Happy Friday, folks. It’s actually not been a bad week at all. At work, I’ve managed to finally (I think) give everyone the documentation they need to wrap up the annual budget/contract stuff so I’ll be able to pay my folks next year. I hope, anyway. It feels good right now, so I’ll take it. Outside of work, I’m trending down on the weight loss program thing I’m doing (down ten pounds over the last couple of weeks), and I knocked out a good 20 miles on the mountain bike this week, including my first ten-miler of the season before the weather all turned to crap.

Speaking of weather, an aside:

It seems over the last week or so, the facilities guys left a couple of two-way radios (is it still culturally sensitive to call them “walkie-talkies”? I don’t know…) with NOAA weather alert receivers charging around the building. It’s been a ton of fun this morning tracking them down to shut the alarms off every time the “severe thunderstorm warning/tornado watch” goes off…every ten minutes or so. I think I finally managed to shut the beeping off when that kicks in. If I can’t figure it out, today’s going to be a blast.

Aside over.

One other neat thing I did this week was hanging out with Cory Doctorow for a couple of hours last night durning his current book tour at The Fountain, after a nice dinner with my con buddy Chris at Citizen Burger Bar in the city (I was saving up calories all day to enjoy this one). The Fountain is always an awesome place to visit, and Cory was very cool to chat with before the reading/signing (we ended up at the store a little bit early), and is a very engaging personality when he’s “on stage” doing his thing. He’s a great authority on all things relating to digital rights and privacy issues (not surprisingly, being one of the guys behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and that kind of sensibility really informs his writing (seriously, go read Little Brother) and public persona. I’m really looking forward to reading his new one, Walkaway, which I picked up last night in hardback and in special tour-exclusive audiobook USB drive.

Oh, and I learned Kevin Hearne, the guy behind The Iron Druid Chronicles is coming to town in July, which is something I’m going to do my best to get to.

I guess I ought to mention Ravencon a bit from last weekend – the Dimensional Riffs shows went well. They weren’t perfect, but I don’t think I’ve ever played a perfect show in my life. Still, they were well-attended and well-received, and we sold ten(!) CDs, which is about eleven more than I expected to sell. We also took a few minutes to sit down with the Guardians of the Geekery podcast to chat about the band and upcoming gigs, particularly ConCarolinas (which the hosts of this particular podcast are intimately involved with). It’s not a bad few minutes; it’s still weird hearing my own voice playing back at me, but I’m getting used to it.

This weekend looks to be pretty chill; pay bills, do laundry, record the tracks for the Humdingers record I got thrown my way this week, and on Sunday, head out to celebrate a dear friend’s birthday and catch Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 with a bunch of great folks, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while.

Anyway, here are some tunes that are the soundtrack for the apocalyptic rainstorm currently inflicting itself on the greater Petersburg area. Not a bad mix; pretty atypical of Pandora lately for me, which is not a bad thing:

1. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Guns & Roses
2. “Elodie” – Ten Fe
3. “It’s My Life” – Talk Talk
4. “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – REM
5. “Songs from the Wood” – Jethro Tull
6. “Karma Police” – Radiohead
7. “Dancing With Myself” – Billy Idol
8. “White Room” – Cream
9. “V.G.I.” – The Julie Ruin
10. “Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)” – The Moody Blues feat. London Festival Orchestra & Peter Knight
11. “Boy With A Coin” – Iron & Wine