I spent all last week breathing in drywall dust thanks to construction at the office. Thus, I spent most of the weekend sacked out on the couch watching campy 80s movies and cracking the new Dresden (very good so far…you should read it).

I’m required to do some actual work this week (both for the day job and for Antimatter*), plus I have to learn a couple of country songs for the weekend.

I hope my lungs can handle it.

___________________________

*- I’ve mentioned this before, right? I didn’t? Sorry. Anyway – Antimatter Press is a small e-press run by some friends of mine who recently brought me into the fold to help create neat things for all you folks to read on your newfangled e-readers. We have many interesting things in the pipeline that I’ll talk about here as they come up, but right now, I’m having a good time learning about my place in the machine (including learning the mechanics of turning manuscripts into something that looks pleasing on your device), and getting really excited about the cool stuff we’re working on, including Unseaming, the new short story collection from Mike Allen, which you can read about on the antimatter site. Check out that cover art! It’s amazing, as are the stories within. Be ready with your wallets when this thing hits in October!

Weekend: exterior light fixtures. bicycle. card games. guacamole. laundry. measurement. renfaire. burritos. Not particularly unusual.

Random thought: The Bourne Legacy works surprisingly well if you pretend that it’s basically a pre-Avengers solo Hawkeye movie. Just replace Treadstone/Outcome with some Black Ops fork of the Super Soldier program or Department H, and add a scene at the end with Nick Fury walking on to recruit him into SHIELD. The chem effects explain how he was able to keep up with Asgardian gods, gamma monsters, and guys in powered armor better than his comic childhood as a carny trick shot performer would (not that such an origin isn’t awesome), and Renner’s portrayal of “Aaron Cross” (an obvious alias) is totally consistent with Clint Barton.

Who cares if he never picks up a bow in the movie? I want to believe.

…you kinda had to be there.

While news of same-sex marriage bans being struck down across the country isn’t exactly an uncommon headline these days, the decision in Pennsylvania yesterday is of particular significance to me. While I mostly consider myself a Virginian these days, having spent nearly half my life here, and having lived in my current residence in the Richmond suburbs longer than I’ve lived in any other single place in my entire life, Pennsylvania is the place where I was born, and although I haven’t felt particularly at home there in a long time (in large part due to the regressive attitudes historically displayed in the vast wilderness between the two major metropolitan areas), the events of the Keystone state will always draw my attention.

The news that the Constitutional ban on gay marriage in PA has been struck down is particularly gratifying, in part because it shows that the prevailing tides of tolerance in this country have finally started cracking the conservative bastions of my youth, and that dear friends may finally have their perfectly normal, loving and committed relationships recognized the same way mine is. Also, I’d be lying if I didn’t take some personal satisfaction in the schadenfreude inherent in the fact that Judge John E. Jones III, who issued the ruling, was endorsed in his placement to the Federal Judiciary by none other than perhaps Pennsylvania’s most well-known homophobe, former Senator Rick Santorum.

It’s honestly gratifying to see things changing. It was also rather gratifying to note that my facebook feed, which still contains several folks in Pennsylvania who regularly spew forth with all kinds of conservative Glenn-Beckian froth, was completely free of wailing and gnashing of teeth 24 hours after the announcement of the ruling. I’m sure I’ll see some in coming days, but I take solace in the fact that people are either finally coming along, or at least have the decency to remain quiet in the homophobia.

Personally, I’d love to see some of the language from Judge Jones’ ruling become appropriated as a rallying cry for the movement, as his words were particularly eloquent:

We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.

The times, indeed, are changing, for the better. However, like in other states, the issue isn’t entirely settled. If you’re of a mind (and I hope you are), you might check out Equality Pennsylvania to get involved and see this process through to the end.

So really, it was flying to Atlanta, but the history major in me leapt to Sherman’s march, and I felt like pissing off some Confederate sympathizers who might be reading, because that’s what we Damn Yankees are wont to do. So there.

In any case, when we last left the ongoing narrative of my life, I had arrived in Atlanta, and was eating breakfast at the hotel before heading into the Atlanta office for several days of workshops, requirements validation, and software testing. As the office didn’t require us until after lunch, my travel companion and I worked from our hotel rooms for the morning, then met up to grab some lunch at a busy shopping center nearby before heading over to the local office.

Upon arriving at the office, we retrieved our bags, finding them somewhat lighter. Seems both our laptops were missing, along with my companion’s brand new iphone. In spite of the extreme unlikeliness of us both forgetting our laptops and losing a phone (which we’d used earlier for GPS), we attempted to call the phone with mine (off – straight to voice mail) and returned to our hotels to confirm that, however unlikely it might be, that the computers weren’t there.

They weren’t. Laptops and phone were gone, stolen from a locked vehicle in a crowded parking lot adjacent to two busy restaurants. Welcome to Atlanta.

We both took this pretty well, considering (well, my travel buddy was rather distraught over the phone, understandably), and sort of feeling like we could use General Sherman marching through to burn buildings and bend some rails around trees in vengeance, we made reports to our security officers and the local police, who were quite pleasant and confirmed for us that the car was indeed locked (the lock was forced), thus absolving my companion, the driver and keeper of keys, of any lingering guilt, and obtained loaner machines from the local office to get us through the week.

Theft aside, though, it was a pleasant and productive trip. I was made to feel welcome by people who I’d never met in person (we all got along swimmingly, having spent hours on the phone together over the last several months), I felt useful and comfortable within the familiar embrace of the software development cycle process, was impressed by the way this particular project was being managed, and ended up sitting through the same briefings three times for different audiences, but ended up not minding too much because of the pleasant company.

Also, having posted a brief line of bitching to facebook, I ended up reconnecting with an old college friend in the area that I hadn’t seen in somethng like 18 years, who, through serendipitous circumstance, works about five minutes from where I was staying. We had a nice evening catching up over local brews and pretty good food at a local pub. Thanks, Erik, for the hospitality and local guide service – hopefully I can reciprocate the favor some time soon.

Otherwise, I didn’t really get to see that much of Atlanta (though it looks like I’ll be getting to know the area pretty well over the next year, between business travel and other potential commitments) due to work and various running about to address issues rising from the unfortunate theft of my employer’s property, but I did make the effort to see the one local landmark that every Atlanta resident, to the person, told me I had to see: The Big Chicken of Marietta, who was kind enough to pose for photographs:

I greet you, dear reader, from the suburbs of Atlanta, GA, while I eat my breakfast this fine balmy (and pollen-laden) morning here in the Capital of the Peach State, which I will likely get to see very little of over the next couple of days, unless one counts the interiors of hotel rooms and anonymous office park conference rooms as tourist destinations. Knowing there are whale sharks just a few miles from here that I won’t be able to visit because working hours cross over pretty much completely with aqaurium operating hours is more than a little heartbreaking.

But that’s today. Yesterday was half a day at the office and another half inside the domestic airline system, which was relatively mundane, all told. Boeing 717 seats (especially the middle one on the right side) are kind of tight, but my rowmates were both pleasant (and small, so my shoulders didn’t bump into them too much), so it wasn’t that bad. Sunday was likewise the usual, aside from my facilitating a surreptitious plan for breakfast in bed for the mother of my children, and a nice lunch out with friends.

The rest of the weekend was a bit more interesting, stressful in the sense that I wrote a really big check on Friday afternoon which will lead to my house looking much prettier (and maintenance free) on the outside in the next couple of weeks, but probably reducing stress long term thanks to increased property values and significantly less maintenance. Also, it’s going to be green – which is calming; just ask the hallways of various hospitals and psych wards (though my house will be much less institutional, one would hope).

The big fun, however, was on Saturday. I had a gig. Once again, Scott and Kirsten of The Blibbering Humdingers, Cary NC’s premier wizard rock ensemble, were kind enough to let me sit in on bass for a couple of sets at a show in Northern Virginia, where we rocked the nerdy t-shirts off of a room full of dedicated fans in the company of other fine acts such as Jared twg, Hawthorn and Holly, and The District 13 Cowboys. We all had a great time, I once again managed to sound somewhat proficient on the bass guitar (even on tunes I’d not actually played before), and there’s slightly-more-than-idle talk that we might do this all again soon (in a really, really cool venue!) if all the details can be worked out.

(in this photo, we’re doing an unrehearsed song I’d never played before, so of course I’m glancing down at the ipad to catch the chord changes. Rawk.)

And that’s what I’ve been up to. Exciting, huh?

I was supposed to be in Atlanta this week. I’m not.

When people say “the last minute”, it’s usually a somewhat embellished description of events. In this case, it’s kind of embellished as well, but only by about three or four hours, and when we’re talking airport time, it doesn’t get much tighter than that, so relatively speaking, this one’s pretty literal.

Strap in, friends, for a story.

After a whirlwind week of meet-and-greets, rehearsals, and an eventual quick, unanimous decision for something that never happens quickly or unanimously, Colleen’s year-long volunteer commitment came to a successful end, and there was much rejoicing all around. Our Sunday was pretty long, with us leaving the house before 8am and not returning home until well after 9pm. It was exhausting, but kind of nice, as there was some steam blown off and toasts made to bring this crazy part of our lives to an end. Upon our return, we convinced the kitten we hadn’t abandoned her after all (she forgave us), and I packed a bag and removed all airport contraband from my laptop case, then finally made it to bed, convinced I was going to hit the office in the morning for a few hours to clear out the inbox, grab my ticket confirmations, and get on a plane before lunch.

When i got to the office, I found, buried amongst the usual crap, a short message, sent late Sunday afternoon (when nobody was in the office and most don’t have access to email anyway) indicating that the event I was supposed to check my bags to travel to in a couple of hours was postponed for technical issues, and that we’d try again next week.

Not cool.

So, with about two hours to spare before I’d have to check in, I managed to cancel my reservations. Luckily, I ran into the spouse of the person I was traveling with during a fortuitous morning fire drill, because she didn’t know of the cancellation (she wasn’t planning on coming in before the airport). Bullet dodged there.

Now, I’m not really going to complain about being home for a week, especially this week. I’ve not been feeling that great anyway (a couple of busy weeks with little downtime will do that to a person), and I have a sit-in bass gig this weekend, so I could use a little more time to practice the tunes so I don’t embarass the band. Still, I’d managed to shift completely into travel mode, and having to shift back rather abruptly throws a person off.

So, as it stands now, I’ve been working locally and sleeping at home all week, fighting to find flights for next week (for some reason, things next week are tight – at least my travel companion and I will be on the same flight home), and figuring out if this thing’s actually going to happen at all, and trying to get myself rested enough to function normally again.

That’s my story. It kind of sucks, but it’s the glamourous life I lead. Aren’t you jealous?

…this particular phrase just popped into my head at random this afternoon. I shall now share it with you:

My own stools, Sir, are gigantic and have no more odor than a hot biscuit.

Haven’t seen this particular movie in years, but the image is *right there* and it made me laugh.

Around these parts on this day, it’s become customary to figuratively dance around the May pole and post a version of this particular tune for the entertainment of visitors:

One, because it’s funny and I enjoy almost all things Coulton. Secondly, because it is, believe it or not, a lesson in history and culture; in this case, pagan/wiccan religious tradition. For around this time comes Bealtaine, a festival of fertility and spring planting and (to quote the link above):

…the source of a lots of bawdy jokes and allusions. For example, “Hurray, Hurray, the first of May: Outdoor suiving starts today!” refers to making love outdoors. By the first of May in Europe, it’s fairly safe to take your beloved out for a romantic encounter.

Legend has it that Jonathan Coulton wrote this song after having a medieval version of the same sentiment shown to him by noted expert on all things John Hodgman, because sharing dirty jokes from dark age woodcuts with their peers is apparently what Ivy League alumni in the entertainment industry do for amusement. As they should.

In my neck of the woods this week, it’s full of storms and wind and rain, so we’ll probably forego partaking. But, if things are cooperating where you are, knock yourselves out, by all means.

So, unless your internet is broken, you noticed yesterday evening that Disney released the cast list for Star Wars Episode VII. And it looks like a good one. The original big three are back, and looking pretty good, the newcomers are mostly intriguing and/or anonymous – John Boyega was excellent in Attack the Block, Andy Serkis is Andy Freakin’ Serkis, and this Daisy Ridley person looks like she’d make a nice Organa-Solo kid, which I imagine as a fusion of Jedi badass and smuggler cool…plus, she’s awfully pretty.

Of course, this is all speculation, because other than Hammil, Fisher, Ford (and Mayhew, Daniels, and Bakker), we really have no idea who’s playing who, what the lot is, or anything, especially since they mentioned earlier that the Extended Universe is out. But, it’s lots of fun to speculate about this totally open playing field lying here before us.

Now, I’m a fan of Star Wars, to be sure, but it’s far from my primary expression of fandom. My portfolio is somewhat more diversified. While I’ve seen all the movies many times, and read a handful of the EU stories, I’m far from single-minded or obsessed (I save that aspect of my geekdom for Marvel comics, particularly of the 70s and 80s vintage) on the subject at the expense of all others. Still, it’s hard not to get a little excited about this development; I remember seeing Jedi in the the theaters as a kid, the first time I saw the big reveal in Empire, and all the other touchstones folks of my generation have regarding this movie. I wasn’t particularly enamored with the prequels, but seeing this sort of news still manages to tap my inherent geek optimism – I still really hope this is good.

Finally, I love that they wheeled R2-D2 in so he could be in the photo (and it’s also kind of endearing that they left him in the crate; I don’t know why).