Rorschach.net

TiVo (or the more generic DVR) is one of those technologies that changes your lifestyle. Like the first time you used a cable modem at home, or bought music online for your mp3 player. TiVo allows me to lock on to a few shows and watch them during my downtimes of late evening and weekends. A surprising number of them are basic cable summer shows.

Top Tier:

• Leverage – A-team for the 21st Century. All the archetypes are there, the thief, the techie, the grifter, the muscle, and the brain. But it’s done with good characters and style. Highly recommended, get the first season if you can.
• Burn Notice – Come for the Bruce Campbell, stay for the practical spycraft lessons in voiceover.

Runners Up:

• In Plain Sight – The WITSEC background injects wide variety in police procedural parts, and the lead really has some daddy issues.
• Royal Pains – Could be a good show, too early to tell.
• The Closer – Another quirky cast in a police procedural, but hey I like the crew and the humor.

At the Back:

• Entourage – Sex and the City for guys but not enough has happened in the last few seasons to keep me caring.
• True Blood – Vampires aren’t my thing, but the wife loves ‘em so I’ll keep watching.

Second time was the charm. My second Rock Band Stratocaster works very well. I’ve begun a solo tour on Hard difficulty for guitar but I can’t get past the “solo” in The Hand That Feeds. I’ve dropped into practice mode and can get up to 80% speed, but 90% and full speed still results in a bucket of fail.

I’ve already completed a solo tour on vocals at Medium difficulty, so now I’m going for Expert. I forsee a problem though since you need to hit the note pretty straight on so any inflections could be mis-interpreted as wrong pitch. Which means you have to sing pretty boring. I’ll complete the mode, but probably play Hard difficulty when I’m in a band.

I also need to get into the extra songs. Even though they’re not well known I’m sure they’re fun. I’ve also got plenty of downloaded songs to go through… some much rocking to so and so little time…

One of the things I like about writing is – my handwritting. I like to make letters. But it is slow. Thanks to husband Paul and Bill Gates and some other unknown brilliant coding folks, I can now type – in my own handwritting.

I should have been working all evening – but I took a quick break to do this. The software lets you create fonts – and I have now many ideas for fun font frivolity!! I can’t wait until I have some free time next year. A major work deadline will have me grinding noses and such until the end of the year.

On another note, the Thanksgiving week was a blast – as you can see on our site – and such a successful trip for all my family that my brother said he wouldn’t mind honeymooning in San Diego. I am flattered but am a good enough sister to point out the pitfalls of honeymooning

with

your sister – as cool as she might be. Another benefit of the trip is that my brother’s are starting their own pages on our site. The Frozen North is already set up as a link for Tim in Alaska whose working on his MFA in creative writing and staying warm with his wife Jana and soon Kent will be online with EggsErroneous. I think that if many of my family members get online with us – we can between the three of us have regular postings.

I have received my new number as well. I sent out an email to most but figured the soon-to-be-mailed Christmas cards would take care of the rest. Now, if I don’t have your current address….. that’s another problem all together.

I’ve been working on my Christmas errands and tasks and have been both further enamored with, and let down by my friend the internet. As I’ve worked on updating my address list, I’ve realized how many people I have only email and mobile phone information for. I could drive to their house – but not necessarily mail them anything. It’s fine except for the potential through a series of moves to loose touch with an old friend also in transit.

On the plus side, I have TWO presents left to but and have only ventured into the madness of yuletide shopping once – after 7 on Saturday night even. My research on product quality, ideas and price comparison have all been done online. I even found a cool site that will send you Christmas cards with your custom message and stamps already applied. You still do your own notes and addressing – but a great option for finding a truly unique card. Cardstore.com

Using the internet to make mailing people “real” mail easier. That’s for pondering until next time.

The family Hawkins arrives this weekend and we’re checking things off our “Get the House and Refrigerator Ready” list as fast as we can.

It was a productive weekend of house and yard cleaning. We’ve finished most of the repainting and are almost complete hanging new window treatments. IKEA has the fantastic new system that hangs sliding planes instead of traditional curtains. They can be changed out pretty easily when I find new fabric.

We also went and saw “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” which I highly recommend as a witty, funny movie and one of the best I’ve seen in a while.

And now – back to work. 4 more days until vacation !

We’ve changed the theme of the website to something a little more ornate. Unfortunately it’s horizontal scroll limited. That’s a pet peeve of mine. I control the browser and if I want it to fill the full horizontal width of the screen then the websites should conform to that darnit. But most of the really spiffy themes are limited.

Anyway, you should see a set of themes we’re trying out on the sidebar. Feel free to mess around with them. We’ll be trying out some more themes in the next few weeks to find something we like. Let us know your favorite!

There are Halloween decorations up in the yards in our neighborhood and haunted houses being advertised on TV – but it just doesn’t feel like fall. The trees are still green and our “cool” fall days have highs in the low 70’s. I think it will be hard to remember to pull out the Christmas tree – let alone our lower ceiling heights may present us with a challenge of actually putting it up at all.

In spite of my difficult adjusting to a land without seasons – things are going well. We’ve finished painting about half of the interior of the house and hope to have it all complete by the time our Thanksgiving guests arrive. Roe has stopped itching and escaping – for now and we’ve begun to interview dog sitters for our trip to the Keys in December. We’ll see whom Roe picks to stay with him for a week. They actually water not only the dog – but also the plants. The service will also get the mail and stay the night at our house so it seems like a rather interesting arrangement.

Paul & Barbara visited a few weeks ago and we went down to Mexico for the first time. We found great pottery and really should have taken a bigger car. There is a two-level fire bowl with a chimney that I want to go back and get for the backyard. It would be nice when we’re using the hot tub to have a fire. I replaced many of the broken pots from the move. The boarder crossing wasn’t too bad – worse on the way back – but all in all the bargains were worth it.

It seems our extended family keeps on growing. We heard last night that Adam and Abigayle are expecting their first child in May so Paul and I will be Aunt and Uncle on both sides of the family. Having a “child” of a different kind was my brother Kent who acquired a new puppy named Snotty this week. To bad he can’t hop on the plane and meet cousin Roe at Thanksgiving time.

Paul’s work choir performed last week and so ended Paul’s 10-week choir experience. Spouses weren’t in attendance so I’ll take his word for it that it went smashingly well. He’s continuing to enjoy his job – and be appreciated by his team who got him a funny boss’s day card last week. I am a bad employee and was to busy working to REMEMBER it was bosses day but with 3 weeks left until my boss heads to China for a 3 week business trip regarding our new projects – I am swamped trying to do my work AND get our new marketing packages ready. The good news is, I’ll be all done when my family arrives. I’ve decided that we probably need to buy a small second fridge or freezer before then though. Mom always keeps stuff in the garage at the holidays but it won’t be cold enough here.

That’s all for now – love to you all.

The newest member of the San Diego Zoo has been determined to be a girl! We saw them last week with Adam and Abigayle but on closed circuit TV because she’s so little.

We also saw a Timberwolf who was given a pet since he was lonely at the zoo. They got him a golden retriever. I love this picture but Roe is now lobbying for a pet. If a wolf gets a retreiever maybe he needs a hamster.

In not recently observed form, Roe once again channeled Houdini this Friday night. After an evening of heavy shopping in preparation for Saturday’s party, we pulled into our neighbor hood well past dark. Cruising down the street, strategizing the tasks still at hand, I saw a beautiful white dog sitting along side of the road. Framed in light from a conveniently located streetlamp and basking in the glow of a woman gently patting his head was a dog that I though looked suspiciously like Roe. Which I then noted out loud. Paul, how had been more deeply discussing our evenings plans, urged calm. Having secured the doors and padlocked fences and seen him lying on the sofa during our departure, it couldn’t be – could it?

We arrived home a few hundred feet beyond and quickly checked. Every door, every window, every padlocked gate was secure – and no Roe was found.

We walked down the street and as we grew near – the tail started to wag. He’d been there for an hour sitting on her porch. The neighbor came out and gave him some water before setting down to pet the beautiful, friendly dog. As we thanked her wand walked off, Roe healed at my feet like he’d been to obedience school and paid attention. I was relieved but wondered, how he had done it. The only way, was to sneak past Paul before he shut the kitchen door and hide behind the sofa in the garage where I was sitting in the car and run out when the garage door went up and hide before we backed out to see him. That’s it – a perfect sequence; a daring escape. Is he lucky? Or is he a canine descendant of Houdini?

As we walked home, relieved to be a family again the neighbor hollered, “Did you know he’s shedding?”

So what did I do in sunny San Diego this weekend? I went to 3 IKEA’s. I’m not sure if I should reply honestly when asked tomorrow at work about what I did this weekend. Some might think I ‘ve gone over the edge of reason but all I can say, is Paul went to.

We’ve been working on upgrading our household storage. The walk-in closets of our previous abode are sorely missed. Although we’ve made things fit, we needed just a little more room so things would fit comfortably. We designed a 140″ long and 93″ tall storage wall for our bedroom to solve the problem. In scheming and planning our new storage, we found that the red lacquer doors we wanted were soon to be discontinued. But we could get drawer fronts in Burbank and some doors in Irvine and the rest of the cabinets here in San Diego. So, after a trip to our local IKEA, we ventured out in a rented SUV to two more IKEA’s. The first one 150 miles north of San Diego in Burbank and the other south of LA in Irvine. It was a long day. The cabinets are up, they have doors and drawers and tomorrow, 90 vertical inches of 20″ wide shoe storage. I am so very excited.