CaptainOrange

rich and tasty double Americano thanks to the fine Broadway Roastery staff An intimate affair over at the Bway Roastery this week. James came by for a bit. We discussed muscial education for one and all. It was the decided opinion of the table that we would all have been better off learning basic musical theory rather than biological taxonomies (much as I personally enjoyed that unit). I guess there is a lot of disputing over educational priorities. After James left, Vin and I had some good discussion about literature and about the value of having children and opening up to let them teach you. Probably not so important if you were one of those persons who paid attention in your formative years. But I find that there is a lot I have learned about being a kid since having them.

Quest New Year was a rousing success for me. I can't speak for everyone else, though it seems as though a good time was had by all. I managed to get to our meeting spot in record time (which for me was 6:45pm). That gave me time to wait for a good table, do some last minute reading and set up the pool from which participants collected this years Quest branded gift of slate coffee coasters hand carved with the Q symbol. I had a really tough time hanging on to them until new years as I made them well before Christmas. As I had planned, they were snagged b y the Questers as they arrived (after 8pm) at the table. Me, Dave, Geof, James, and Vin. There were some good books picked for this year. As I recollect however, there was almost no discussion about last years picks. Without Vin's early prescence, there was just no one to jumpstart the HoL discussion. Other than that, there was plenty of fun discussion of goals for the year (mostly mine) although James, Dave and Geof all seemed...

What is a hard working father to do after the 28mm of precipitation (The sum of the total rainfall and the water equivalent of the total snowfall observed during the day) that we experienced in the first few days of March. In my case you use the excuse of your daughter's birthday to call in the troops. Wendy and I worked for about an hour to clear our driveway and a path out to the back, then when the guys and the kids came over, I spent another hour or so working on our luge/skeleton run and some fortifications in case we have to pelt passing high-school kids with snowballs. My body complained insistently about this effort for several days afterwards. Here you can see what fun we had with the snow that we weren't able to shovel onto the fort. I've kept these snowshoes around for a lot of years with little use to show for it. Now it all seems worth it.

So I stayed up a bit late watching Immortel (Ad Vitam) . It was a terrific late night movie. Surreal and beautiful. I can't give any review until I see it a second time. It was far too late for me to start a movie alone and I was constantly in and out of consciousness. Kind of pleasant really. In the morning, which came all too soon, Leora and Anwyn had made cinnamon toast for breakfast and ground some beans, boiled water and pressed my coffee. It was perfect!

...to tell you about. STM is having some sort of medieval feast this weekend. It is on Saturday evening. Anyway a friend of mine called to invite me to be a knight/betrayer as part of the live entertainment. I get to be a disenfranchised knight who raises a barbarian hoard and attacks his former comrades during their feasting. It sounds like a great concept and I have been enjoying the huge fight scene (involving home-made swords, no less) that we have been choreographing. I am, however, somewhat afraid that it is going to come off as really amateurish. Brennan and Felipe are great guys and seem to be working their tails off to make it happen. I think it is just too big a project for what I'm guessing is their first major organizational extravaganza. Case in point: I have yet to commune with the sword that I am to be using. It will reportedly be very heavy and I think it is fair to say that I need to practice with it so as to not desanguinate any of the other participants. Not to s...

It's no bit secret that I begin to feel quite shitty towards the end of the coldest season. I'm trying to keep the wolves at bay (as it were) by getting a little bit healthier and trying to keep busy without going overboard. Trying. My eating habits are in need of adjustment. It seems like only yesterday that I had totally sworn off store-bought junk food. I kept to that for over a year and then slipped back into familiar patterns. Well, I'm back on the wagon. I know, you aren't going to cry for the 5 or 6 pounds that I am irritated with. I understand, and I'll thank you to keep your comments from reflecting on the nature of my neurosis. That's just how I am about this stuff. Here is something you can feel good about. My computer usage isn't at its healthiest. I'm going to try and back off a bit. A few days back I found myself pressing the "stumble upon" button 30 times or more without even looking at the pages. Nothing was interesting me, but ...

Qwoden's day started out to be like any other board gaming event. Vin, Jay and Jim showed up (all on time no less) and we commenced. Things soon took a drastic turn for the worse and the house was very nearly destroyed in the ensuing chaos. Thinking of posterity, I snapped a picture from my entry way at grave personal risk. Then, with a deft bit of baking I was able to calm things down a bit and eventually all was back to normal. We finnished the evening with Jay kicking our butts at Blokus, which prompted him to immediately go and buy his own copy -- presumably in order to humble members of his own family in similar fashion.