This week

Well it has been quite a week. I think the most shocking thing was the death of my paternal grandmother. Most of Wednesday was a scramble to find a way to pay for a ticket. Unfortunately, I’m currently in a very short term contract which meant that I had to watch the numbers very carefully. Finally, it became apparent that it just wasn’t going to happy. The even greater irony was that my maternal grandmother was willing to pay for the ticket, but I didn’t find out about that until Thursday, which meant that my ability to make up the lost hours during the week was effectively shot. I was willing to have her pay for the ticket given the circumstances (although reluctantly since having helped Grandma with her house situation I know that wasn’t an easy sacrifice for her to make) but I was not going to have her do that AND pay to make up the hours I would lose if I flew in on Friday.

Which meant that we pretty much kept up plans as usual on Saturday. I mean, on the one hand, it was fun going to two Halloween parties. And they were good parties. On the other hand, it was kind of surreal going and celebrating a relatively minor (and certainly not to me Spiritual (though I know it is to others)) holiday and at the same time my extended family is gathered on the other side of the country mourning and celebrating my grandmother’s life. I tried to do the ‘I’m enjoying life to celebrate her death’ thing but that’s kind of hard since, while Grandma certainly enjoyed her life, she was not exactly what I might call a “Carpe Dium” kind of woman, at least not in her later years where I knew her. They certainly traveled a lot, which was fascinating to hear the anecdotes from.

The most interesting thing to come out of the two parties we did attend was seeing the first episode of the Sentinel Chronicles’s second season. Jay is very talented, as are many of the people that work with him, but you can SEE the differences between Season 1 and Season 2. By Jay’s own admission, he spent over 250 hours in post production. Granted, this was mainly from special effects of things like Shell Casings, but the thing is, that ironically they’re mostly things you take for granted or that slip into the background. Case (no pun intended) in point…the shell casings from the guns? CGI. Also, sometimes the scenes flash by so fast that you don’t realize that one of the two sides fighting are CLONES, which means that he had to literally imprint the same actor three times onto the screen. Then again, the best special effects, particularly CGI effects makes the special effects flow into the background so the story itself can be paramount.

The second party, a white wolf international Camarilla event, had an amazing floor show. It also had an extremely celebratory atmosphere and I admit I did enjoy dancing with Jennifer while we were there. I dressed as a Mad Scientist and Jennifer dressed as Nyx, Greek goddess of the night. I still need to get a picture of her costume on here.

Currently Reading : Conversations with God, The Clocks of Iruz

Currently Watching: Supernatural Season 3