|
Thursday, January 30, 2003 Breaking News! Trenton took his first steps by himself yesterday! Yes, he is only 9 months old! On a thoroughly unrelated note, I had the oddest overwhelming urge this morning to take a black-and-white picture of my shoes. Some days, I really do believe I'm insane... |
|
Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Okay, so Decipher FINALLY shipped my order. It probably won't be here before the weekend, though. Also, there's a nasty site called posternow.com that is claiming I didn't pay them, when I've got the records right on PayPal. If I don't get some response from them soon, I'm going to report it to PayPal. Work was nothing but placing service calls about broken disk drives. Once again, I spent all day frantically running around, making calls and trouble-shooting, and I didn't accomplish a single thing. I think I'm going to go to grad school now. *sigh* Anyhow, enough whining from me. My co-worker Tim lent me a book called Saving the Bible from Fundamentalists. It's a pretty poorly written book. All accusations with no proof or support, along with random judgements without explanation. The guy would get wasted in a real debate. I'm thinking of putting up a page with refutation of every point he makes. So far, I've only read 7 pages, but I've got two pages of responses to everything he's said. In a way, it's interesting to read, because it's challenging me to study the topics he's talking about, but I think Tim's going to be upset if I hand him a manuscript with his book. Oh well. If he reads Mere Christianity in as much detail as I'm reading this book, I guess it's a fair trade. |
|
Monday, January 27, 2003 Sooo tired. I hardly got any sleep last night, and I can't think straight today. I want nothing more than to take a nap, but, if I do that, I won't be able to sleep again tonight. I'll do some shopping and get some chores done instead. Hopefully that will keep me awake. I've also got some sections of this page that I can work on. We'll see if I have the mental capacity for that today, though. I finished reading The Great Divorce again yesterday. I'll try to get a review up for it in the Book section. I'm thinking of re-doing the way I do reviews. Also, my Mom requested that I put up some of my non-fiction stories, so, if I've got any of them here with me, I'll start transcribing them. ...must...stay...awake... |
|
Sunday, January 26, 2003 Well, I compromised. Since Angelfire only allows a sub-directory layer depth of 3, I removed some of the "middle-man" directories and moved all the images into the root image directory. So, disaster avoided, and all is well in Gena-land. Contact me to tell me what you think of the new page!! After getting my site all up and running, I did some work on my sister's site. Check it out! Future plans: Add a "Computer" section to this site, update the "Books" section with more C.S. Lewis and maybe some other author, and update the picture pages. |
|
Saturday, January 25, 2003 And it's a lazy day in Michigan. When I came out of work at 5 this morning, almost 6 inches of snow had accumulated on my car. Despite the insulation of the snow making it feel a little warmer out, brushing my car off for 10 minutes was the last thing I wanted to do after 5 hours of fighting with servers. But I survived and got to my apartment and passed out until 11 (which is REALLY late for me), so things aren't so bad, other than me being groggy. It's still snowing now (2pm), and I keep almost dozing off, so I think I'll be staying out here for the rest of the weekend instead of visiting my mom. At least there's nothing I need to do for a couple days. I can just loaf and work on my website and stuff. Well, I'm getting really fed up with the on-line Decipher store. I ordered something on Monday, and they haven't even shipped it yet. I don't know what's up with that, but I think I'll be finding a different source for my cards. If TolkienTown carried Realms of the Elf-Lords boosters, I'd go there. But alas. Once I get the indices all in place, I will be uploading the new website, so I'm going to go work on those now... ...hours pass... Just hit a MAJOR hitch in my website plans. Angelfire doesn't allow deeper than 3 layers of directories. *sigh* So, I either have to entirely re-design the site, or find a new provider. We'll see what turns up. |
|
Friday, January 24, 2003 Mmmmmmm, sleeeeeep. I've got to go in to work at 12:30 tonight, so I've been napping this evening. Unfortunately, when I nap, I always have nightmares. So, now I'm up for a while. I've got to work on some indices for my site, so, if I can get the disturbing images out of my head, I'll do that for a while. For now, I'm downloading more backgrounds. Not that I really need any more, but it's fun. I ran my game last night (that's why I didn't post). It seemed to go pretty well. I got some pictures of the players, so I'll try and post those on the game portion of the site or something. I'll probably hang out at my apartment for the weekend, so be prepared for lots of posts and lots of work on the web site (boo-yah). |
|
Wednesday, January 22, 2003 Xanax is good. The good news: I don't have Colitis. The better news: There are 4 fewer pills that I have to take every day. The bad news: Now we don't know what's wrong with me. Anyhow, another stressful day at work. I really didn't want to be there, so I took a Xanax, which is the same as not going. *happy yet slightly disconnected look* I also had to go to my Gastroenterologist for a follow-up after my NASTY, NASTY exam a few months back. He said it didn't look like I had colitis after all (which is apparently a good thing) and so I could stop taking the Asacol, since it wouldn't do me any good. This means I'm no longer going to dread the huge piles of pills every morning and evening, and I won't have to kick myself repeatedly every evening when I realize that I'd forgotten my noon dose (which I do every day). On the other hand, now he's guessing that I have IBS, which seems like it's going to be a real hassle since it's tipped off by stress (oh, there's none of THAT in my life) and random foods for no apparent reason. And I'll have to drink Citrucel every day again (*blech*). I just hope this works. In totally unrelated news, I got a TON of work done on my new site last night, and will probably post everything sometime in the next few days. Hopefully all the links work right, but, if they don't, you can always write me and let me know what's missing or not working or whatever. Well, off to take some more Xan-er-I mean-off to do some more work... |
|
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 Ditto. In other news, making some web-redesign progress. I'll probably die before it's done anyway, though. Dang, I need more happy pills... |
|
Monday, January 20, 2003 Doctors suck. |
|
Sunday, January 19, 2003 Digital cameras are great. 'Nuff said. Well, last week went rather turbulently. The logs didn't really reflect it, because it was hard to talk about while I was in the middle of it, but there have been a lot of changes in my perspective on theological matters. I'm reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (an excellent book and author; I highly recommend both), and it's really been hitting hard on several fronts. First, there's the issue of just how utterly fallen I am. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, whatever my desire may be, ever single thing I do is flawed from the outset. The only good I can do occurs when I stop trying to do anything on my own and let God lead the way. For example, I've tried so hard to "be good" and "act in a Christian way", and I've been all proud of myself for having good relationships and fixing a lot of problems on my own, but, all along, I have been hating a few people and thinking about how good I am in comparison to all the other people around me for trying so hard. Even in my best intentions, sin slips in. And then there's the places where I don't have good intentions. Where do I even begin on those?? Second, Lewis writes about Christian marriage. This is a hard topic for me, especially since "Christian" marriage puts more emphasis on the male head of the household than "social" marriage does. I don't trust men anywhere near as far as I can throw them, so the idea of submitting to a man - especially in the context of committing to such a relationship for the rest of my life - is particularly loathsome to me. It's going to take a very mature man with a very thorough understanding both of Christianity and the topic of trust for me to even consider such a commitment. All in all, Mere Christianity makes a good case for the existance of God and His nature as shown through the Bible. I'm planning to pick up some extra copies to loan out or give away in the near future. In other news, the twins are still getting bigger every day! Amy and Rich had to get a pen for them, since they kept getting into mischief. In the first pictures I took of them with my digital camera, Gabe has a Harry-Potter-like bruise on his forehead where Trenton knocked a lamp over on him. Poor little guy! They're still adorable, though. Gabe has 5 teeth and Trenton has 4. They chew on EVERYTHING! |
|
Thursday, January 16, 2003 Ran my game tonight. Art played, for the first time. It went pretty well, I think. Although, I guess he'd be the best judge of that. I'm messing with Matt's mind, too. *weg* Now we just have to convince Jeremy to make a character. I got about NO sleep last night, so I'm really tired now, and should probably go to bed. Of course, I know that I'll sit up reading for hours instead of sleeping, but I can try, can't I? Well off I go. After checking one more e-mail account. Just one, I promise. |
|
Wednesday, January 15, 2003 Just another crazy day. How do I manage to go half a week dealing with the same problems every day and never getting any closer to a resolution? Anyhow, only 2 days left to the week. Boo-yah! Hopefully Matt and Jen will make it to my place tomorrow. If Jen can't make it, we'll spend the time trying to convince Jeremy to play. We need an Elf in the game. As a player, I mean. I'm thinking of ordering a digital camera on-line, since the one I wanted to buy was sold out at Best Buy (as in, the warehouse was 1000 units behind...). I'll probably wait until early next week so I have time to transfer some money from my other account. We'll see how brave I feel. |
|
Tuesday, January 14, 2003 I forgot my "happy" pills last night. Man, am I feeling it today. I can't concentrate on anything, I'm jumpy, I just want to sit and stare. Okay, so that's not all that different from my normal days, but I'm more frustrated about it than normal today. Listening to a MIDI of The Nutcracker Suite. Mmmmmmmm... I'd really like to do some writing, but I don't know if I'll be able to concentrate on it. Just writing this is hard enough. (Yes, it's as hard to write this as it is to read it on this background. The background just fit my day so well, I couldn't resist.) On the other hand, I listened to my Two Towers soundtrack -- it's great! |
|
Monday, January 13, 2003 Got an e-mail from Michael Hernandez (visit his site here!) -- it was a very sweet e-mail, and Michael is a very talented artist! He's also one of the LotR-obsessed masses, as can be seen by his oil painting "Riddle Game", which depicts Bilbo and Gollum riddling in The Hobbit. Anyhow, due to his e-mail, I've decided to leave my writing and drawing on my site, although it will be in a very "toned-down" section -- in other words, it won't take up half the site. I'm thinking of doing some fantasy short stories that will be prequels to the novel I intend to write at some point. We'll see how they turn out, though. In other news, it was a busy day at work, but not a bad one. I only scared 3 or 4 people. Of course, my Sys Admin buddies would probably tell me that that constitutes a bad day and I need to get my numbers up, but it's all a matter of perspective. Well, I think I'll go shopping for a while. I have a gift certificate to spend (I'll probably buy Two Towers bookmarks and the soundtrack), and I wanted to look at digital cameras (so I can put pictures of the twins up!). You'll know how successful I am by how many picture pages crop up in the near future... |
|
Sunday, January 12, 2003 Just spent all of Saturday (including the night) at Amy's helping out with the twins. They're so big! They pull themselves up on everything now, and are learning the meaning of the word "No". Albiet, slowly. They're still adorable. Trenton is in 18-month clothes, despite being only about 8 months old. Gabe is closer to his intended size, wearing 9-12 month clothes. They're also eating "grown-up" food like crackers and pasta and these really gross-looking, hot-dog-like meat sticks. Amy and I also went to see Two Towers again (bringing me up to 5 viewings - go me!), and I cried through nearly the whole thing. Either it was just the wrong time of the month to go see it, or I'm getting to attached to the characters. I really hope Peter Jackson doesn't kill off any more important characters! I still think he should do The Chronicles of Narnia once he's all finished with LotR, but that's probably only a dream. *sigh* In other news, I put up another page on my sister's site. Party girl! Anyhow, I think it's bed time for me. I haven't slept real well this week, and I want to actually be awake on Monday... |
|
Friday, January 10, 2003 Crashing servers is SO much fun. It's the biggest perk to being a Sys Admin. What I dislike is all the "stop" scripts that take an hour to run. You'd think it'd only take a minute to shut a server down. Oh, well. That's something we can legitamitely blame on the users. Not much new going on here. I will probably stay at my apartment tonight instead of going to my mom's, since it's nasty weather and I have chores to do anyway. I should call Jen sometime today and see how she's doing. I suppose I could read her weblog, but that would be too easy. Besides, I haven't gotten an answer to my last e-mail - which I'm SURE she'd answer, since it had cute pictures of Orlando Bloom on it... |
|
Thursday, January 9, 2003 Three high days require three low weeks. *sigh* I'm still doing pretty well after my epiphany on Saturday, but everyone else is falling to bits around me. Work is nuts -- I scheduled maintenance for late tonight and rescheduled it 2 more times after that. My friends are going insane -- tonight's plans have changed about 3 times today due to shifting schedules and weather reports. Wesley keeps almost convincing my Mom that he's dead or dying. I'm groping around for a shred of stability and not finding it! On a positive note, Da Vinci's Notebook's song "Title of the Song" is hilarious. Well, another hour and a half before I have a good excuse to leave work. What to do, what to do. |
|
Monday, January 6, 2003
Boo-yah -- 3 days in a row of writing! Well, let's see. Yesterday afternoon was all full of deep thoughts and stuff. Maybe I'll share sometime. Today I was hyper and a bit over-excited to be alive. It's all Deb's fault. If she wouldn't go fixing me like that, I wouldn't feel so good. Mark's deep thought for the day was: "If I am, therefore I think." I thought that was pretty deep and ought to be recorded somewhere, so here it is. Mark's the same guy that thinks we should call our Peer Meetings "Entmoot". It's actually a pretty fitting name, since Unix System Administrators tend to be the oldest creatures alive, can make noise for hours and hardly say anything, and are slower than molasses when it comes to making decisions. On the positive side, we tend to be knowledgeable and look at problems from all angles before jumping into things. I guess Merry would see that as a fault, though. Not much new on the Web today. I'm mad at Decipher because they haven't even shipped the product I ordered over a week ago. [grr] I want my Deluxe Starter!!! Oh well. Patience is a virtue. Hmm..... I think I'll start adding backgrounds now. |
|
Sunday, January 5, 2003
Day Number 2 of dog-sitting. Mom's at church and Wes is sleeping so I get to web-log again! I'll have a busier afternoon today than any day I did all last week. I have to go to a friend's house to work on their computer (unfortunately, it's Windows ME) and then probably go to Amy's for a while, and maybe one of Mom's friends will come over to computer shop on-line. If I charged for all my free-lance stuff, I'd never have to do real work again. But I don't mind. I like playing with people's computers. Anyhow, not much new going on around here. I started working on a Chrono Trigger page (I haven't gotten very far on it yet), and I need to update the site about my D&D game. I had wierd dreams last night, so that's kinda bugging me, but it's nothing worse than what I'm used to. I think I'm just getting over the misplaced guilt I've been feeling for about 6 years. It's not easy going from believing someone was a good person and didn't mean to hurt me to realizing that he's actually a predator that probably meant to do what he did from the minute he met me. All this time I've been thinking I could have done something differently to prevent or fix what happened. Now I finally see that I wasn't responsible for it at all. Kinda wierd. |
|
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Here starts the Web Log. Yee-ha! I have a feeling this is going to be a long and rambly entry, as I'm currently confined to my mother's living room. Our dog (Wesley) had surgery yesterday and he needs a baby-sitter now. Hopefully he'll be better by Monday! I saw Deb (my psychologist) today. It was a really good session. I think I'm finally understanding some things that have been bothering me for about 6 years now. It's nice to get a ray of sunshine once in a while. I probably won't get to see Amy, Rich and the twins until late tomorrow (if at all), but Amy's talking about finding a baby-sitter so we can go see The Two Towers next Saturday. That would be very cool. I'm suffering withdrawal. Last time I went, there was this really irritating family sitting behind us that talked through the ENTIRE movie. No one can make 3 hours seem like 6 hours the way a little kid can. Except maybe a doctor. ...uh-oh, I think Wes got stuck somewhere... Nope, he was just lying down. He keeps trying to lick his stitches, but he can't quite reach them, so he just ends up walking in tight circles over and over. Poor little guy. Well, I suppose I should comment on the webpage update progress. Angelfire sent me a very uninformative answer to my question about customized error messages. I really want to see if that's going to be a free service before I go through the effort of creating mini-pages with redirects everywhere I used to have a page. *sigh* However, I'm getting a lot of good ideas for the new structure. I think it will work out better than the old one did, with more room for growth. The only thing I intend to get rid of is the creative writing that I don't think anyone is actually reading. I'm also working on a page for my sister and her boyfriend . It's really nothing more than a banner yet, but we're both working on ideas for it, so hopefully there'll be real content there soon. Well, off I go to create more content. Thanks for reading! |
