Camping

This last week, Rachel and I went camping out at the nearby lake. For the most part, we really had a good time. We had hot dogs and s'mores and chips with queso and all that goodness, plus a great view from the shoreline out across the lake.

I got a tan. A real one. I totally stripped down to my speedo and sunbathed for a few minutes and for the first time in my life, I don't have a farmer's tan. 'Tis unusual for me to see the insides of my forearms and my shoulders being just as dark as the back of my neck.

Some other good news: I found an apartment. Looks like I'll be saving a bit over $100 a month in this new place, though it's a bit smaller and I don't get a yard anymore. I can live with it, I guess. The apartment is right downtown across from the courthouse and right in the heart of the business area. There are a few good restauraunts within two or three blocks. Plus, I'll be closer to work so I'll have a little more time to get ready before I have to leave. Overall, I'm satisfied and not too terribly dreading the move. I really hate moving, but it'll be over soon enough.

Finished reading "A Dirty Job" by Christopher Moore the other day while camping. I hereby declare it to be the second funniest book I've ever read, just behind "John Dies at the End" by David Wong. Between the two, there is a lot of entertainment to be had, and JDatE has just had the rerelease date...er... released.

http://www.johndiesattheend.com/updates/

September 29th, 2009
I can't wait. :D

and I had so much to say...

Where to start? I've spent the last few days detoxing and going through withdrawals from the Ritalin. I think. Maybe I'm actually sick, but the mood swings and body aches seem to fit in with my medication schedule. See, two weeks ago, I was regularly taking two 20 mg tablets twice a day, four hours apart. Of course, 20 mg doesn't go through the system in four hours, so for a short period of time every day, I'd have quite a rush from the little overload.

The good thing about that, is that I would be in a great mood, wide awake, and doing a great job at work. The bad thing is that once my body stopped getting that high every day, it made me irritable and sick.

At my last appointment, I was given a month's supply of extended release Ritalin, which was 30 mg spaced out over an entire day. It worked for about 3 days before I started getting dangerously drowsy at work and then getting body aches. Over my weekend, I decided to just not take anything and then try to go up from nothing, instead of coming down from the high dose.

Well, I haven't made up my mind yet entirely on what to do about the meds. Can't reach the doctor 'til Monday, so I have to get through the weekend. Yesterday and today I just took 10 mg in the afternoon and left it at that, but I had tonight off so I don't know how it would have fared in the work environment.

Laurie's cancer has returned with a vengeance and she's undergoing much more serious treatment this time around. Surgery is planned for this summer and she's doing three chemo/radiation treatments a week. Gotta hand it to her though. She's still working full-time on top of all of that. At Walmart, no less. Her commitment never ceases to amaze me.

Friend of mine at work lost his job the other day. Wish I knew exactly what happened. Apparently they've been trying to fire him for years, always looking for a good reason. He misses lots of work, has lots of health problems, but in my opinion was quite capable of his job. Unfortunately, he has quite severe narcolepsy, fell asleep on the job a couple times, and was demoted. The last time we spoke, he said our boss surprised him by asking him how they could work together to improve the situation (when before it was usually something along the lines of "get out, you're fired" which was always taken back). That was probably about a month ago.

Probably could all have been prevented if they let him work day shift. My network of spies say he has enemies higher up.

Last of the news is nothing exciting to anyone but me, really. I installed Fedora 10 on a Powerbook G4. It wasn't perfect, but now I have everything working except for the sound (I had it, but when I rebooted, it stopped working again.).

I did it for Rachel, who really hated Mac OS, and a little for myself, to get more familiar with using Linux. She needs a laptop for school and hopefully I can get it to emulate some Windows-Only software for her so she doesn't have to buy an expensive new laptop.

Also, just finished "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Great book. Recommended.

Dance, Dance, Dance

Haruki Murakami is perhaps my favorite author. I generally don't have favorites in authors, bands, directors, game companies, because someone always makes a turd at some point, and I just gravitate towards the good things I see. I guess, though, that that was an hold quirk of mine, and admittedly, I've moved away from it. AFI, Pink Floyd, and The Seatbelts are my favorite bands. Christopher Nolan and David Fincher are some of my favorite directors. I don't really have a favorite game company, though I would have said Square-Enix a few years ago (they seem to be producing turds lately).

Anyway, it comes back down to Murakami. He could write prose about vomit and diarrhea and I would be intrigued. In fact, he does write about vomit for at least a page in Dance Dance Dance.

The way I decided he's my favorite, is simple. He always leaves me wanting more. His books are weird as hell, the characters are more colorful than a field of flowers, and things are always coming out of left field when you least expect it, making your stomach churn with excitement.

Dance Dance Dance is probably my least favorite of his books (I dunno... I'm still digesting the plot and trying to figure out the ending), though to be fair, I've only read Kafka on the Shore and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I swear I had Norwegan Wood or Wind-Up Bird Chronical laying around somewhere, but apparently not. Those are next on my list of reads.

Anyway, only problem with reading Murakami is that it's hard to find other people that read Murakami. Maybe it's just the places I live and the people I interact with. Still, can't discuss the finer points of the books with anybody, which makes the after-party real lame.