By Friday lunchtime, I came to the realization that one of my 85,000 closest friends at Dragoncon shared their germs with me. Plugged up sinuses, general aches and pains, lethargy etc. I pushed through the rest of the day, but did my best to rest and recover over the weekend, but I still ended up handling a lot of the usual stuff like laundry and shopping, and some unusual stuff, such as the semi-annual flea-bombing of the house on Sunday, which made the place much more comfortable for our furry family, but earned me some nasty scratches in the process, since not all the cats particularly enjoy getting doused with the personal flea spray along with the foggers we set off.

They did get some time outside in their luxurious crates (which they mostly enjoyed, I think), as we timed the bombing to coincide with the food truck court at Hardywood to benefit Ita’s Food Truck, which got wrecked in an accident a couple of weeks ago. The Parker family loves Richmond’s food trucks, so of course we went to support local businesses, eat some delicious curry and tacos (they go together, trust me), and those of us of legal age had a couple of delicious beverages. Even if I was completely worn out by 1:30pm, it was nice to get outside in the sunshine (after a bunch of overcast hurricane-adjacent days) for a little while. I think it did me good.

Beyond that, though, I mostly crashed on the bed or the couch, nestled under blankets and cats reading or falling asleep in front of the TV (on the viewing agenda? Four or five episodes of Firefly, Return of the Swamp Thing, and Star Wars, Episode IV).

The forecast for the week looks pretty low-impact, at least for me. The kids are back at school, my lovely spouse has a couple of volunteer shifts at the RSPCA, and the fall season of Irish dance classes starts up; they’ll be busy, but I’ll have a chance to recover a bit, if all remains the same.

I need to get better, because I have a couple of gigs coming up next week.

I write this Thursday evening, my first day back at the day job after spending the weekend playing rock star with 85,000 of my closest friends at Dragoncon in Atlanta. We had a pretty good weekend, all told, playing some great shows and seeing some good friends, and hell, making the Syfy Wire web page, getting mentioned by name!

It was very nice seeing so many friends, however briefly. I tried my best to be engaged and friendly, but as I said on social media earlier this week, I’ve been kind of “off” the last couple of months, and not my best self, so if you’re reading this (and didn’t see the social media post) and saw me this weekend when I wasn’t my best, please accept my apologies.

But even if I wasn’t my best self, I still had a great time, seeing lots of great costumes and drinking some surprisingly good beverages (props to Scofflaw Brewing Co, Max Lagers, and Viking Alchemist Meadery!) along with the other stuff.

It’s always fun making music for people what enjoy such things.

Today was my first day back to work after getting to be a semi-famous rock star for several days, and the many, many documents I had to prepare to make the bureaucratic sausage today to get my projects funded and awarded really brought me back down to Earth. Oh well.

Not a whole lot on for this weekend; do some laundry, do the grocery shopping, and see about watching The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, because I’ve been, frankly, too tired to really digest it.

Oh, and the kids went back to school this week, and the eldest managed to get cast as Titania in the college production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which is cool. My kid: Queen of the Fairies.

Anyway; the usual week’s playlist, harvested from the hard drive. Lots of friends, and a tune I wrote there at #15, as performed by my former band, Dimensional Riffs. Sweet.

Have a great weekend, my handful of readers!

1. “TMZ” – “Weird” Al Yankovic
2. “Being With You” – that dog.
3. “The Owls (demo)” – Jonah Knight
4. “Michelangelo” – Emmylou Harris
5. “Road Movie To Berlin” – They Might Be Giants
6. “Crocodile Smile” – Innocent Nixon
7. “St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)” – The White Stripes
8. “8 Bit Love Song” – Mikey Mason
9. “Me and You (Drum Solo) (live)” – Van Halen
10. “Landing Party” – Jeff and Mya Bohnhoff
11. “Caliban’s Song” – Valentine Wolfe
12. “Love Like You” – Sunnie Larsen
13. “No Conditions” – Bishop Allen
14. “Voodoo” – Rusted Root
15. “Root Access” – Dimensional Riffs
16. “It Just Might Be A One-Shot Deal” – Frank Zappa
17. “The Burden of Being Wonderful” – Steel Panther

For those curious, the above-embedded tune from my friends the Misbehavin’ Maidens is the source of today’s title, though, per the navigation app estimates I just made, my trip is going to be 555 miles…I won’t quibble over 45 miles, which is probably what I’ll end up walking this weekend, between hotels, performance spaces, up innumerable flights of stairs laden with gear, etc.

In any case, by the time this one hits the ‘tubes, I’ll be well on my way to putting those miles under me, as I leave early Thursday morning to link up with my bandmates and make the trip. And damn, if I’m not looking forward to it.

After being out of the office for class the last two weeks, I’ve been working on cramming three weeks’ of work into three days, knocking down all kinds of obstacles and setting things up so my projects can keep flowing after my previous absence, and through my next one. It’s been hectic, but I think I have it nailed down.

If you happen to be in Atlanta and want to brave the influx of costumed nerds getting their freak on, here’s where we’ll be according to the tentative schedule the con’s put out, but I amend the usual disclaimer they put on it – all times are tentative until the event is actually happening:

• Friday, 8/30 – 10am – Hyatt Hanover FG – “What is Filk Music?” panel
• Friday, 8/30 – 11:30am – Hyatt Hanover FG – “Meet, Greet, Filk (open filk)”
• Friday, 8/30 – 4pm – Westin Concourse II – Concourse Show
• Friday, 8/30 – 10pm – Hyatt Hanover FG – Concert
• Saturday, 8/31 – 7pm – Hyatt Hanover C-E – World of Superheroes Trubute Show
• Saturday, 8/31 – 8:30pm – Hyatt Hanover FG – Concert
• Sunday, 9/1 – 1pm – The Business of Filk panel
• Sunday, 8pm-ish – outside the Marriott Imperial Ballrom – renegade unsanctioned busking outside the Yule Ball
• Monday, 9/2 – 1pm – Hyatt Hanover FG – Medieval music workshop (this is mostly S&K’s thing)

Otherwise, we’ll likely be in or around the filk track in the Hyatt (especially in the evenings ’round concert time), or at our merch table somewhere near the ballroom on the lower Marriott level, trying to sell CDs and such and watching all the cool weirdness flow by, unless some other interesting event comes along…ya never know.

In any case, I’m really looking forward to seeing friends I haven’t seen in a while, in this weird little world of musical hijinx I am lucky enough find myself a part of. I’m still amazed every freaking day that I get to do this cool stuff on the regular.

But the title promised you a random playlist, and I am to deliver. This one was drawn from my “Discover Weekly” Spotify playlist of suggested tunes, set loose on shuffle play. Some neat stuff overall, though Cobain’s vocals (and it’s him, I checked) on #5 really don’t sound like him at all. Whatever:

1. “Love My Way” – Rogue Wave
2. “Coma Girl” – Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros
3. “Hard to Handle” – The Black Crowes
4. “The Best Ever Death Metal band In Denton” – Laura Jane Grace
5. “Molly’s Lips – BBC John Peel Session 1990” – Nirvana
6. “Blue” – The Jayhawks
7. “In The Street” – Big Star
8. “Eighteen” – Alice Cooper
9. “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden” – The Suicide Machines
10. “Here Comes My Baby” – Yo La Tengo
11. “Heartbreaker” – Pat Benetar
12. “Supergiant” – Valley Queen
13. “Vampire Girl” – Jonathan Richman

Having finished that class I took the last two weeks, I went back to the usual office grind on Monday, to get some good news, mostly hassle, and finding that nobody feels like answering their email or voice mail.

Grrrr.

The good news, that I keep hanging onto, is the fact that I only have to weather this crapstorm for two more days, at which time I pack up the car and drive south, eventually to Atlanta, where I get to be a rock star with the rest of the Blibbering Humdingers at Dragoncon once again.

I absolutely cannot wait, because while DC is huge and crazy and weird and tremendously exhausting fun, it’s generally a good kind of crazy and weird and tremendously exhausting fun, where I get to spend time with almost 100k of my fellow nerds, most specifically, with my musical community that brings me such joy.

Oh, I not only get to be a rock star this coming weekend, but as of this past weekend, I am a Pegasus Award Nominated rock star, as the Humdingers made this year’s final ballot for “Best Performer”. The Pegasus Awards, for “excellence in filking”, are handed out every October at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, are kind of a big deal in the circles I travel in, and it’s really a nice honor to make the final ballot, especially in the “Best Performer” category; I think it speaks to the effort we put into putting on an entertaining and engaging stage show (which isn’t always a priority in this world), and I feel like I can take some small ownership of this one, given the fact that I have a lot more high-profile performing credits with the group than I do songwriting or recording credits (though those keep adding up too).

While winning would be lovely, the competition is fierce in our category, which also includes such luminaries as Sunnie Larsen and The Faithful Sidekicks this year. That said, as much a cliche as it is, being nominated already feels like a win.

But yeah, anybody can vote on this one (not just those with convention memberships, like the Hugos), so if you’re feeling so inclined…

So, by the time this posts, it’ll be my birthday. Hello, 45.

I don’t feel old, until I sprain something by tripping over nothing. Still, I *am* in better shape than I was when I was twenty, which I guess says something.

Tomorrow is the last day of the class I’ve found myself in for the last two weeks. It’s not been a bad experience, and I’ve enjoyed it, and made a few friends in the deal, and as I write this, the running graded total has me two points short of a perfect score. I expect I’ll drop a few more, because one of the truisms of these sorts of workforce development courses is that nobody gets perfect scores on group exercises, but all told, I’ll take it. That said, I’ll be glad to be done with it, because I’ll get my usual schedule back.

For exactly three days, because come Thursday of next week, I am off to do the DragonCon thing once again after taking a year off. We’ve got a bunch of shows lined up Friday through Monday. It’ll be good to see and play with my friends again, especially folks I only get to see there, or otherwise a couple of times a year at special events. My nerd musical community is one of my lifelines, even if I’ve managed to build up a nice local musical community as well.

Speaking of that community, my open mic this week as almost too successful; we ran over half an hour past official closing time because we had too many people sign up, even if I did limit sets to fifteen minutes or three tunes. I suppose this is a good problem to have, though we’ll have to maybe make some adjustments for future events if turnout keeps trending up. In any case, the venue is very happy, as tons of people come in and eat and drink a bunch; certainly more than enough to cover my stipend and comped bar tab.

Not much on the agenda for the weekend; we’re going out with friends for a birthday dinner out tomorrow night, I’m getting my oil changed and tires rotated, and I’ll do like usual and hit the farmer’s market. I expect I’ll try to record a bit, because that’s what I do, and likely run some tunes we’re likely to play next weekend. Otherwise, I’ll probably just raise a glass to the memory of what is no longer possible, an MCU with Spider-Man in it. Oh well. Maybe they’ll find a way to reconcile, maybe not, but Tom Holland was the best thing to happen to my favorite super-hero for quite some time.

Anyway; tunes. As part of our ongoing decluttering project, we got rid of a bunch of CDs along with the books, but not before ripping them to mp3 first, so I have a bunch of newish digital stuff to cycle through for these random playlists, which are listed immediately following this paragraph. Not a bad list, really:

1. “TMZ” – “Weird” Al Yankovic
2. “The Green and the Blue” – Amy Macdonald
3. “Can You Keep A Secret” – Utada Hikaru
4. “Burn All The Letters” – Indigo Girls
5. “London (live)” – The Smiths
6. “Hero Takes A Fall” – The Bangles
7. “Start Again” – Bishop Allen
8. “Shimmy Low (live) – The Clarks
9. “Are You Ten Years Ago” – Tegan and Sara
10. “The Lovecats” – The Cure
11. “Songs From The Wood” – Jethro Tull
12. “Would You Rather” – Phoebe Bridgers

It’s been quiet around these parts recently, other than a couple of quick frustrated maintenance posts. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, “these parts” aren’t the same parts anymore.

You might have, if you timed it right, found things looking different for a while. That’s because I changed hosting services. I used GoDaddy for years, and while it was functional, support was garbage, pricing wasn’t ideal, and I, frankly, had issues with them from a social and moral perspective.

So, since my hosting package was up for renewal this week, I went and looked at other options. I ended up with bluehost; which I kind of like so far, and I got three years’ worth of hosting for less than the price of one at the old place. Reviews seem good, and the price is right for a couple of years. I also offloaded some support/management stuff by going to a wordpress hosted account, which covers wordpress (the engine I use to run this blog/website/thing) administration rather than me installing it on a blank server myself and managing fixes and upgrades.

More to come there; I’ve been on it for a week; I’m still tweaking the UI, though I haven’t had much time.

Otherwise, my schedule’s been totally disrupted the last two weeks, as I’ve been away from my office and spending some up the road the training center on my old, old workplace site sitting in class: Intermediate Software Systems Acquisition. It’s just as exciting as it sounds. Actually, it’s *very* relevant to some aspects of my job; possibly more than the certification track that I’m required to have. This one will net me a certification I’m not required to have, but if I’m required to rack the workforce development credits anyway, might as well snag something to pad the resume. That said, since class core hours are shifted a couple of hours from my usual work day, and I’m a creature of habit, I’m a bit disoriented and out of sorts, especially since it’s messing with my outdoor and exercise time; I’ve been walking in the 100°+ heat (there’s a nice walking trail nearby that I can knock a mile or two out on after work), but it’s not the same as usual.

So that’s why things have been slow and weird around here. Hopefully it’ll change.

Well, after fighting with things for a few hours this evening after sleeping on it, I eventually, after wrestling with ftp clients, IP addresses, and trying to write SQL queries when I barely know enough to be dangerous (remember, I’m the guy that once took a whole government agency’s clause-selection system in the contract writing tool down for a whole week for want of a semicolon), got my posts and most of my old, circa 2010 wordpress theme back.

In the end, it turned out that my damned export xml file was just too big for the managed WordPress install – it kept choking on it after so long. So, I kept running it over and over until everything eventually loaded.

Of course, my theme customizations are gone, as are most of the images I’ve uploaded over the last decade, but most of those that matter are backed up elsewhere, and for the purposes of this site, less important than all the text I’ve knocked out since 2007. If you’re digging through the archives, you’ll just have to deal with the occasional broken image.

Sorry.

Anyway, it’s been a heck of a week. Class hasn’t been terrible, overall, and I *nailed* the first exam today. But, I had to go back to the office to water the plant, submit the timesheet, and, sadly, wrestle with some garbage my boss wasn’t able to fix on his own. Also, storms made a fifteen minute trip take almost an hour.

Whatever; this weekend’s kinda quiet; I can relax a bit, maybe, wrestle with wordpress themes, and maybe finally get over to Molly’s “Blind Dog Brewery” (and bike shop), since yes, like everything else in the RVA region, my local bike shop is now also a brewery.

So, I swapped web hosts this evening, and well, this is what I ended up with. Looks like I lost quite a bit of stuff in the mix – I seem to be missing about eight years’ worth of posts.

Shit.

Well, I’ll work on sorting things out – it’s not *gone* per se, but I can’t quite yank it out of the aether yet.

at least I’ve got the email sorted. the usual bits work

double damn.

Yes, it’s Friday. Woo. About time.

I honestly don’t have all that much to say. Work, hike, cook, sleep, repeat.

Supposed to get together with some friends this weekend; hope it’s cool.

Next week, and the week after, I’m in class – “intermediate software systems acquisition”. Exciting stuff, certainly. It’s only half as long, and way less involved than the class I took last August while stuck in Aberdeen. This time, it’s just up the street; I’ll take it.

Anyway, tunes. Mix of Pandora and a bunch of the discs I ripped before trading in for store credit at 2nd & Charles. Not awful. Enjoy:

1. “Ocean Blue” – Cut Copy
2. “Hot Stuff” – Toledo
3. “The Plains of Memories” – Borknagar
4. “Riptide” – Vance Joy
5. “Come On Eileen” – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
6. “77” – Alice Bag
7. “Burning Down The House” – Talking Heads
8. “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” – Car Seat Headrest
9. “Jesse’s Girl” – Rick Springfield
10. “Long Road” – Patty Griffin
11. “Whispers in the Dark” – Mumford & Sons
12. “Eshkol” – SJ Tucker
13. “Want Some, Need Some” – Poison

So, yeah, I spent most of Wednesday with a significant part of my brain thinking it was Thursday. When I came to that realization, believe me, it sucked.

Wednesday night was a weird one…I dreamt that both my lovely wife and I were appointed as Supreme Court Justices, though the entire thing took place in and around a giant high-class restaurant in Washington, D.C., where we spent time hanging with my old high school acquaintances, and everyone was in some sort of band (not just me) and broke into song now and then. Every time we went outside to walk around the block (no reason; just go with it), a black SUV would invariably pull up and Barack Obama would open the back door, say hello and shake hands with someone.

Oh, and we were both wearing judge’s robes the entire time (Mine was very specifically a cheap graduation gown I bought in non-dream life at a thrift shop for a buck a few years ago and used to build a cheezy Sandra Day O’Connor costume involving a white wig and a cast-off piece of lace). At some point I lost my robe, which made me very very concerned.

Don’t mind me; my brain is weird.

My actual Thursday wasn’t actually somewhat better; although I had to deal with the being very tired from not sleeping well due to the very real anxiety about the robe. Hours of phone calls. Trying to figure out what my boss is thinking when he doesn’t answer questions. Begging for test data from someone, anyone, so I can get this project put to bed by the time the resources outside entities were kind enough to offer run out. Regarding that last one, I managed to get some senior executive types to back me, offering to get personally involved to ensure that I get the right answer from the proper stakeholders. Having those big shot types offer to bring the hammer down on your behalf feels pretty damned good. If you can manage that, I highly recommend it. It’s glorious.

Yeah, my life could be better right now, .but it has potential Hoping the weekend will be better; I also haven’t managed to get any recording done this week so far because reasons. I really need to fix that.

In any case; tunes. “Weekly Discovery” playlist from spotify, mostly. Any playlist that starts with Tim Curry’s “I Do The Rock” from 1979’s Fearless reocrd is okay with me:

1. “I Do The Rock” – Tim Curry
2. “Obscurity Knocks” – Trashcan Sinatras
3. “In My Room” – Echo in the Canyon
4. “Three Is A Magic Number” – Blind Melon
5. “Buffalo Run” – Orville Peck
6. “Dreaming” – Blondie
7. “Blue” – The Jayhawks
8. “Head On” – The Pixies
9. “Cruel Summer” – Prima Donna
10. “When I Get Up” – Tim Heidecker
11. “Life During Wartime” – Talking Heads
12. “Cowboy Song” – Thin Lizzy
13. “This Time It’s Different” – Heart Bones