Warning: Totally spastic and lacking-of-focus post coming, but it should have something for everyone, so whether you are into astrology, open source, podcasting, synchronicity, music, caffeine, faith, or fighting big oil, there’s something here for you!
Mercury Retrograde
What a wonderful week I just wrapped up. All in all, especially considering Mercury’s retrograde status, it was quite good. It seems we got most of the “how in hell can that have possibly broken” issues out of the way early, although we had our fair share of communications gaffs (“No, my appointment was for today… yes, today, not tomorrow… Oh you already booked someone else? Thanks.”) Now I get to start paying for a major repair to the roof overhanging main street here downtown. The joys of property ownership!
Mountain Biking
I went biking with a new biking companion on Saturday afternoon. I’d biked with her once before with my best biking budd, JT, in Rochester last month, but this time we decided to stick to an ATV trail here in Bethel. It’s one of my favorite rides in the area, with a healthy climb (up to 2.5mi straight up, if you so choose) and then some rocky, steep, slippery decents on the other end. She didn’t seem to care for the climb too much, but appreciated the downhill. I admit, I was suitably impressed on the way down, as she took the trail, for the first time, quite fearlessly and a lot faster than I did. Humbling. She’s pretty brave. Or wreckless. Or both. Regardless, having someone nearby to mountain bike with on occasion is a good thing, even if the season is winding down.
Wilbury Coffee
Last Friday, I started drinking my coffee black. It happened Friday morning. I was making a friend (whom I’m gradually getting to know better) a cup of tea and wanted a cup of coffee for myself, but there was no half-and-half! Crisis! Somehow, I knew this prior to brewing the coffee, but I did so anyway. This was the night after my crazy “lock yourself out of the house before going to dinner” evening, so I was still fairly tired. I took the first tentative sips of the inky blackness that was my cup of coffee… and liked it.
Earlier in the week, I drew the comparison that a good cup of coffee, smooth and silky, is like Roy Orbison’s voice. I’ve been listening to more Roy lately, especially as part of the Traveling Wilburys. Handle With Care and End of the Line are especially appropriate these days. Unfortunately, I confess that without the half and half, the coffee is not as smooth and silky, so I predict I will be going back for more from time to time. Like, now, for instance.
Fresh Ubuntu Podcast
Harlem released an episode of Fresh Ubuntu last week! And he did it without me, the rat!! Anyway, the news was all good. The Fresh Ubuntu podcast will be back! Now, the only question is, what does this mean for the Man Page Minutes? I suspect that I will continue to solicit input from my friends in the Ubuntu Community (and just fans of open source itself) for episodes, but not spin it off into a separte cast, for now. Despite this, I repeat, we will still want episodes from folks, so please consider submitting them and contact me for ideas if you want to see the draft episode guide.
Prayer and Positive Thinking
I’ve been giving thanks for all of the wonderful things that are happening and people that are coming (back) into my life. You are all wonderful, and I am grateful every day for the happiness you bring into my life. I was going to simply say “You know who you are,” but then I thought about it for a few minutes and… wow. There are a lot of you. So why the heck not? I’ll name some names! So I want to publicly thank David, Paul, Jamie, Wade, Regina, Reed, Peter C., Elyse, Debbie, Peter C., Karen, Melissa, Norman, Lofn, Kevin C., Matt, Lauri, Randy, Abrah, Mom & Dad, Meg, Bill, Michael, Harlem, Kent, Karen, Kathryn, Scott, Bill, Lynne, Mary, Doon, Anni, JT, Dillon, Chris, Steve, Masahiro, Mike, Ted, Todd, Leo, Stephen, Amelia, Peter C.C. , Nel, Van, Jim, Jackie, Ueshiba O Sensei, Hal, Alan, Knightwise, Wanda, Sue, Christi, Michael S.,?and Richard. I’m sure I missed some but still… wow. The way you folks have been pouring out the love is so amazingly moving.
Wood
What’s wood going for these days? I’ve heard it’s ranging from $250-300/cord. Yow. Still, it’s probably cheaper than oil. I’ve recently switched to small space heaters from time to time here in my building. No sense heating thousands of square feet when I only need a couple hundred that I’m in to be warm, right? On that note, a friend invited me over to her house this Saturday… to stack wood. I described it to another friend as somewhat premature. You know, it’s like a friend asking you to help move… a body. “Uh… yeah, I’m really booked Saturday… I need to… uh… study. Yeah. Auditing. Oh no, I can’t take a break from that. It’s really got me hooked. Uh-huh. So maybe next week?“
The personal blog of Peter Nikolaidis