Howdy Liberty-folks (Libertines?).

I wanted to wish Happy Birthday to RoseVortex (my wife) and make a request.

<Turns down the Humor Circuit to level 1>

She’s 34 today. I know you aren’t supposed to share a woman’s age, but it’s a big deal for her. She’s actually in the hospital (“Club Med”) this week getting an antibiotic “tune up”. It looks like she’ll be there right through her birthday (I’m posting this a few days early). In fact, it looks like her meds might be doing something odd to her haircolor……

For those who missed my last long and drawn out post (for *my* birthday) in April, my wife has a genetic disorder called Cystic Fibrosis (CF) for short. Don’t know what that is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cystic_fibrosis has the details. In short, your body can’t break down the mucus it produces – as a result CF patients develop persistant (and very nasty) lung infections and have digestive and other issues. Once upon a time, this was a childhood disease and most patients didn’t survive out of their teens. As the years have gone by, the median life expectancy for CF patients has risen almost every year (I believe its up to 36 now).

RoseVortex has been chasing that revised life expectency number for a while now, along the way she got married (to this weird guy), had 2 kids, graduated college, and taught high school English for a few years. Along the way through the last 14 years got sort of geeky/gamergrrl-y (which still makes me wonder if that means I have been a “good” influence or a “bad” influence…..). She started playing City of Heroes with me in January 2006, and we are pretty much only on Liberty server, where we hang out on the SisterhoodFriends global channel (which has a bunch of folks from all over the place). Rose has 3 lvl 50 toons (which makes me look like a slacker since I only have the 1….I think I might have alt-itis). She’s even managed to get the Master of Statesman TF badge on her empath (which seemed like an impossible task with Yank Shillelagh the Suicidal Scrapper along…thanks for the stress Yank ). We play mostly blueside, but both of us have a late 30′s baddie toon as well. She cheats and plays while I am at work…..

RoseV has been on the lung transplant list for about a year and a half. As of the last few days we are now up to #2 on the list at our transplant center. She has to have a double lung transplant because otherwise a “sick” lung would infect the “clean” one….otherwise I’d give her a lung in a heartbeat. Over the last 2 years we have sold our house and moved in with her Mom until after the transplant comes “someday”. At this point she’s on oxygen 24×7, so we don’t get out much. She is one of the toughest people I have ever met – she walked around with an undiagnosed pneumothorax (a collapsed lung) for a week last year saying she was “uncomfortable” – the living definition of the Willpower powerset I guess. Along the way we have kept our sense of humor (well, its gotten a bit on the dark side, but we are still laughing). Of course, if I make her laugh too hard I might pop another lung….its a delicate balancing act…

My birthday wish for Rose is not something I can buy. The Lung Store doesn’t seem to have a branch in our area.

The transplant lungs will come from someone we don’t even know. I don’t know that we will get a chance to say thank you to anyone.

My birthday request/wish for RoseVortex for all of you is this:
-If you don’t have any religious or moral objections (and I understand if you do) please go out and register as an organ donor. If you are in the US, go to http://www.organdonor.gov/donor/index.htm and find out how to register in your state (every state does it differently). According to http://www.unos.org/data/default.asp?displayType=usData there are 99,000 people on the waiting lists in the US right now. If you are outside the US, it looks like every country has their own way of handling registration, you’ll have to Google it.
-If you choose to register, make sure you discuss it with your family and they understand your wishes, because if the time comes, you won’t be around to tell them.

If you are already registered, thank you for your “birthday present” to Rose and to everyone else on the waiting lists. I will probably never get to say Thank You to whoever helps give Rose more life, so I will have to make it a general THANK YOU to everyone who has registered as a donor. It really will make a difference for somebody.

<Humor Circuit back to normal>

I don’t want any of you redside folks to get the idea of running down to the Facemaker and picking up a set of lungs. The doctors here seem to be pretty picky about knowing where the organs came from…..

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and please wish RoseVortex a Happy Birthday. Hopefully she’ll be back playing in a week or so.

I love you Rose.

Thanks for reading this far My posts tend to get kinda long…..

——————–
@Kalkin – Liberty
ArcherBot – lvl50 TA/A

Wish RoseVortex Happy Birthday, please become an organ donor.

(Sung to the tune of “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats)

We can tweet if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t tweet
and if they don’t tweet
well they’re no friends of mine

We can tweet when we want to
if the server has survived
and we can Twhirl, Spaz, Snitter
Twinkle, Twibble, Tweetr
within the limits of the API

and we can tweet
and DM!
I say, we can block who we want to
for tweets that they will never find
the bots will try to follow
we see their ratio’s awful
and block them with a victory cry!

I say, we can tweet what want to
unless we see the damn fail whale
Just stay under one forty
if you need to be shorter
then paste in a Tiny URL

I say, we can tweet, we can tweet
everything’s Inter-operable
We can tweet, we can tweet
just stay within the interval

We can tweet, we can tweet
its really not a difficult feat
We can tweet, we can tweet
Everybody thinks its sweet

Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance
yes the Twitter dance

We can tweet if we want to
Your phones got a camera that works fine
We can snap all we see
Twitpic with a link
And share or even post to MINE

I say, we can tweet if we want to
we can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don’t tweet
and if they don’t tweet
well they’re no friends of mine

I say, we can tweet, we can tweet
everything’s Inter-operable
We can tweet, we can tweet
just stay within the interval

We can tweet, we can tweet
its really not a difficult feat
We can tweet, we can tweet
Everybody thinks its sweet

Well the Twitter dance
yes the Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance
well the Twitter dance – ai!
yes the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance – yeah
its the Twitter dance

its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance
its the Twitter dance

- This came out of an off handed comment over dinner last night with @vividmuse, LT, @heatherwelliver, @grailwolf, @ljosalf, @pfischer to honor @philippajane visiting America.

This is a Turtle Pecan Cheesecake. It’s a recipe I first made 15 or so years ago.

Our teen recently asked me to make it for his 17th birthday, and I hadn’t made it in 6 or 7 years. It was such a hit, that I was asked to make it for Dad’s birthday party two weeks later in two forms, one with pecans and one without.

Our nephew tried the one without pecans (he can’t eat nuts) and LOVED it. I am now making one for his pre-surgery party this Sunday.

I’m also making the traditional family cheesecake for our niece that is turning 18 on Monday.

Doom. My diet is full of doom.

When I do it, I enjoy it, but then other projects come and go and before I know it I haven’t written anything in months. Rather than pretend that I’m going to blog for real reals, I don’t really see any point in pretending that I’m going to come back at any regular interval and update the site.

I’m really excited about some other projects I’m currently working on. I’ve been writing more fiction and writing more music than I have in the past 15 years. I have connected with people I’m not related to in a more significant way than I have since high school. My wife and I are closer than we’ve ever been (which I didn’t think was possible).. but other parts of my life are slipping.

There are still only 24 hours in every day.. and sadly I spend at least 3 of those strapped into my car every work day getting to work and back. That time is excellent for podcast listening, but not for just about anything else given the concentration needed.

At the beginning of the year I made a list of all of the ways I spend my personal time and started making some changes. I created a very strict schedule of activities which I started off well with and slowly let slip. This does not surprise me.

So, I’m working on version 2.0. The two most significant time sucks that took a hit last time were TV and video game time. I went from following two dozen tv shows to maybe a dozen. Of course, they’re staggered across different seasons, so while its a lot, its not quite as bad as it sounds. I also went from playing games from about five nights a week to two.

TV is still a significant time sink so I’m dropping to just 4 shows that I don’t think I can live without. That ends up being about 45 episodes per year, or about 45 minutes of television a week. Not counting 30 minutes of brain rot at the end of each day which isn’t really consumed but is more of a lullaby. This generally takes the form of Seinfeld reruns or Family Guy.

Game probably won’t change for now. What will change, however, is consumption of other media. I’m significantly reducing the number of blogs that I’m following and the number of discussion forums that I’m frequenting.

All of this, presumably, will give me the time to pursue the projects that I find the most fulfilling. Unfortunately, updating my own blog isn’t one of them. While I like the romantic thought of having a place to hold my memoirs and review in future years to remind me of where my mind is at — the truth is that I’ve NEVER looked back over blog posts that I wrote 5-10 years ago, so I don’t see what the point is.

I suppose it makes sense if friends and family follow the information, but it’s so difficult to know if that’s happening, and few do the same, so… there’s a loop that is left open, and time and energy goes spilling out.

As the man once said “and that’s all I have to say about that.”

There is a collection being taken for him, both to help with his expenses and to also show our love and condolences. Here is the link if you’d like to contribute. Donations for C.A. Sizemore.

An acquaintance came home this morning to find his wife had passed away. It’s not anyone you would know, so no need for you to worry about who it is.

I’m passing on this news about an anonymous couple to you, in the hopes that you will take a moment to share your feelings with your loved ones and friends.

Whether family, long-time friends, or new friends you all hold a special place in my heart and I’m grateful to have you in my life.

Feel free to share this with your friends, I can think of nothing better to honor Kelly than for love being shared today.

Love today.

The Tribe is made up of writers, musicians, painters, photographers, hackers, and many other disciplines. For most of us, our creative side is not applied as part of our “day jobs”. And perhaps we’ve lapsed in our art, have never created something tangible, or don’t consider ourselves “artists” however we all have a creative spirit, similar sensibilities, and similar tastes.

Whenever possible portions of the Tribe try to come together in meat-space, which usually occurs at sci-fi/fantasy/literary/media/tech conventions. I’ve never been able to attend such a gathering, but I have met a few members of the Tribe over the past 9 months.

This last weekend Mur Lafferty, her husband Jim Van Verth, and their daughter The Pink Tornado were coming to the DC area and I was able to attend a gathering at the Dogfish Head brewery and restaurant. I’ll have a complete listing of those in attendance with links and some pictures below.

This was my first time to a DFH, though I’ve enjoyed some of their beers purchased at a Total Wine near our home. As expected, the beers were excellent drawn from a keg. The food was quite good as well, however it was rather expensive. My burger, fries, and two beers came to almost $40 after tax and tip.

Don’t get me wrong – the food and drink were well worth the quality – however what made the afternoon was the company! I started the festivities off when Scott and Mae Breakall came to my house to carpool to the restaurant. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, Viv couldn’t accompany us We headed up to the restaurant and met everybody else, having laid claim to an entire section of the second floor.

Meeting these people that I’ve spent so much time corresponding with through Twitter, chatting, voicemail, and recordings was such a treat! Everybody welcomed me with open arms and a huge smile. I felt immediately at home, and fell easily into conversation. My only regret is that I ended up spending most of the time at one table and didn’t get to spend as much time with many at the other table. This isn’t so bad because the people that I ate and laughed with were such a pleasure to be with and I know that I’ll have more time with everybody as con season progresses and we have more meet-ups.

Attendees included:

• Marc Bailey; host of Grailwolf’s Geek Life
• Heather Welliver; Marc’s wife and an amazing singer
• Scott Breakall, hacker and musician
• Mae Breakall, Scott’s wife; singer; and Executive Personal Assistant to Scott Sigler (go buy Infected – on shelves at your favorite bookstore)
• Dr. John Cmar, infectious disease Director person
• “Sci-Fi” Laura Burns, a bona-fide rocket scientist who works for NASA.
• Paul Fischer; host of the ADDCast and the Balticon Podcast
• Martha Holloway, Paul’s wife and producer for Dancing Cat Studios
• Brand Gamblin, host of the Calls For Cthulu Vidcast
• Allison (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted and I’m not sure what projects she’s associated with)
• Paulette Jaxton, writer; and fellow Tribal Fit Club member
• Mur Lafferty, author of Playing for Keeps, the Heaven series; Secrets of the Podcast Masters; as well as many published short stories and RPGs; host of many podcasts including Geek Fu and I Should Be Writing
• Jim Van Verth, Mur’s husband and host of The Vintage Gamer podcast
• The Pink Tornado, their daughter.
• Tee Morris, author of Podcasting for Dummies; Expert Podcasting Practices for Dummies; Morevi; and the Billibub Baddings series (among other podcasts).
• Nat, Tee’s wife (unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to get acquainted and I’m not sure what projects she’s associated with)
• Sonic Boom, their daughter.

You can find some more pictures on my Flickr feed.

After lunch many of us headed to Paul and Martha’s to visit some more and do some ADDCast recordings, which will be detailed in another post.

Such a wonderful afternoon and a wonderful group of people. I can’t wait for RavenCon !!

As I may have written here, we’ve been doing a lot of work in our basement. After three years of sitting there, we’ve finally cracked open most boxes and started sorting things to keep, give away, or toss. We resolved to re-carpet one room who’s floor was beyond redemption, and re-purpose most of the basement rooms to other purposes.

Each weekend we have a set of goals to complete little pieces, all leading up to a completion sometime mid to late April when we’ll have some greatly anticipated guests staying with us. Last week’s goals were first interrupted when we discovered that our dishwasher had broken. We had been contemplating replacing it for the last year or more, but its been working well enough that we decided it could be put off until we were done spending money on the basement (and see how finances for Con season held out).

So, off to the stores we went and bought a new one. I disconnected and removed the old dishwasher and started preparing to connect the new one as Viv started moving stuff around the basement and moving things to the garage. Unfortunately, she took a misstep and twisted her ankle very badly. Thus starts Emergency Room trip one for X-rays to ensure nothing was broken (which thankfully it wasn’t!). Then I completed the dishwasher installation which ran until just after midnight (do we know how to party on a Friday night or WHAT?!)

This made for a very interesting Easter luncheon with family as Viv was on crutches, an air cast, and Vicodin

This led into a very busy Monday as I had extra temporary duties and had to report early each day, as well as an expanded plate of responsibilities to tend to. As Viv was ordered with no weight bearing on her ankle for the week what would happen?? Our tween broke out with a strange rash and had to be rushed to urgent care one morning. The rash turned out to be nothing serious and was left to relieve on its own. Though he was subjected to a throat swab to check for strep.. and somehow I was subjected to a blood draw to check on my cholesterol (our Doc is so thoughtful you know.. didn’t want me to have to make another trip!).

The rest of the workweek was filled with little sleep (much of which was my own fault staying up to late) and early mornings. Friday night I made a trip after work to purchase carpet and pad for the aforementioned trouble floor. A friend of a friend was scheduled to come and install it for us on Saturday. That morning I did a major rearrange of remaining boxes in one room to move a couch out of the room getting the carpet, and removed everything else from the room.

As luck would happen, a twitter-friend was coming into town and an impromptu lunch outing was quickly brought together for many members of our Tribe to gather, meet (many for the first time) and socialize. Unfortunately, we couldn’t reschedule the carpet installation and Viv sacrificed the event to stay home and oversee it while I ran off to lunch (more about the lunch, and pictures, in a future post).

On Sunday we were prepared to turn the newly-carpeted room into the new video game room. I moved a TV and TV stand into the room, but to decide how we would arrange everything we needed a new reclining love seat moved from upstairs to the basement. I was able to remove the backs and the teen and I manhandled it down the stairs where it promptly got stuck at the bend in a hallway at the bottom. The teen hoisted it up sideways and got it swiveled around, however it cause one of the seats to start reclining and his finger became stuck in the reclining mechanism.

We quickly determined that setting the couch down would make things worse, so I pick the couch up a little higher (not sure if that really helped) and he was able to free his finger and immediately put pressure on a rather deep cut. I laid the couch down and we ran him upstairs to the kitchen to run the wound under the faucet. We wrapped a bunch of paper towels around it, as he returned to applying pressure and headed to the Emergency Room.

His hand received its own set of X-rays to ensure nothing was broken. The evaluated the cut and determined that no arteries or tendons were cut and he received three stitches. Poor guy. He was concerned as we were driving to the hospital that he may have gotten blood on the new carpet! Very sweet kid.

Through the whirlwind of activity the past few weeks I’ve only had one workout session. I forgot to weigh in this morning, so will have a weight update tomorrow. I’m fairly certain that I gained, as I consumed a lot of Easter candy and haven’t done much to burn calories. I’ve eaten mostly well, with the exception of a Chinese food dinner and the lunch outing on Saturday. Oh and pizza Saturday night.

Hmm….. never mind, my weight loss is doomed :-/

Here is an excerpt from a review of said in(di)gestible:

“Never let it be said that we don’t make sacrifices for our readers. Terrible, greasy, wadded sacrifices. When word hit the Internet that a German camping-supplies company was marketing a canned cheeseburger, we were instantly buried under a wave of requests—nay, demands—that we get our hands on one and rate the experience of eating it. The German company doesn’t ship to the U.S., but we paid an embarrassing price for one on eBay, acquired by an American soldier currently stationed at a German military base. (We’re fairly sure it wasn’t smuggled out of the country in a coffin, à la American Gangster, but we aren’t 100 percent positive.) A few days later, we all eagerly gathered around the hot plate in the A.V. Club labs to see whether cheeseburger-in-a-can could possibly be any good.

Answer: no. Oh dear sweet shrieking Lord, no.”