Life Continues

Jennifer and I went to a rather nice Thai place on Wednesday to celebrate her getting her degree. It was very good food and really good service. Quite frankly, it may be the best Asian food (certainly Thai) that I've ever had. Kind of the opposite of a Mexican place we ate at the other day that we went to mainly because of a coupon book. The food wasn't so bad, but the ownership had chanced and they wouldn't honor our coupon. They did take personal checks but we had to make the check out to some random person. Not exactly an experience that engenders confidence.

Right now I am reading, "River of the Dancing Gods" by Chalker. Mindless fun from the 1980's. I got the book at the same used book store we went to with grandma two weeks ago. We took her out to go used bookshopping and it was pretty fun.

We spent some time Saturday night with our former next door neighbors. They helped Jennifer out a lot before I met her and watched our dog a lot when we used to live in Forest Park. They are losing their house and are declaring bankruptcy. One of them works in a day care and the other does extremely physically demanding day labor for three of the local county water systems. We played Cranium, which they had never played before, but it was a fun evening. Kind of puts things in perspective.

We're trying to alter our eating habits a bit. I do a lot of the cooking, but that primarily involves multiple rotatable combination involving cans and pasta. Jennifer's meals are much more interesting and she planned out things and gave me a grocery list. Of course, it took much longer to shop for some of this stuff, but it should work out well in the long run. I'm going to try and learn one or two of the things she cooks. I'm mainly a fan of stove top or microwave cooking though. My experience with ovens doesn't do well; and I don't touch grills.

Gas is still scarce here in Atlanta. I have a half tank and 32 mpg on my Toyota echo so I'm not too bad off compared to most but being paranoid I still have my eye out on the various gas stations. Either they have lines or don't have gas anymore. Going out for lunch today in a weird angle and time in hopes of catching one without lines that does have gas.

I still have the original bank account I opened at BYU. Its a credit union, so we're moving a bit of our reserve into that bank...just in case. We WERE talking about opening an account in Europe but now they're nationalizing banks as well. It isn't so much that we're worried about losing the money, but if things go really bad, it might take a few months for the government to get around to giving it to us. As long as we have things spread around it shouldn't be a problem, but I certainly don't intend to have all of our eggs in one basket.

Jennifer had her final oral exam today.

She passed.

As of now she has a Masters in Education and Technology.

So far

Things seem to be going well with the novel. I am (more or less) on track. Progress is more detailed on Tossing Grenades at Windmills.

Jennifer has started a new sewing project. She has a bag that she wants to be able to carry on her shoulder as she travels via MARTA. I'm not entirely aware of all the details but it looks rather impressive.

She also got her Capstone back. There were some things marked as not done they wanted, but she turned it around the next day. Theoretically, her oral defense is this week, but it depends on how fast her grader processes the thing. Still, the actual end of her degree is in sight.

My class is rather crazy. I write REALLY fast but I can't imagine how a normal person would cope. In the last 3 weeks, I've had 2 6-10 page papers, 4 1-2 page papers, and 6 online discussion topics that were essentially one page papers. Mid term is next week, and I've still got about the same amount as what I've done so far to turn around. It is by far the most 'busy work' intensive class I've had so far.

Of course, the final two classes I have are rather math intensive.

We finally saw Hancock at the $2.00 theater. It was really good. I'd mark it (for me) fourth best movie of the summer after Wall-E, Dark Knight and Iron Man. Unlike Iron Man, it also has a heavy rewatch value. IE I can picture Hancock being popular 10 years from now whereas Iron Man might be.

Various items

I'm worried about my family in Houston. I'm mainly worried because they seem worried, not panicked but making serious preparations. They'll be in our prayers.

I've seen some friends of friends lately say things like "They're all crooks" when it comes to politics. I'm not responding here, but I did respond on my livejournal. The entry is called "The Sin of Neutrality."

Make of that what you will.

Have a good weekend.

Life

Jennifer trimmed Thunder's ears the other day. He looks cute.

At the grocery store when I went shopping at costco yesterday, I bought a box of drumsticks. They're very good. Sometimes its fun to be a grown up.

Jennifer recently bought new drapes for the house. They look quite nice. Might put up a picture of it later.

I'll also get Jennifer to post a picture with her Stargate my little pony when she's done with it.

This morning for breakfast, I had an Apple Nutrigrain bar. I've also had a Lean Cuising Teriyaki dinner. Haven't had any of the drumsticks yet. We're saving those for later.

Like Shooting Wolves in a Helicopter.

We had a lot of fun at dragon con. We did a lot so its hard to remember it all.

Friday we spent the day going to a panel about myth in literature and then saw a showing about Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It was awesome. We also went to a Vogon Poetry slam which was horrible but not because the poetry was horrible (Vogon poetry is supposed to be horrible) but because the moderator had no prizes so he stretched things out so there were only 4 matches in an hour. Then Jennifer went to a ....not suitable for this blog panel and I played Warcraft the Board game with Russel and Ken.

Saturday we started the day off with the Stargate Mega Panel (the dead guy on from Atlantis was pretty cool), a rather cool panel on the Dark Tower (Stephen King book). Then I went to the Skeptics vs Believer's debate (absolutely FASCINATING! The million dollar challenge guy showed up and challenged one of the believers who declined) while Jennifer showed people her costumes. She also went to a Middle Man panel.

If you aren't watching Middle Man...you should. It really is one of the best shows on television. I went to a writing in shared world's panel (cause I'm writing a novel in a shared world with Ken).

We went to a panel about the influence of Pixar on Disney and how it has improved things. (Hint: Some people are REALLY defensive of Disney).

Sunday Jennifer went to the My Little Pony Abomination Panel whilst I went to the "How to make your podcast sound cool" panel. Odds are I'm producing "I, Odyseus" in pod cast form later this year. It was very helpful. Then we watched the short film Comedy section. Great stuff! Then we had dinner. Then we watched more short films, Light and Dark. Also great stuff. Then we listened to the Atlanta Radio Theater Company. I missed that (we did not go to the live costume contest this year.) After that we went back to the room and watched the master costume contenst for a few hours on the con channel. Then we played "Mafia/Werewolf" but with a Buffy the Vampire twist for 3-4 hours until late in the night.

Monday we watched Robot Battles and then saw a rather cool panel on Interstellar travel.

Then we picked up the dog and came home.

This is only a fraction of what there is to see

But alas, my picture taking habits were eclectic at best. More details shall be included forthwith (tomorrow) but for now here are the pictures.