Posts with mood refreshed (6)
crappy -> less crappy
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2008-05-05 13:34:00
Tags: health
Words: 123
This last week hasn't been so great. The back pain I mentioned earlier did not go away even after sleeping on super-bed. (the good news is maybe this doesn't mean I'm becoming a mattress snob but actually hurt my back somehow) Thank God for Advil, the wonder drug that I only thought to take after a few days of fairly excruciating pain. Yesterday was the first day I went without one, and some combination of my back getting better and doing some simple back stretches meant it wasn't so bad.
Allergies have been bad too presumably because of the shifting weather. A little Sudafed now and then has helped, but it might be leading to the general fatigue and blahness I've been feeling.
Travis County Democratic Convention
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2008-03-30 11:41:00
Tags: essay politics
Words: 892
At our precinct convention, I signed up to be an Obama delegate at the county convention, which took place on Saturday.
Our precinct group had a strategy meeting on Thursday that I was unable to attend. Since we were ahead 36-17 in delegates and our precinct sent 4 delegates to the state convention, we selected among ourselves who we wanted to go and then allocated our votes to make sure we got 3 delegates (3 people got 10 votes, and the leftovers voted for alternates). The math is kinda interesting - I'm sure there's a formula/procedure to determine the optimal strategy.
Anyway, I had gotten calls before to make sure I'd be attending, and an organizer even stopped by the house so I could sign a form designating an alternate in case something happened and I couldn't make it. And after I woke up bright and early at 7:30 I got a call making sure I was on my way :-)
Stopped to get breakfast and pick up wildrice13, who was also an Obama delegate (in a different precinct) and headed down to the Travis County Expo Center which turned out to be not particularly close to here (it's near the airport). At around 9:00 we turned on to Decker Lane and quickly got in a very long line of cars.
Twenty minutes go by and we haven't moved a whole lot, and we can't even see the Expo Center (it's a hilly road), but some cars are parking in an elementary school parking lot and walking, which seems like a good idea so we follow suit. The walk wasn't too bad, maybe .75 of a mile.
When we finally arrive at the hall there are two really long lines and lots of people with signs with precinct numbers. We find our right line (it's 9:30 by this point) and wait. And wait. And wait. The line is moving really slowly and someone in front of us says it's a gigantic mess at the front, which is pretty easy to believe. Someone comes by to assure us that even though sign in ends at 10, they're extending it to count us all, which is good.
Make it to the front after an hour and there are different windows for different groups of precincts but there's little space to form lines so it is all in fact a mess. wildrice13 finds his window and I find mine and we eventually get in.
The place is packed and I find my seat. They're just getting started, luckily, so they do the pledge of allegiance and national anthem and it opens with Lloyd Doggett talking about unity (a major theme of the day), that no matter who our nominee is we need to support him/her over McCain. Shortly after that, the convention chair told us that the speeches were basically killing time for the credentials committee to process all the challenges to delegates, and that after that was done we could do the voting for the state delegates.
Lots of other people spoke throughout the day - Larry Joe Doherty (candidate for the 10th congressional district) pointed out that more people voted in the Democratic primary in district 10 than did for Michael McCaul (current representative) in 2004, which is pretty neat. And although everyone talked about unity, the ones who had endorsed (mostly for Obama) would say "Now, while I do support Obama" followed by lots of loud cheering by the Obama people, then a call for unity followed by more muted cheering by everyone. Sometimes they'd talk about George W. Bush or less commonly Tom Craddick and Tom DeLay. Then we got to boo!
During the speeches, I paid attention some, read some, chatted some with people around me, got food from the concessions stand. (overpriced, of course) Eventually Terry McAuliffe (!) came out to speak for Hillary and Ron Kirk spoke for Obama. That was neat.
Finally the credentials committee and rules committee reported for both districts (most challenges of delegates were rejected, with the notable exception of a Republican precinct chair!) and then people had to vote for district officers. In the other district (25) only one person ran for chairman and secretary, but in ours we had 4 run for chairman and around 6 for secretary. I was worried we would have to all vote somehow, but the guy was clever. For chairman we voted by voice vote and it was clear who the winner was. For secretary two candidates got about the same, but the chairman made a motion to make them co-secretaries. Genius!
Shortly thereafter, we voted. As planned, we voted 10-10-10-6-1 ish. The Clinton people voted 9-8 so they only got one alternate; if they had voted 9-5-3-1 or something they could have had two, I think. There was more business after that (resolutions and stuff) but wildrice13 and I left since it was already 4:30. The people who stayed said the convention was adjourned at 11:15, so I'm really glad we didn't stay until the end!
I have some pictures up, as does one of the other delegates. Burnt Orange Report shows Obama up by 11% or so throughout Texas, and Travis County went for Obama 383-184. Here's the CNN story.
Then I drove to San Antonio and got back at 12:30. Then I hottubbed. It was a long day.
less crazy = good
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2008-02-20 14:32:00
Tags: computer
Words: 57
I'm feeling much less filled with rage today, thanks for asking. Apple will replace my MacBook Pro keyboard for $150, which isn't bad, and Lowe's will give us the price on installation they said they would. Still don't know how to fix this bug but at least I got some advice this morning. Things are looking up.
good times, people
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2005-12-19 11:41:00
Tags: pictures
Words: 125
So we had a Christmas get-together last night, and thanks to being reunited with my camera after stupidly leaving it at Britton and Liz's place, pictures of the event are available at my gallery. Power Grid was played, as well as video games, and there were cookies and pizza and cake (not in that order!). I had a good time, and I hope everyone else did too!
Today is a shopping day. Luckily djedi and I know mostly what we're going to get, so after we drop wildrice13 off at the airport, we'll go do that. Woohoo!
If you like conspiracy theories, or you're interested in Chapelle's Show and why it went off the air, read that article. Don't know if it's true, but yikes.
good wicked weekend
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2005-11-07 09:41:00
Tags: baseball baseballstats
Words: 680
So I had a good weekend. The plan for the weekend was to see "Wicked" in Houston on Friday, visit Vickie and Mae-Mae (sp?) (some kids that David homeschooled a while ago) on Saturday, and go to the Renaissance Festival on Sunday. Mission accomplished!
Friday - Unfortunately the show was at 8:00 so we decided to leave Austin by 3:30 to make sure we got there on time (and we could meet up with abstractseaweed and Leigh Ann and carpool). This meant I had to leave work at 3, which would have maybe been OK except that I was kinda in the middle of debugging something important with someone else and I had to 'fess up I was leaving early, at which he was not terribly pleased. (the good news is that the problem turned out to be nothing) Anyway, so djedi and wildrice13 and I drove down there, and all was going well until we stopped on 290 for an hour and 15 minutes (there was apparently an accident a few miles ahead). So we turned off the car, switched drivers, got out, etc. Which was OK, except now we were worried about making the show. After traffic started moving again, I was driving as fast as I could while still being safe. We stopped at Wendy's to grab dinner and eat it on the way. Note to self: if you have to eat in the car while driving, don't get a hamburger! Get chicken nuggets or something.
Anyway, we made it to the show skipping both of our planned stops (abstractseaweed ended up not coming) and made it with 10 minutes to spare. The show was quite good - djedi and I had only listened to the soundtrack, so we had a basic idea of the story, but we missed a lot of important points!
- Who Nessa was - she's referenced in a few songs, but she turns out to be pretty important.
- Elphaba's mother cheated on her father, not the other way around. In retrospect, this should have been painfully obvious.
- The bit in "Dancing Through Life" where Glinda tells Elphaba that she and this hat "deserve each other". Hah!
- Boq is pretty mean/evil, it turns out.
- Glinda and Elphaba are friends at the end.
- The ending is actually surprisingly happy from what I expected. It was a little too happy for me at first, but I guess it's OK.
Anyway, the singing was top-notch (although there was a time or two where there should have been a "moment" between the singers and the orchestra that was a little out of sync) - even the random chorus members had fabulous voices. I really liked the "As Long As You're Mine" song between Elphaba and Fiero...they both had especially nice voices. The lighting was very well done - lots of colors and patterns and whatnot to really set the mood of particular scenes.
Anyway, enough about that. It was very good, and I was reminded that I should get into more musicals (and thanks to onefishclappin for giving the "Wicked" soundtrack to djedi :-) )
Saturday - We slept late and watched "Eulogy", which was pretty good although a bit weird. We then met Vickie and Mae-Mae at the Cheesecake Factory in Sugarland - unfortunately I had eaten a lot at lunch so I wasn't too hungry, but still managed to split a piece of cheesecake with djedi. Mmm! Anyway, they're cute kids, and I got a couple pictures that I'll put up sometime this week.
Sunday - Went to church, picked up wildrice13 and headed out to the Renaissance Festival, which is a good hour and a half away from Houston. By the time we got there we were starving for lunch, so we ate, saw a few shows (including the Ded Bob Show, always a classic) and walked around a lot. Unfortunately, it was very warm, so we left a little early and headed back to Austin.
That's about it. I wrote a baseball Win Expectancy grapher that uses the probabilities from my Win Expectancy finder, so I'm probably about done with that project for now.
Animal Kingdom/Pleasure Island recap
Mood: refreshed
Posted on 2005-06-03 11:55:00
Tags: disneyworld
Words: 674
So, Thursday was the day for Animal Kingdom (which none of us had been to) and Pleasure Island. But first, Animal Kingdom!
We got out the door pretty on time, and made our way via shuttle to the Animal Kingdom. We spent the first bit of time in Africa, walking through a kinda nature trail with animal exhibits - saw gorillas, pelicans, and all sorts of good stuff (and I got some good pictures!) The other main thing to do in Africa was a safari, which was a ride that took us through a big savannah and stuff (driven by a cast member on the open road) - got los more good pictures there. After that, lunchtime! (mmm, I'm hungry now) So we ate at the Rainforest Cafe, which had a neat ambience, but the food was just OK, and gave my stomach problems later. *shrug* We then explored Asia and saw a few random things (a bird show), then left on the earlyish side.
I don't like zoos as a rule (although a show on the Disney Information Channel we saw a few days ago declared that the Animal Kingdom was "Nahtazu"...ha ha ha), but this wasn't bad. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other parks, but I did enjoy it more than I expected. Although it was a lot of walking, and we were pretty tired by this point.
So we came back to the hotel, relaxed for a bit, then went over to Seasons 52 for dinner. Still good, although the menu hadn't changed as much as I had kinda thought it would. Anyway, after that we went to Downtown Disney, spent a little time there and then headed to Pleasure Island.
Pleasure Island, if you've never heard of it (me!), is an "adult" part of Downtown Disney that has clubs, outdoor music, and things like that. Thursday night was the official Gay Days night at Pleasure Island, and boy could you tell! (we saw some gay couples/people at Animal Kingdom, but nothing compared to this) The official club of Gay Days had a huge line in front of it (and they got filled to capacity pretty quickly, so we didn't get in), and there were lots of clearly gay men in line (and occasionally lesbians, too, but that's harder to tell because it's more socially acceptable for straight girls to hang on each other, be touchy-feely, etc. than it is for guys). Even outside they were playing lots of "gay music" ("I Will Survive", "I'm Coming Out", things by Cher, theme to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", etc.). So wildrice13 had been to the comedy club before and said it was pretty good, but we just missed a showing, so we wandered around for a while waiting for the 10:30 show. By the time we left the club we were in to get in line, Gay Days people were starting to come in and whatnot (since no one could get in to the official club). The comedy show was pretty good (it was an improv show, which are always interesting), and one of the performers clearly knew it was Gay Days and kept making jokes/innuendos, etc. to great applause from the audience :-) After that we went back to the club we had been in, and it was quite full, lots of gays and straights dancing, which was a pretty neat sight to see. djedi and I danced for a little while, then went home a little early (well, by that I mean 1 AM) because we were really exhausted.
This morning djedi and I got up (the others stayed out later and so slept in) and got to play a round of golf at Pirate's Cove (like we had tried to do Wednesday) befor it started sprinkling and stuff, like it's doing now. It's supposed to rain in the afternoon, but we'll see. There are some Gay Days related activities we're gonna do this afternoon (pool party, comedy show, some sort of expo), so we'll see how that goes.
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