When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said
      about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that
      he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is
      pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong
      to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are
      hypersensitive about the words used to designate minorities. The terms
      "negro," "oriental," "handicapped" or "chick" for an African, an
      Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory
      connotation. "Broad" and "chick" were merely the feminine equivalents
      of "guy," "dude" or "fellow." The negative connotations have been
      attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal
      rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word "pet" and
      insist on its replacement by "animal companion." Leftist
      anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about
      primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative.
      They want to replace the word "primitive" by "nonliterate." They seem
      almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive
      culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that
      primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the
      hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.)

Those who are most sensitive about "politically incorrect"
      terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant,
      abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of
      whom do not even belong to any "oppressed" group but come from
      privileged strata of society. Political correctness has its stronghold
      among university professors, who have secure employment with
      comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white
      males from middle-class families.

Sitting at the beach with bucket and pail in hand... Wondering where the water goes after it falls off the edge, and why the water is suddenly attacking my sand castle. I BUILT WALLS TO KEEP THE WATER OUT! But it managed to just keep me in. The sun was setting that day as I franticaly bailed out my moat. Setting on the castle that slowly crumpled back into the lovely rippled surface from where it came. It was there that I was comprehending my theory on gravity and the massive amounts of energy that must be released by friction to overcome the incomprehensable pull of one grain to the other. The bond that holds all things together was not strong enough to save my childhood or my castle. Slowly time errodes me still, one grain at a time as I edge towards my eventual demise. Worn by water and defeated by the most powerful of all forces, Gravity in the third dimension, Time.

I was pulled to the ground in ways unknown to a child at that time, my feet leaving the impressions of life that would vanish all to soon if left on their own. The world could continue to turn yet my impact would slowly be erased. As I came to this briefest of realizations, I blinked and it was gone. My sand castle had suddenly sucomed to the tides that drive the most primal of systems, the sea. Here I again sit at the shore, listening to the music of this world. One World once populated by a simple species. But like all things that rise, so shall they fall. This ocean pristine again and cleansed of this briefest of moments when we as a species built our buildings of sand. Only to be eventually torn down by that most powerful of all the forces, Gravity in the third dimension, Time. Stripped of their raw materials, even the mightiest of dwellings returned to the land and await reconstruction by the next species that may arise from the ashes. And as I blinked in the blinding light, it was made clear to me that these castles will always be destined to fall as long as we build them from the sands of this world.

-2008

So past couple of weeks have been hectic for me. I survived the birthday.

Ever since though, it seems like a non-stop stressfest. The day we left to visit the fam, Puppy got diarrhea. Which continued off and on for like 2 weeks. Every time I thought she was finally better (for real this time) she would get it again. I figured she was eating one of the plethora of poisonous plants in our suburban backyard, and basically destroyed it trying to figure out what was wrong.

Finally tired of random bouts of the poops, and 4 awakenings in the night for her to make them, I make the appointment with the vet. Turns out that the poisonous plants she ingested weakened her tract so that she was able to contract a protozoic infection from the millions of rabbit turds she snorfs down every time I take her outside. Brilliant. A round of antibiotics later (and two hours of picking up dog poop to make sure she wouldn't reinfect herself on them) I am hoping that I won't have to go through this again any time soon.

Bright spot: At the vet someone told the secretary that her dog was "a little sick". But it sounded like she said "little shit" so I turned to Husband and said, "Yes, my dog is a little shit too."

Health = don't ask. Double dosage is not helping. Still have most of my original symptoms, plus now I am so tired during the day that I can barely function. I haven't taken this many naps in 20 years. And I still conk out at around 8pm every day.

Oh, and the best part is that I've been battling the insurance company for the past 4 months or so to try to get them to actually cover the things they are supposed to cover. The things I asked them pointedly in the beginning if they would cover, and they insisted that they would after a $300 deductible that they are now trying to turn into a $1500 deductible. At this point I question whether the possibility of improved health is worth all this money and frustration.

Sorry for the downer post. Time for my pre-dinner nap.

So this is my third attempt to write something in here today. Going to try to make this one stick. I'm so out of the practice of journaling I never seem to know quite what to write.

Health-wise, things are so-so. Have had 2 appointments with specialist #2. First one, he gave me a prescription that worked really great for about 5 days, and then basically cut out on the 8th day. Not surprising, as I seem to be able to build up tolerances pretty quick. Side-effects abnormal. Second appointment led to a doubling of the dosage. Thus far it has just made me extremely tired. Fortunately the other side-effects have been less prevalent. We'll see how it works out.

My birthday is in 4 days. Not sure how I feel about that anymore. At first I felt old. Then I felt excited. Now I just feel stressed and/or ambivalent because I have to work out how to visit with relatives that I'd rather not visit who are insisting on seeing me for my birthday. I'd rather just keep things low-key, but one thing family is good at is making you worry about things.

Puppy is doing fairly well. She's more than doubled in size (getting closer to triple at this point). For a couple of weeks she was an absolute joy. Obedient, fun. Now she's reverted back to her more rambunctious self. Testing the rules and boundaries. She really makes me appreciate the demeanor of the dog we had when I was growing up a lot more. Of course, she could have been a hellion at this age too, and I just don't remember. Hopefully she'll settle down again soon.

Got the Essential Blender book in the mail yesterday. I am enjoying it so far, but haven't really made it to the procedural sections yet. I'm excited though, because it is more in depth and will cover a lot of things that I've heard people talk about but had no idea how to do it. Seems like it will be a good companion book to my Blender 2.0 manual. Going to try to rededicate myself to my Blender studies as my train kind of derailed earlier in the year.

[Note to self: message people about Blender.]

Still working on getting the house stuff arranged properly. Finally got my desk area set up a little better. Still need to do some cleaning off and finding of things, but it feels much better now. Also, as an added bonus, the area is much more Puppy-proof now. She can no longer stick her head behind my desk and lick the grating where the computer fan blows out. Still not entirely sure why she likes to do that.

Cold and rainy here today. This is an unwanted change from the warmer temperatures we had been enjoying again. Where I come from, this is winter weather. Here, however, this is just the beginning taunts of winter. Not looking forward to visits from Jack Frost. [Note to self: get good jacket out of Husband's car.]

In fangirl goodness: I got the most awesome Darth Vader action figure from walmart. The Legacy collection. Very poseable and his left hand is in the Grip position, which is what I had been waiting for, for years. He now perches on my desk ready to choke anyone who annoys me. Still looking for the perfect Wall-E toy. I want one that can fold all up into a box and have a flap open like his garbage dumper. Not sure they have both in the same toy.

Well, this has gotten pretty long, so I suppose I'll stop here for today. Plus I think it might be naptime now. Hooray for having a cold.

There. I did.

if you like it, share it with others?

So... it's been a while. I guess now that my computer is once again operational (vid card died in the move) I should make some sort of an update, particularly since my last notice was not so good.

Moved into the house. That went ok. Adopted a baby of the furry four-legged kind. She makes my life interesting.

Today is the first day it has felt like fall (well, second I guess since it was cold and rainy yesterday) which has sparked my soul searching once again. I have that feeling that I need to start figuring stuff out again.

Health has been so-so. Seeing a specialist who is sending me to another specialist, who will hopefully be able to solve the problem. Hopefully it will all be worth it.

Going to try to restart working on my hobbies, since it's been months to a year since I have done anything with them.

I guess that's good for now.

It seems to me that the more I get involved in political discussions, both real-world and online, the more I notice that the only thing most people hate more than the "other side" is the extremists in their own party.

If life had an undo button, I'd be control-z'ing the shit out of it right now.

Something new needs to go into here... Ahh, That will do. :)

In the latest episode of "buying a house will be the death of me.... literally."

Sellers want to move the closing date from July 15th to June 30th, obviously to their benefit. No obvious benefit to us, considering we are already paid to August 4th, which is the end of our lease. Thus far, they haven't accepted all of our repairs, and won't even if we make it a stipulation of closing early.

Husband already has verbal agreement with their realtor (who went through our mortgage officer to contact us about this, since our realtor is in Mexico, instead of contacting our realtor's partner). Husband went directly to their realtor to make the deal, instead of going through our realtor's partner.

This leaves the queen grumpy, because she wasn't really taken into consideration. Secondly I talked to my mom today, who gave us more bargaining ideas, but... yeah, bargaining has been done. Going to have to try to figure out some way to do damage control on this.

So what now? I don't know. Still too raw.

We ended up making an offer on the house. Our offer was about 10k lower than the list price. Their realtor said that they had received many offers on it in the past and were not very negotiable so they all were rejected. Some how the accepted our first offer anyways. I guess our realtor played up the "couple of young kids trying to get off to a good start". That and we had a prequalification letter from the bank.

Anyhoo... Just got the contract back from the realtor so taking it to the bank tomorrow I guess in order to start getting the appraisal and whatever else the bank wants. Trying to find good home inspectors. Need to run a radon test.

Does anyone know if the little home radon tests you can buy at Lowes/HomeDepot are accurate enough? Not sure much how else we could have one done. Not sure if that is covered by the home inspection or not.

Other suggestions? Bear in mind the initial contract is already signed...

Just so I can boast about it here as well... I'm going to Svalbard next week! :-D

For business. But still...

Let's see...

- The new job (started 3rd of March) is going OK though there are still quite a lot of adjustment pains. At the very least I have close to a carte blanche when it comes to going to external courses and conferences, which is quite cool.

- It's finally warm enough to start running outside. Yay!

- Still doing Krav Maga. Some of you know I missed out last semester due to an injury, but now everything seems to be OK. I'm not sure if I'll go up to P5 this semester though.

- I met an ex-slashdotter/Multiply refugee in real life, making the total to three.

- I've been taking lots of bird photos lately, but I really need to learn how to use my camera properly. It's good to know I'm not short on subjects :-)

- I have mod points :-D

How are you all doing?

I know it's been a while. And I know I owe everyone on planet earth at least one email. Lately I have just felt like hiding. I still feel like hiding, but I have questions.

So after months and months of refusing to look at/discuss houses, the mortgage rates dropped and husband was ready to start looking again. So we do a little driving around where there are signs out, do a little browsing of the internet, and husband picks out 2 to go look at and we go see them on Saturday. One was old and not at all what we were looking for. The other one is kind of (gut instinct was to use the word "enigma" here, but I don't know if it is the correct choice).

2250 sqft, .5 acres, and somehow in our budget. Well, I already know the "somehow" is this. For those of you who cannot view the link, it is a giant powerline that goes across the backyard with the two superhuge wooden poles being inside of the fence.

I don't like them. He couldn't care less that they were there. How much would having those giant powerlines in your backyard bother you?

Other questions are: what percentage of your savings did you throw down into a downpayment? What type of mortgage do you have?

One that renters can answer too: how many places did you look at before you decided on your current place of residence (if you consider this to be a place you will be living for at least a few years)?

Aside from the powerline issue, it just seems wasteful to buy such a huge house, for just the 2 of us, with no children on the (at the very least immediate) horizon. Really, what will we do with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms? We have enough furniture for a 800 sqft apartment, and pretty much maxed out donations from relatives to have this much. So probably at least half of the house will go empty for a few years while we figure out what to do with it, and build our funds back up again before we can really buy anything.