Geeky Mom

I’m off to Richmond, VA today and alas, there will be no blogging. I might be able to read blogs via my Treo, but I doubt there will be posting. I suppose a break is good, but when I return it will also be time to return to work. I hope I will be looking forward to it by then. I’ve been so enjoying my unstructured time.

Since I will miss New Year’s, I’m posting my resolutions here:

1. Walk at least 30 minutes per day (may be substituted with other exercise)

2. Write at least a page a day.

3. Cut my debt in half. Ideally, I’d eliminate it, but I think that’s unrealistic.

Happy New Year everyone!

I got up rather late, drank coffee, read the news and blogs, did laundry. Then my friend at the MLA called-hi Deb-so we arranged for lunch. Since I hadn’t showered yet, I pretty much had to rush around getting ready. I rode the train in and met her in the lobby of the Marriott.

We had a wonderful lunch–both the same–of Chilean sea bass atop shrimp risotto. Conversation was aplenty and discursive as always–from the mundane to the academic to the political. I always like hearing about what she’s working on and it’s nice to have a conversation about literature again that’s on a whole different level than the book club I’m in. Then we wandered over to the Reading Terminal Market and had cannolis at Termini Brothers. And we had to get coffee at Old City Coffee, too. Much indulgence and much fun.

So walking is out because it’s dark now and I must pack for my trip. But I’ll be exercising at the hotel. They have a nice workout room there. I’ve learned that it’s best to do this exercise thing first thing in the morning, because it’s too easy to let the day get in the way. So now I think I’ll be ready when I get back from the trip.

Feeling very blah today. It’s gray–again. I’m supposed to meet some friends for lunch or dinner today but I haven’t heard from them. We leave tomorrow to go visit my dad which will be good. I need to go back to Macy’s and finish my Christmas returning, but I don’t feel like it. I’ll have to go back to work sooner rather than later, which I’m not looking forward to. The umph has gone out of my holiday vacation. Had to happen, I guess. I think I’ll go watch tv and fold laundry. Yippee!

1. Starbucks is a little far. Took almost an hour.

2. My butt was cold. Need warmer pants or warmer underwear.

3. Wear hat and gloves.

4. Gaggles of teenagers are hard to pass gracefully.

5. The reward is good. Pumpkin spice latte.

I wish there were a pond or a creek or something I could walk to. Then I could walk there, throw a few rocks in or feed the wildlife and walk back. But there’s no such thing around here. I’ll keep looking for a better destination.

for a walk in the tundra. Ok, not quite tundra, but it’s 30 degrees and I’m from the south. So, it’s a tundra. This is part of my New Year’s resolution–to walk everyday. I need to do other types of exercise, but I’m starting with walking. I think I’ll be warm enough, but I’m not sure. If I stick with this for two weeks, I’m buying more workout clothes, maybe new shoes. Today, I am destination walking. I’m going to try for the Starbucks. I’m a reward person. I need to know there’s good at the end of the pain. Once school and work begins again, I’m going to have to come up with a schedule. Do I drag my ass out of bed at 6:30 or do I walk the minute I get home, leaving dinner until 7 or so? Late dinner isn’t bad for me, but I think the kids will starve. I’m thinking I can do 6:30 if I remember to set the timer on my coffee pot and have hot coffee waiting for me. I’ll try it after I get back from my trip. If you’re wondering why I’m writing this post and not running out the door, it’s because I’m waiting for my iPod to update. All that “new” 80s music, you know. Speaking of which, here’s a list (don’t say I didn’t warn you):

Birthday–Sugarcubes

Dragon (Icelandic)–Sugarcubes

Arthur–Hoodoo Gurus

Three Little Birds–Bob Marley & The Wailers

Tennessee Jed–Grateful Dead

Waiting In Vain–Bob Marley & The Wailers

Walk Like A Man–Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

Here, There And Everywhere–The Beatles

Love You To–The Beatles

The Boy In The Bubble–Paul Simon

I’ve been reading up on the tsunami this morning and it’s just devastating. The death toll is reaching 40,000. What is the west contributing to the relief effort? Not much.

The United States prepared a $15 million aid package to the Asian countries, and the 25-nation European Union promised to quickly deliver $4 million. Canada promised $4 million with more likely to come.(found here)

Either someone needs to tell me that these are significant amounts and that it just looks insigificant on the surface or we are just pathetic. As a point of comparison, note that $882 million was spent on the 9/11 disaster (More interesting reading here). Or the $13 billion in hurricane relief. In watching the Business Report on PBS last night, a reporter noted that insurance costs wouldn’t amount to much because the majority of the victims were poor. This was the good side of the disaster. It’s like when Dick Cheney said that the most horrible thing about AIDS in Africa was the loss of generations of production. Because, by God, we need those diamonds.

I have been focused on myself of late too, but couldn’t we scrape together at least half a billion or so. And the combined EU countries could only come up with 4 million? Who are we? Do we only care about people of the fairer skin?

I went to Macy’s. I’m insane, but I really wanted to get rid of the brown sweaters. 2 down, 1 to go. I’ve got nothing against brown, really. I have some oatmeal pants and an espresso sweater that I like, but in general, I don’t wear brown. Plus, these were wool. I do not live in Alaska; the Northeast is pretty cold but not that cold. And, while one was really just a shirt to be worn under one of the sweaters and was plain, the other two have wretched designs on them. People who don’t see me very often should not buy me clothes. Gift certificates, people. Okay, sorry to be all scrooge and ungrateful but . . . I went to Macy’s. Two days after Christmas. The parking lot was enough to make anyone cranky. Then, after the return, which was painless, I had to spend the money in the store and they only give you 4 days to spend it. I bought some workout pants (Mr. Geeky was afraid of getting the wrong size), but Macy’s is not known for its athletic wear. And there was only one pair of smalls and I got them. I also got a new purse, but I don’t think I like it. It’s a Kenneth Cole and it’s purple, which is okay, but I’m not thrilled. I was feeling pressured to buy something, anything. I still have $35 left to spend so I have to go back tomorrow or the next day. Ugh. Once again. Gift cards. Or nothing. Seriously. I don’t really need anything.

On a brighter note, I’m importing my entire bad 80s CD collection which I found in a box recently. It’s weird and bad. I’ll do a random list tomorrow so you can see how bad. Music just isn’t as important to me as it once was. I figure when the kids become teenagers, I can catch up again.

Kind of. At least I’m doing things that I might do if I were at work. For Christmas, Mr. Geeky got me iLife ’04. I have it at work, so I wasn’t necessarily all gung ho to use it, but I thought now might be the time to organize the over 1500 pictures I have. The new iPhoto automatically creates a separate import folder for each year, so I thought I’d make a slide show for each year and put all of that on a DVD. It would be a good gift for next Christmas. I’m a trial-and-error kind of person so I decided to start by importing the individual pictures into iMovie to create a better slide show than I could by simply exporting from iPhoto. Well, it was very time consuming. I applied the Ken Burns effect to all of them (the same settings) and I had to put a transition between each one. Then I had to wait for all of that to render. Took a couple of hours to do all of that. So I tried a simple export from iPhoto and stitched that together with some music using Quicktime. It flashed between photos–very annoying. So then I used iDVD’s slideshow feature. I liked that option the best, but you can only have 99 slides per show. I found out by downloading a patch that you can make a playlist to use as the background music. I’m betting you can do that in iPhoto too, so I’m going to try that today. Ideally, I’d like a whole year as a single show. Right now, I have two years done and they’re each in three sections.

My next big task is to go back further and scan in pictures from before 2001. It’d be great to have a batch scanner for that. Maybe I can buy one for work, so I can use it.

I had a totally geeky Christmas. I got a usb hub with card reader, 250 gig hard drive, iLife, and workout clothes. Of course, we also got ourselves a digital video camera and I got Mr. Geeky a digital camera of his very own.

Yesterday, instead of getting back to routine, we were all slugs, but it was fun. We played video games, watched movies and played with Polly Pocket. We ate leftover ham and Christmas cookies. Today we might actually leave the house. I have some brown sweaters to return. I’m thinking of getting new sneakers.

And so begins the road back to normal. The living room must be shovelled out, the decorations must come down, gifts returned, rooms cleaned, new calendars hung up. I actually like post-Christmas better than Christmas sometimes. After all the excesses of yesterday, it’s nice to start getting back to moderation. Here’s just some of the excesses:

1. At least 10 laser tag games–some inside, some outside.

2. Holiday Inn.

3. 2 bad action movies (Mr. Geeky).

4. 2 games of civilization.

5. 1 round of I Spy word scramble.

6. Leftover ham sandwiches, chex mix and cheesecake.

7. Many, many cookies.

8. A long bath.

9. Several games of Lord of the Rings on PS2.

10. Sly Cooper 2.

11. Blogging.

A good day, all told.

6:30 a.m. That’s when the Geeky kids got us up. I think there will be naps later–at least for me there will be. Christmas went off well. We can no longer walk in the living room. I have escaped to the computer for a while and I’m thinking I need to play some Civilization. I love the idea of There, but it’s incompatible with our computers (sigh). Not that anyone would be there on Christmas morning. I hear a laser tag game brewing downstairs. Where did I put the Tylenol? I hope everyone has a wonderful day.