm not worried that anything will happen, but just for some security, I plan on buying some mace for Keisha to carry with her.

The question arises, then, what will I do with myself without my best friend around?

1. Final Fantasy XII. I've had this game for about a year or so, but I've not played it yet. It got great reviews, and looks promising. Plus, I haven't played a FF game in a while (granted I did play FF7 last year some, finally getting around to beating Emerald and Ruby and maxing out some materia), so I'm looking forward to this. (This FF7 file that I worked on ages back to when I was a junior or sophomore in high school. That's about 8 years or so. Such an old game, but still so awesome.)

2. Avatar: The Last Airbender. This has been recommended to me, and my pal let me borrow Season 1, so I'll watch it.

3. Finish the table project. A few months ago, before we owned Stewartland, we knew that we'd need a kitchen table to match our new kitchen. The table we had was given to us from my parents, and we really liked it, but it was a white ash color and had many scratches and nicks from the years of use. So, being fans of HGTV, and being strapped for cash, we decided to refinish the table. This involved stripping off the layers of polyurethane, sanding down the table, staining the table a new dark mahogany color, and reapplying polyurethane. On HGTV this project can be done within an hour. In real life, after a month of working on it, we refinished the table and two chairs, and most of the table leaf. Then we moved in to our house and haven't worked on it since. There are still 4 chairs to finish and the leaf, so I'll have my hands busy with this.

4. Learning to cook better. I know how to cook, and I enjoy it (when I have nothing else to do), so I'm looking forward to this one a bit. I particularly want to master cheese cakes and soups.

5. Adam Graham. One of my best friends from high school may be spending some time with me this fall, and I'm looking forward to that.

6. Finish unpacking, etc. Aye, our house still is home to many unpacked boxes and various other things that need to be sorted/trashed. Hopefully I'll get this taken care of soon.

7. Write. This one may be one I'll have to find time for, but I'll definitely find time. I'm going to stick with the current story I'm working on and try to actually come up with a finished product.

There are many things that I'll have to occupy my time with, and hopefully this will be a productive semester for me while I'm without Keisha. She'll be driving on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, racking up around 500 miles or so per week. I know she'll be exhausted when she gets home, and she'll have homework to do, so I'll try to do as much as I can to help her.

It promises to be an interesting, eventful semester, most likely full and busy. Wish us luck, or, if you feel inclined, pray that we'll make it through with few problems and that Keisha'll stay safe on the roads.

---+---

Song Lyric: "I awake to find no peace of mind, I said how do you live as a fugitive?"--Coldplay, Spies