Experiments in Woolgathering

I started reading Steve Martin’s ‘Shopgirl’ Saturday night, and although I’ve not finished it, I did see the movie which thus far has tracked the written story very closely, so I’m writing what amounts to a review.

And yes, I do plan to start blogging more frequently than monthly, for now though I that you just be happy it hasn’t been 8 months again.

Most significantly Leanne is now living here in Columbus – technically Dublin. (As an aside, I think just about ever major European city has some village at least in Ohio named after it.) Anyhow, she’s settling in pretty well and things are good.

We spent much of the first few days here running around to various stores so she could get her apartment stocked up. She’s also waiting on some stuff to be mailed from Alabama (where she lived, as opposed to Utah where she was working). I’ve managed not to stay over at her place /too/ much, I’m trying to not make an annoyance of myself with her roommate if nothing else.

Of course there are some very nice things about spending the night.

Mmm, other that, there was a brief period of time at work where a number of us were concerned about being layed off. When your managers start telling you to polish up your resume and schmooze other folks around the bank in the hopes of getting a job with them, that tends to make us nervous.

But, at least for the next year or so it looks like we’re reasonable safe. My group, at least most of it is being transferred en masse to another line of business. So, I get to keep half my job (the other job I did is being left within my old LOB) and my manager, not something I can really complain about.

Other than that little hiccup, work has been mainly crazy-busy. I think I put in nearly 70 hours last week and over the weekend. That should be the last of that level of crazy business for a while – it’s uncertain what will happen exactly once we’re in our new LOB, but that doesn’t happen until the new year.

Getting back to Leanne, and more specifically where she lives, we discovered a very nice Greek restaurant right near her place. It looked like a little hole in the wall gyro places, but turning out to be good-size authentic Greek restaurant. We feasted, remarked upon our luck and drank ouzo. It was VERY good.

What else?

Ah, went and saw my cousin’s new baby – her mother’s first grandchild. He’s small, cute and farted on me a lot. I suppose karmically I had it coming. Alas. My mom and sister were along too, we went out to dinner at a quasi-Greek place for dinner. When it rains it pours, or something like that. They asked about Leanne a little, I showed them some pictures of her I have on my phone. I think she won points for being so pretty. Heh.

Hurm, I let this post sit unfinished for about a week and I’ve totally lost my feel for it, so I’m just going to publish it. Enjoy.

The Internet is a funny place. Perhaps funny isn’t the right word, but it will do for now. With the exception of people I’m met through Aikido and work (directly or via them), pretty much everyone else I know I met online. Technically, the net covers those too: I was contacted about my current job via e-mail and the person who told me about the dojo I go to was someone I learned about online.

I suppose some people might say this is sad. I would argue against that of course.

Because of my job and my little moonlightling work I spend a lot of time at a computer. I would not argue with anyone who said it’s too much time and that I do need strike a better balance, but this is the situation I’m currently in, so I think it’s rather nice that I have met these people online, and become friends, lovers, learned, collaborated, and so on.

What’s ‘funny’ about all this is in a way that is much magnified from meeting people offline you really never know who you will meet – or who is reading your blog.

Case in point, the last comment as of this writing in my previous entry is from someone from Norway. I’m pretty sure I don’t know this person (massive apologies if I do!). I am curious how he found me, though as he practices Budo I am guessing it was the ol’ martial arts connection.

This in and of itself isn’t very remarkable, I was far more touched by Kris’ comment itself than the circumstances of its author. But a connection exists now, however tenuous; who knows where it might lead, and it did give me something to ramble about in this post.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted a blog entry of any substance. A lot has been going on, some of it stuff I simply didn’t want to discuss just because… well, I didn’t want to have the follow on conversation. Anyhow, here goes.

Nothing too exciting here for my first blog entry in seven months. Let’s just call it easing back into things. (And in theory this should cross post to my LJ where the last entry is years old. Curious to see what sort of reaction that elicits, if any.)

Anyhow, my recipe for Carne Adovada.

• One pork tenderloin, cut into 1 inch cubes (you can use other cuts, but this will make it REALLY good)


• A couple cups of red chile sauce. Perfect would be if you can get Hatch bran, but I don’t think you can outside of the southwest. Junked up picante sauce is bad. If you can find a place with a decent hispanic food selection they should have something close.


• A few garlic cloves. Fewer if they’re big, but I dunno how much you like garlic.


• Season with any/all of: oregano, sage, cumin, black pepper, chili powder

Cook in a crock pot for at least 12 hours before eating. 24 is better. Meat should really just fall apart.

Roll in a tortilla with hashbrowns, cheese and scrambled eggs for a breakfast burrito.

Serve over rice, or spanish rice for dinner. Or do… whatever floats your boat.

But most of all: Enjoy!

If you’ve read my other reviews of Asher’s books (The Skinner and Cowl) you know I’ve his books a great deal. While I didn’t find Grindlinked as good as those first two, it’s still an excellent read.

Tainaron is the first book I’ve read by Leena Krohn, a Finnish author. The book is subtitled ‘Mail From Another City’ (Postia Toisesta Kaupungista in Finnish) and is a collection of thirty fantastic letters written by a visitor to the city of Tainaron. Accordingly, it is not a large book, only 124 pages, and 15 or so of those are illustrations.

I haven’t been recalling my dreams much lately. Last night I was pretty sick, and for some reason had this crazy dream.

It’s been a while since I posted one of these. This one’s a bit on the dirty side, but still quite funny.

I’ve read a fair number of ::Philip K. Dick::’s novels, but didn’t manage to get around to Minority Report before the movie version came out – and obviously it took me a couple more years to get around to it. Like most stories translated to film, more than a few liberties were taken with the it.

Although I haven’t been blogging much about Aikido, I have actually been going reasonably regularly since the beginning of October – minus a week plus around an almost week long trip to New York City. Since we were in town for the holiday weekend I when to all three weekend classes.

When I found out Clemens was starting a new fantasy series, I was very excited. I’d read his Banned and the Banished series and loved it. The first volume of The Godslayer Chronicles almost lived up to my very high expectations.

I finally read an article that explains the social ills and history which lead up to the riots that are spreading across France.

To say the least, it was very eye opening. I think many people here, me included, have western Europe on a bit of a pedestal (and, as it turns there are still people in other countries do this with the US – our recent foreign policy notwithstanding). It’s not like I didn’t France has poverty and disenfranchisement, at some level this is unavoidable, I just never guessed it existed on the scale described in that article. Just as I have heard foreigners amazed that New Orleans had so many people that were so poor they had no means to leave the city. Though who can blame them? Apparently our own government was unaware of this as well.

What’s worse still is that it apparently takes large scale rioting or natural disasters to get our governments heads out of their asses to notice these problems. Will they stay out long enough to actually do something though?

I’ve been terribly remiss in posting reviews of what I’ve been reading. So, since I’ve no illusions about me actually writing full reviews of all of these, I’m just going to give capsule reviews.

Surprise, surprise, I’m in NYC again! Four days of meetings and training. On the upside, a number of coworkers from overseas are here, and it’s aways fun to hang out with them.

Seems that I’m in a movie-theme lately (had a LotR dream the night before last).

This dream is set in Middle Earth, at the time of the War of the Rings. The dream is very fluid. Sizes and other details change frequently.

I was talking to friend Ester from Iceland this morning and she told me that she and the other women were walking off the job at 2:08.

My first two thoughts were that it was just at her workplace and why 2:08?? The first was wrong, it’s nationwide Women’s Day Off, and the reason for the second is that the average wage difference between men and women is so large that at 2:08 they will have worked enough to earn the same amount as a man. Do the math, yes, women only make 64.15% of what men do.

I was floored by this. That’s bordering on crimminal in a westernized nation. Hell, they should walk about a lot more often if you ask me.

I very curious to know how many men show up to protest alongside them. Have to remember to ask.

Update

Some pictures from the march can be seen here (the article is in Icelandic, sorry).

Iceland, Discrimination, Feminism, sexism

This was a very disjointed dream. Lots of scene jumps – for me at least. Overall it was very bright and colorful, though not very emotionally charged. I have a sense that it’s set in Chicago, IL (where I was born) along Lake Michigan. I found it interesting that this seemed to be set in my birthtown – a place we left when I was about 2 and a half years old.

Last night we got a call from R’s mother. One of her cousins, Bryce, was in a bad car accident yesterday morning. Apparently an oncoming car swerved to avoid something and ran head on into him. He’s alive, but not breathing on his own and in a medically induced coma while the swelling in his brain goes down. There were two people in the other car, one of whom is dead and the other apparently not expected to make it. Bryce was alone in his car.