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( Under the cut )
Background proceedings
May. 3rd, 2020 09:17 pmI previously observed that Susan and I were doing okay in the current coronavirus shutdown (which does not at all change the fact that, though it’s working out okay for us, it’s bad for the nation as a whole!). We not only aren’t losing money, we not only aren’t falling behind: we’re spending money, because we have it to spare, as the continuing process to prepare for the move to Malaysia.
Much of this began before Malaysia was even on the boards as a possibility. (A great deal of it is work done rather than money spent; be patient, we’ll get there.) Lots of stuff has been cleared out of the house, and 1) thrown away, 2) given away, to the Salvation Army or to people of our acquaintance who were happy to have various things, or 3) packed away for storage or later disposal. Meanwhile, of course, various improvements have been gradually made. Excess trees were removed from the front of the property, since we didn’t have the means to keep them properly trimmed, and copious brush removed from the back. A leak in the ceiling of one of the rooms has been fixed, and that section of ceiling repaired. A leaking toilet repaired and returned to useful service. A sink replaced, and the clogged pipes unclogged. The deck repaired, and in the process of being repainted. Our heat fixed and brought back into operation (though it begins to appear that it’ll take more than that to bring our A/C back up to snuff). Light fixtures repaired/
Almost all of the major repairs we foresaw have been either completed, or shown to be less major than we believed at the time (and then completed).
We still have to get some floor repairs done, and then Susan wants the floors resurfaced in the entire house. The deck hasn’t yet been completed (though those repairs may be finished in just another week). Susan really wants to do some renovating in at least one of the bathrooms; I’m less convinced, and believe that those aren’t really necessary if we’re just getting the place ready for sale.
And we still have a lot of things we need to throw away, give away, pack away. (I observed to Susan the other day: “We spent so many years living so close to the bone, when did we reach the point where our biggest problem turned out to be how to get rid of a bunch of stuff?”)
Susan’s retirement income — not even counting what she earns with part-time work — is more than twice my current full-time income; we could actually live on her retirement, if we were very careful, and that doesn’t take into account what I’ll be eligible for once I’m ready myself to retire.
It’s odd to recognize how far we’ve come, and how close we are now to what had never even occurred to us as a dream three years ago.
It isn’t a dream now. It’s a process. And we get closer every day to its completion.
Far. Freakin’. Out.
Bringing things up to date
Feb. 7th, 2015 11:49 pmJust since the last time I made any significant post:
My daughter (
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sroni) has rejoined her new husband in Ireland, where he now has a job with a multinational company.My son and his Chinese wife have been sending us sonograms of our soon-to-be-first grandchild. Susan asked several times if they knew the gender yet, before Mei told her that in China it’s not legal for techs to give that information to prospective parents. (Too many female-negative selective abortions.) He has applications in for a few companies that, if he could get hired with them, would allow them to live in America.
The same day
sroni left for Ireland, I got a new job. Very entry-level, and the least I’ve worked for in a dozen years, but it’s a job and those are still a bit thin on the ground, so I’m not going to be complaining.I haven’t quit fanfic writing, I just haven’t been doing any recently. I won’t make promises, but my intent is to get going again within the next few days.
And I’ve been working my way through the Dead Zone, the 2002-2007 series with Anthony Michael Hall. Saw a few episodes back when it was first airing, but never had the opportunity to get into it, and I find I’m enjoying the way they address the possibilities. Less than halfway through at this point, but progressing steadily.
Also, gradually losing some of the weight I began to put on the moment I ceased driving long-haul. Really needed to do that. Let’s see how far I can go.
Measure for measure
Jan. 16th, 2015 09:39 pmToday I drank poison. I felt the effects almost immediately, but it wasn’t quite enough, so I gave myself another dose.
My poison of choice is a C2H5OH distillate in 40% solution, mixed with diet cola. Sometimes I’ll go with an alternative, a more dilute version — 6.5% — with Bloody Mary mix.
Why, yes, all alcohols are poisons. Ethanol just happens to be the form our bodies can metabolize faster than the lethal effects. So, when we drink, what we are enjoying is the symptoms of that particular poison not-quite-killing us.
And, on that note, I believe I’ll pour just one more.
Hello, Dreamwidth!
Dec. 29th, 2011 05:18 pmI took advantage of Dreamwidth’s recent no-invite-necessary offer to open an account of my own. That went easily enough. Then I tried to import my LiveJournal: every entry, every comment. Since so many other people were doing the same thing at the same time, that didn’t go so easily. It took about a day to get my entries imported. I waited five more days, checking periodically as the numbers in the queue got smaller, watching for when my comments would likewise come in.
When the numbers got down to zeroes, and I still didn’t have the comments, I reluctantly attempted a new import. And, with the rush over, it went through within minutes. So I now exist simultaneously in two places.
Now it’s time to try crossposting, and see how well that works.
This and that
Dec. 7th, 2011 06:35 pmI just signed up at
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feedbackathon. Never participated in anything like that before, seems like it might be fun and interesting.Grammar/language peeve of the day: “whenever” used as a synonym for “when”. They are not synonyms. “Whenever” speaks of repeated — or theoretically repeated — instances of some occurrence, or alternatively of some indeterminate future event. (Although, in the latter case, “when and if” would be preferable and more accurate.)
Trivia of the day
Dec. 5th, 2011 09:16 pmFirst snow of the winter, in my current home of location. Not much of a snow, but enough to identify as such. Far as I’m concerned, that will do fine till spring.
I’m finding myself really liking Once Upon a Time. TV series based on fairy tales don’t have a particularly good track record, either in overall viewership or in my own preferences, but this one is working for me. Putting Rumpelstiltskin (“Mr Gold”) at the center of so much adds one of several unifying threads; watching the Evil Queen show the same characteristics in both her pre- and post-transfiguration personae makes an interesting contrast with the differences in the pre- and post-transfiguration Snow White. (Also, the outlaw years of the pre-marriage Snow White form a nice internal touch.) Picking out in-jokes is continuing fun — Ruby the waitress is my favorite — and I enjoy watching to see how the different plot-lines gradually come together.
There’s a video circulating on Facebook (from a news program, I think; in fact, it’s here, with the story here) regarding the oldest currently-serving U.S. soldier, who wants to deploy one last time before his mandatory retirement. That’s me, folks. Well, not literally me, they’re profiling someone else, but I’m in almost exactly the same position. I have feelers out in half a dozen different places, trying to squeeze in one more tour before I return permanently to civilian life. I may manage to pull it off, I may not. But I really do — genuinely, not just making noise in that direction — want to put my little remaining time to the most potent use.
Grammar/language peeve of the day: loathe/loath. These days, even published writers all too frequently lose the distinction between the two. “I loathe bad grammar, and find it loathsome; I am loath to perpetrate such an offense myelf.”
Also, I ran into a problem myself the other day that highlights the difficulty with one particular peeve. The use of “ ’s” to indicate a plural is horribly offensive to me … but sometimes, it’s almost possible to avoid. What’s the plural of M-16, for instance? If you say M-16s, it looks like the ‘s’ is just part of the overall designation. (My own difficulty was with the Class A uniform; you just about have to say Class A’s.) We really need an alphabet character specifically designated to indicate non-possessive plural. M-16ŝ? M-16š? M-16ș? M-16ṡ? We need something like that.
Enough for now.
Minor updates
Apr. 2nd, 2011 11:50 pmI got my car back from the shop. (But now the A/C isn’t working, so I’ll have to return it to them Monday.)
This was actually completed yesterday, but I forgot to mention it then: I did three days at my Reserve unit, getting ready for our duty at the National Training Center and making up in advance the drill days we’ll miss in May.
The temperature here at last got up out of the wet-and-miserable range. And about time.
Added a few thousand words to my current remix effort. More than that, I’m finally getting into the story. Before, I had an idea I kind of liked; now, at last, I’m beginning to find myself engaged.
I made a Facebook entry to the same effect as yesterday’s LJ post regarding my disappointment that I only have a few years’ eligibility left in the Army, after which I’ll no longer be able to serve. Response from both family and friends (but not, happily, from my wife or children) was the same: incredulity that I would want to return to a combat theater. Those who understand, do; those who don’t, well, I hope they can accept that I mean it and that I do have my reasons.
And that’s it for now.
( Find Marizela )
News to date
Mar. 8th, 2011 08:47 pmSo, some of the things that have happened since the last time I posted.
( Under the cut )
And, that’s it for now. More as it transpires.
Okay, sort of. I live in an area that has a large-scale winter storm system sweeping through, ‘large-scale’ meaning across significant parts of three states. It isn’t that bad, maybe six inches accumulation of snow since this morning, but Susan and I live at the top of a mountain, and for her to get to work involves ten precarious miles of winding roads — layered in snow and ice and slush — before we even reach a sizeable highway, and even though we could have pushed through this morning, we made a field decision that we’d never be able to get back in the evening, and so I backtracked while Susan called in to work. (Not unexpected; schools and universities in the area had already closed before we even started off.)
Now we’re sitting indoors, watching the snow accumulate. Late news projects the roads to be in even worse shape tomorrow morning; and, additionally, this coming weekend is when my Reserve unit is scheduled for drill, with no telling yet what the state of the weather will be by then.
Hope Susan and I don’t get sick of each other over the next few days. She’s been in a bit of a mood lately.
Home and other stuff
Jan. 11th, 2011 03:35 pmOkay. We’re back home (after landing at the Next State Over, renting a car, and — eventually — spending twelve hours on the road), and I’m picking up my daughter this evening.
Meanwhile, I got the welcome news that the Gotta Have Faith Awards picked “Jasmine Tears” in two categories, as seen below. As always, check the site to see the other winners; as always, there is no shortage of familiar names.
Everybody’s working for the weekend
Jan. 3rd, 2011 07:46 pmIn my New Year’s post, I mentioned my determination to put in a minimum of one hour a day on fic writing. So far I have satisfied the continuing requirements of that long-range goal, focusing on the short fic I had intended to do while still back at Fort Bragg. It’s moving along … but I am not satisfied with the quality of composition. It just isn’t working, I know in my head what I want it to be and this isn’t it.
All the same, the story proceeds. Finish first, then work on correction. I’ll get there, and I’m tentatively comforted by the memory that I have habitually been dissatisfied with my first draft, feeling I’ve signally missed the mark at which I was aiming, only to find my concerns diminished with revision and the settling effect of time.
We’ll be leaving for ‘Nebraska’ (my whole family! together for the first time in years!) within a few days. Not, unfortunately, at the same time; I added a flight for Roni to the package we already had, and then discovered the following week that I’d flubbed the departure times and had her leaving the day after the rest of us. (And, of course, booking from a travel site means you can’t change anything without a horrendous penalty fee: in this instance, more than 50% added to the cost of the original already-exorbitant cost.) So, she’ll stay the first night with friends of our son, and get a ride to the airport the next day to fly and join us.
One lemon after another, but we’re still having lemonade this weekend. Count on it.
Going with the flow
Jan. 2nd, 2011 09:39 pmMy son and daughter went out last night with their cousin (she of the new and unwanted divorce), that being one of the few opportunities they would have to do so before she had to start a new work week. They started late, because she’d worked a Saturday shift, and so stayed out late, and wound up getting home really late. And, though they’re both adult now, I stayed up waiting till they got home, with the final result that it was 4 in the morning before we got to bed.
So, we slept in late, and then spent some time locating a Catholic church within driving distance that held afternoon Mass. There’s one forty miles north on the Interstate, that Susan and I had attended last month, so we got ready and headed down that way … but we had only been there once, and the route was a bit tricky, and I had neglected to print out the MapQuest directions, and we had hope we could feel our way through memory but found ourselves unable to do so …
So when, twenty minutes past the time that the mass would have begun and we were still nowhere close, we went to a Mexican restaurant instead and had margaritas. Not our first choice, but always a workable fallback.