Things have been a bit hectic around here the last couple of weeks, partly because we went to Walt Disney World for five days last week to celebrate Victor's fifth birthday. I'll go into more detail on that later (unless sulinpanda beats me to it), but one effect is that we have not had a chance to send out Christmas cards. Apologies for that...

We're doing the traditional family get-togethers and such today, so I'll leave you with a tradition of my own : Christmas song lyrics. This one's from halioffirpine, better known as Matthew Ebel, from the High Orbit Holiday Special. Trust me, if you haven't heard this album, follow the link and grab it; you won't regret it. :)

Merry Christmas from Cell Block 2

Music and Lyrics © Matthew Ebel Entertainment

We know that it’s that time of year when families come together
to sing and laugh and eat too much and gripe about the weather.
It’s Christmas, but I’m sad to say we’re in a situation;
we can’t come home until the end of our incarceration.

(Alien gibberish)

We’re far from family but still the locals treat us kindly.
The guards are cheerful even though they’re ordered to confine me.
The aliens across from us got nicked for snowball fighting,
they made us earwax candles to provide some festive lighting.

In this cozy prison cell, from all the inmates and my crew,
merry Christmas from cell block two.
Merry Christmas from cell block two.

Who stole baby Jesus from Oog’s nativity set, huh?

The mobsters down in cell block one sent us a pile of fishes
and someone swiped the warden’s credit card to buy us dishes.
We tried to start some caroling but no one dared to sing.
We asked what Santa Claus looked like but no one saw a thing.

Our Yule log was courtesy of Blarg who’s in for arson,
although he swears his crime’s impersonation of a parson.
Our neighbor’s from a distant world, he’s serving 10-20.
He gifted us a shiv to cut the cake ’cause he’s got plenty.

We know we won’t be here for long-
like everyone that’s in here, we did nothing wrong.
We hope that we’ll be out before it gets too late,
but in or out we plan to celebrate.

We made nog in our commode but no one wants to drink it.
(I guess we could’ve used the sink but no one thought to think it.)
We had a tree with ornaments and tinsel colored gold
but yesterday it disappeared, they say it made parole…

from this cozy prison cell, from all the inmates and my crew,
merry Christmas from cell block two.
Merry Christmastime from all of us to all of you…

Hey, #4255, keep it down in there!
(Sorry!)

…Merry Christmas from cell block two.

Rick Sanchez at CNN tells it like it is... :)



Folks on Facebook can go here.

<tarzan> LeeEEEeee...viiiis! </tarzan>

( ...with two examples for the price of one! :) )

So, one of the questions I got over the weekend was, "How does it feel not being the chairman this year?". Thinking about it, that really requires a two-part answer. Prior to the con, there was less stress than with the past seven conventions. Once I got on-site and into the flow of things? Ehh, not much of a difference. :D

Really, looking back, I did a lot of the con-ops kinda stuff in past years, so sliding over and playing operations director wasn't all that much different. Checking on rooms, helping with set ups, wrangling volunteers as I could (and thanks to the four of you who were on-call this year - cryptowolf, rejax, Paradox, and rukario), checking in with mach on security and gen in the dealer's room every so often...it was a lot of running around and helping make sure things were running smoothly. I also helped out at Registration some, kept programming info up to date on the easels outside the event rooms, and tweeted like crazy on our @Megaplex_Con Twitter channel. (Note to self, brush up on spelling when tweeting. ;)

We're planning on having a more formal con ops location (in fact, we found a good location by chance - it was rasvar's room this year... :), and I hope to be able to delegate a little more as we go along, but I think I've found my niche for the time being.

Besides, yappyfox and kuddlepup tag-teaming the chairman stuff worked brilliantly, as far as I'm concerned. :)

This year was a great experience. We went into it with some trepidation - we were later in the year (and the next con after Anthrocon), we were back in the Orlando metro area, at the fifth hotel in our history - but our membership expanded dramatically (from 255 to 425), there were no major issues with our attendees, and everyone appeared to enjoy the theme, the events, and all the extras that makes Megaplex what it is.

Favourite points :

* Matthew Ebel simply ROCKS. Never mind the concert, which was superb, but then he turns around 30-45 minutes later and does a spot-on Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror. The man is a freak of nature. :D

* Speaking of Rocky Horror, another fine job from the whole cast this year. My voice is still a little hoarse from all the callbacks. :)

* Uncle Kage's Story Hour is always entertaining, and often educational. For example, we now know what the German phrase 'Verpiss dich!' means. That wound up being something of a meme for the rest of the con. :D

* WTF Theater. This show is a lot of fun, and terrymouse and the crew were especially hilarious this go around. A great way to close out formal programming.

All in all, it was a great, wonderful, bloody exhausting weekend, and I'm looking forward to see what we come up with to spring on our members next year, when we're running with a "Mad Science" theme. Right now, though, I'm waiting for my legs to quit going "what the HELL were you THINKING?!?", and I see early bedtime in my future tonight... :)

(You can follow me on there as Carl_Fox, BTW...)

* An overview of the same-sex marriage debate, in flowchart form. Nice. :)

* Vegan vs Carnivore. Speaking as someone who likes a good slab o' steak now and again...Win! :D

* Speaking of meat : gen found canned bacon, ready to eat. Handy, that. :)

I've been a slacker with keeping up with the journal lately; I'll have to review my mental notes and post something more substantial later. In the meantime...

I hadn't made a batch of chili in a while, so I picked up some ingredients yesterday, and tossed the lot in my Crock Pot this morning. Since my recipe changes from batch to batch (which is half the fun, of course :), ( I thought I'd make a note of it here )

sulinpanda and Victor have gone out for the afternoon, so I get a nice, quiet day at home as a Father's Day present. Considering how busy the kid tends to be on the weekends, I'll take whatever quiet days I can get! :D Marti also got me one of those gamer chairs with the built-in speakers...pretty nice. :)

Victor's been getting in a bit of trouble at day care this past week...basically, it's just a case of a four-year-old acting (physically, at times) before he thinks, and they seem to come later in the day. Still, that's not how we want him to act, so he's been losing toys and privileges every time he comes home with a note.

I don't think it'll get to the point it did when he was in day care the last time; he has shown signs that he understands that what he's doing is wrong (including asking the teacher not to write him up in at least one situation), but he has to learn to think about what he's doing, and about others' feelings.

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Outside of that, it was a fairly decent week, topped off by attending (remotely, thanks to UStream) the wedding of lynxkitten and roninotter. The ceremony was lovely, and there were some funny bits that came out of the reception afterward...and I must admit, getting the entire room to groan at a bad pun from 72 miles away was kinda neat. :D

Seriously, congratulations to the bride and groom; we'll have to get together at Megaplex for a meal and do the married-couples-comparing-notes thing. :)

Got some info today from the doctor; looks like I've been dealing with a staph infection, and one caused by a bunch of resistant little buggers (e.g. MRSA). Some tests came back saying that the Keflex I've been taking is one of the antibiotics the germs are resistant to, so now I'm on my third antibiotic in as many weeks, this time a sulfa. Yay, me.

Fortunately, I don't think the Keflex did me any harm, either; I've been fever free for the past week, and feeling pretty good for the most part. Let's hope this is more precaution, and not anything more serious...

Nothing like starting the month off with a medical problem...turns out the fever I was dealing with at the end of April was being caused by an infection. I'll spare you the yucky specifics, but Friday before last, I had a minor procedure done to clean out the infected area, and I've been on antibiotics since then. The fever went away almost immediately after the procedure, though, and I haven't had any problems since, so all's well...

I hate being sick, though, especially when I had a road trip coming up (that worked out, though; the need for the road trip has been resolved, at least temporarily). And, considering how close to the vest we're playing with financially at the moment, spending money on doctor's visits did not help matters. *Sigh*

Outside of taking a day off on Wednesday, the past week was pretty normal. The weekend's been a bit tiring, since I've had Victor by myself for a good part, but we did take sulinpanda out for dinner last night, and we're all going over to my mom's tonight for Mother's Day.

It went and got hot this weekend. Yep, it's May in Florida. :)

More later.

I'm feeling rather bleah right now; came down with the chills, and was running a 101-degree fever, so either I really overdid it over the weekend, or I've got a bug. (...and just for the record, I haven't been south of the border lately, so no, the bug probably doesn't oink.) I'm not nauseous, which is good, so I think I'll just keep drinking water and stay bundled up.

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I worked on the front yard on Saturday, including raking up some areas that I hadn't raked in a long time...and boy, was I tired after that...took a brief nap, then watched the first couple of rounds of the NFL Draft while downing fluids.

For our anniversary Sunday, sulinpanda and I went to Gold Head Branch State Park, down the way on State Road 21, and had a picnic near the swimming beach. Then, we walked down into the ravine and took the short trail to the headwaters of Gold Head, which is a seepage spring. Very pretty scenery, although the steps down we're pretty steep (and climbing them was an adventure in itself...).

After coming home and taking a brief rest, we went out to Kan-Ki for teppanyaki, then to Ben & Jerry's for dessert. Yum and yum! :)

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Time to rest and get some more water. Hopefully, I'll feel better in the morning...

A bit partisan, perhaps, but funny! :)

Let's see, what's been going on since my birthday...?

The additional repairs on the car did my bank account no favours, so I've been having to walk a fine line with the finances...and I know I'm not the only one dealing with that sort of thing, especially right now, but I had managed to get a fair amount saved away, and was putting a dent in my remaining credit card balance, and then car go chugga-chugga-chugga, right at the same time as Victor was going back in day care...

*Sigh* Hey, if I can't bitch in my own journal, where can I? :)

We've been dealing with spring colds the last few weeks, including fevers and pinkeye for the sprog...he's had a few days he's had to stay home (including missing one week a while back). I'm hoping that he can get over this stuff so he doesn't miss any more time.

My appraisal went well. Still don't know how much I'll get for a merit increase...

Had to go to the doctor last week for something rather worrisome, but ultimately minor. I'll spare you the gruesome details...I did get some more information on some blood work the doctor did a while back. My triglycerides were through the roof, so I need to cut waaay back on the fatty stuff, and avoid sugar more than I already do, to try and get that down. This is going to be something of a fight...most of the stuff I like is probably not good for me. :)

Other than that, it's been pretty quiet on the home front.

...you have to have a scorecard! (Fortunately, LJ does. :)

So, happy belated to tchall and rasvar (yesterday, 3/16)...

happy birthday today (3/17) to nerfcoyote, lyenuv, and galish...

happy birthday tomorrow (3/18) to shalanna and...well, yours truly :)

...and happy birthday on Thursday (3/19) to toraneko.

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sulinpanda and I took the day off today for my birthday, since we already had to take time off for a routine doctor's visit for Victor. After that, and dropping him off at day care, we came home and just relaxed for most of the rest of the day, with a trip to the Mellow Mushroom nearby for lunch.

...Trip to the Mellow Mushroom...hmm, that could be taken in so many ways... :D

I am, of course, referring to the pizza joint. Very tasty stuff.

Marti got me a little ice cream cake this evening, to top things off. Yay! :)

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I haven't had a chance to follow up on more of the home improvement stuff I picked up at the time of the last post. The weather's warming up, so I need to get those fans into place eventually...

Victor did well in his first week at the new day care, but came down with a fever earlier this week, so he wound up staying home again. It appears to have just been a cold, and he's pretty well shaken it now (although not without giving it to sulinpanda, who wound up staying home Friday...sounds like something's been going around.

I got a new cell phone this week, to replace my Sync (which did yeoman service, but was difficult to text/surf on at times). I replaced it with the Samsung Eternity; I like the touch-screen interface and the big screen, never mind the QWERTY keyboard. It isn't a full PDA 'smartphone', like Marti's HTC Touch Pro/Fuze, but where she was looking for a PDA she could make phone calls on, I was looking for a phone I could easily text and surf the web on, and we each have what we wanted now. :)

I had to take the car in for service yesterday; the catalytic converter went on the fritz, and the engine was chug-a-lugging all over the place. $1000 later...it's better, but not quite back in tune at low speeds, so I probably will go back Monday. Gotta keep the car running...can't afford payments right now on a new one...

Today, I wanted to take Victor swimming, but the aquatic center up at what used to be Cecil Field was closed for a swim meet, so we wound up going to the big playground at Clarke House on Kingsley Avenue. The kid enjoyed himself, including flirting with some of the moms/grandmoms of the other kids. Lovely, four years old, and he's already showing a preference for older women... :D

So, next week, we have a day off on St. Patty's (partially to take the sprog to the ENT), then Wednesday I get one step closer to being over the hill. Should be a fun week, I hope. :)

Shorter updates on Twitter ("Carl_Fox") as they happen; more here when I have enough for a full post. (Watch my Facebook, and you'll see posts from both sources. Ah, technology. :)

So, let's see...

1) Caulked up some cracks in the master bath. That was the easier part of the day...

2) Went to Home Depot, and used part of our tax return to pick up a few things, including four new ceiling fans (for the rooms without, including the kitchen). Price tag, $330 or so.

3) Got home, changed out all of the globe lights in the bathrooms to CFL's. They're 60-Watts equivalents, so both bathrooms are much brighter now. That was the easy job...

4) Next, I scraped the old weatherstripping off the front door, applied new stripping. Which, at points, doesn't want to adhere to the door (some of that was my fault; I didn't get all of the Desolv-It I had used on the old foam stripping off completely...). Managed to cut myself with the putty knife I was using, as well. Every time, there's a flesh wound...

4)Took down the bathroom door in the hall bathroom, removed the old hinges (by brute force and a pair of vice-grips, in one case). Put on new hinges. Had to adjust the moulding around the door frame to get the door to close. sulinpanda and I are of the opinion that door is just funky anyway. My younger brother is a carpenter, so I may check with him for his opinion on it.

5) Installed a barrel bolt on the back door, to keep little people from using it as a possible egress. That went fairly smoothly, although after fighting with that bathroom door, I was exhausted.

6) Sunday afternoon, had to play 'Whose Circuit Breaker is It, Anyway?' to find the one for the bathroom (oddly, it's the same as for the kitchen lights, as opposed to, say, the adjacent bedroom. Went to change out the light switches; found them daisy-chained together in some weird manner, so I left them alone for now. I did change the ceiling fixture to a nicer one (that takes CFLs properly), although I killed my arms in the process; I definitely need a higher ladder...

7) Took some RustAid to the toilets, sinks, and our shower stall, all of which had gotten a fairly icky red-brown hue from the well water. I didn't think we had that much iron in the water, but...anyway, that stuff worked wonders. Marti was very impressed by how clean things looked when you got off the nastier stuff.

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Not a bad weekend's work...and I even got in some playtime with Victor, too, though not as much as I'm sure he would have liked...

So, I have a few more fixtures and ceiling fans to put up, and then I can find the next home improvement task to hurt myself on tackle with gusto. :)

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So, I'm messing about on Twitter now ("Carl_Fox"), which in turn is updating my Facebook, which in turn gets "Notes" updated from an RSS feed of these journal entries. Everything gets interwoven, no?

Right, back to work tomorrow, and the new month's coming up fast...

...finished a 90-person No Limit Hold 'em tourney on Full Tilt Poker, and came in second. Got suckered into an all-in with two pair, but I did have the lead at one point. Looks like I need more practice. :) However, I'm pretty proud of how I did; Hold 'em isn't my strongest game (I tend to do better at Stud Hi), and No Limit more so.

(...and no, I wasn't playing real money. It would have been nice to get the $4000 or so in real currency instead of play money, though... :)

Anyway, this weekend looks to be a "honey-do" type of weekend, and most likely will involve electrical work, sawing larger holes in my walls, and fixing at least one door. I get the feeling Home Depot might know me by name if I get everything done to this house I'd like to... :)

First things first...

I've been reading about Furp and his untimely passing on the Friends list. I'm sad to say that I don't recall ever meeting him, and after reading some of the testimonials his friends are sharing about him, I certainly would have liked to. My condolences to his friends and family.

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So, let's see...yesterday, sulinpanda and I went to our doctor's, she to check on a sore thumb (just a sprain, fortunately), and I to get some blood work done that I've been slacking on for a few months. Fairly uneventful (I'm not terribly squeamish about getting blood drawn, and my veins tend to cooperate so I don't get stuck more than once), at least until the tests come back and I find out just how unhealthy I am. :P

On to today; Marti had a dentist appointment, and we also needed to take Victor for a checkup so his paperwork is in order for his return to day care. Victor was taking the whole 'OMG Drama!' thing to high levels afterwards; for instance, we drove by a Dairy Queen - didn't go in, just drove by it - and I get assailed with 'WAAAHIWantIceCreamIWantIceCreamWAAAH' for a good 15 minutes...while I'm driving to pick Marti back up. Ah, the joys of parenting...

The rest of the day had skirmishes along those lines, and between that, trying to work from home, and my sinuses acting up again, I'm fairly well bushed. Fortunately, I only have one more Thursday before he goes back to school, and hopefully he'll behave better for me then...

I'm going to sit back and relax for a while. Fortunately, the weekend is just around the corner...

It's been a pretty quiet day. We had sulinpanda's folks over to share Victor's giant cookie, which was pretty tasty. Marti played games, and I sorta off-and-on napped during the afternoon.

We've been watching Noggin all afternoon (and when the kid's home, that's not uncommon), and they have been doing all Valentine's episodes. Pretty cute stuff, especially some of the shows we think highly of, like Yo! Gabba Gabba and The Backyardigans... :)

Happy V's Day to all. ;D

Didn't notice. :)

Although, it did almost sneak up on me. We have a major client implementation in progress, and my team has been working on getting their monthly report put together. But, as Murphy would have it, the client decided they wanted changes. At the very last minute. I was told I might need to stay in the office until 7pm, but it turned out all the changes were fairly minor, so I got out about my normal time. Score one for the good guys. :)

sulinpanda and I had dinner after work over at the Cheesecake Factory. They had a new Thai Caramel Chicken dish that was most delish. A little crowded, but the wait wasn't too bad for a Friday night...

Valentine's Day tomorrow, and Victor has a surprise coming...he won a cookie cake from Publix through their Cookie Club. That should go over very well. :D