The Alchemic Citadel
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
tandw's LiveJournal:
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| Sunday, June 28th, 2009 | | 1:18 pm |
Celebration Curtailed
My mom's birthday is at the end of July, but we decided to celebrate it early and take her out to see the Broadway production of Mary Poppins at the Cadillac Theater. Spouse and son A. had seen it on a school field trip and enjoyed it a great deal...since my mom is a theater buff, and the run leaves Chicago mid-July, it sounded like a great idea. So we took her to dinner beforehand, drove downtown (well north of the Taste of Chicago crowds), got to the theater with time to spare, and found our seats in the nosebleed section. Fifteen or twenty minutes into the show, they're just starting the scene with Bert painting pictures in the park, and all of a sudden everyone clears the stage. Announcer comes on, apologizes, claims they're having technical difficulties [1], and they'll try to get back to the show ASAP. Curtain falls, house lights come up dimly. Lots of cell phones come out. Time passes. At about the half-hour mark, there's another announcement clarifying the first. They were having trouble with the set controls, and to ensure performer safety wanted to correct the problem before resuming. Now the sets for this show are a marvel--you start out seeing the house from the front, and it slides forward and unfolds like a popup book with actors inside of it. So it's perfectly understandable they want it working right. So spouse and I got up and walked around a bit, checked the progress of the storm moving through the area on my cell, like that; the kids hung out with Grandma and chatted. Another fifteen minutes go by. That's when the stage manager came out and told us the show was canceled, and we'd be hearing from the theater by Tuesday to arrange replacement tickets or a refund. Basically, the computer system that controlled all of the set movements had crashed, they hadn't been able to get it to reboot stably, and so for the safety of the actors they couldn't go on. That's right. They didn't want any victims of the Blue Stage of Death. But my mom still had a good time driving around downtown with us and going out to dinner, so the evening wasn't a complete waste. We also dropped off daughter J. at an all-night hamfest with her current boyfriend. He does tech theater on the side--on hearing of what happened, he told us about a time that he'd had a computerized fly system crash. Said if you knew what you were doing and were lucky, you could get it restarted in forty minutes or so. It took him over three hours. So the timing was pretty close to that--they had the crash, tried to restart, and since it didn't happen in 3/4 hour figured they couldn't tell how long it was going to take. ETA: The Chicago Tribune has a story about it.[1] And how many people remember independent UHF stations: "Please stand by. We are experiencing technical difficulties." | | Monday, June 1st, 2009 | | 12:34 pm |
| | Monday, May 18th, 2009 | | 9:03 pm |
Well, Sh*t
Longtime members of the DMA and Madison-area SCA may remember Jim Pryor, a/k/a Sheain Airth Stewart, a/k/a Chimbai. I found out a little bit ago that he died today...he was found at home by his longtime partner Wayne; I have no details beyond that. Keep him and Wayne in your thoughts and prayers. IIRC, they'd been together for over twenty years. ETA: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) rdkeir? Could you pass the news on to OMM? She'll want to know. | | Saturday, February 14th, 2009 | | 12:51 pm |
| | Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 | | 9:00 pm |
YA Happy Birthday
To my daughter J, WINOLJ. Don't feel bad just because your little brother is now taller than you are. | | Sunday, February 8th, 2009 | | 4:23 pm |
| | Thursday, December 18th, 2008 | | 11:55 am |
AKICILJ Question
So out here in Suburban Whitebread Hell, metesten and I have a choice between two huge soulsucking corporations to provide broadband Internet access. Our current provider (which I will call Bombast, for homophony and on account of their ads) gives us decent download speeds and reliability, but charges ca. $45/month for access (they also provide digital cable for close to twice that). HSC 2 (which I will call Mob L, for reasons not worth mentioning) has recently installed fiber out to our area, and are charging for net/TV/phone combo rather less than what we're paying Bombast for net/TV, and considerably less than what we're paying for net/TV + landline phone. (The price comparison is for the post-introductory offer values, btw.) Mob L claims higher download speeds now that they've got the fiber hookups, and they also have a bunch of foofoos based on interconnectivity between tv, net, & phone that may or may not be worth anything. Anyway, my question for anyone with knowledge of the field is should we switch? Bombast has been good for us so far, but if we can get comparable service for less that'd be good. Opinions? | | Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 | | 10:57 am |
| | Monday, November 17th, 2008 | | 11:03 am |
Eighteen Years Ago Today
On November 17, 1990, a sunny, warm [1] day in Madison, metesten and I were married. rdkeir, badger2305, and Dr. Bill WINOLJ were kind enough to stand up for me; Emmie, Paula, and Mary S. WANOLJ did the same for metesten. Thinking back on the wedding and associated festivities, I am reminded again just how much fun we all had. badger2305 pointed out at the rehearsal dinner that "Alleluia" and "Leinenkugel's" scan identically (and Dr. Bill took advantage of this during the actual ceremony; fortunately, no one heard him). We had to dress the fathers in gray tuxes, as my late father-in-law was, how you say, fashion-impaired [2]. metesten and I did some of the pre-ceremony music, as did metesten's ex and his fiancee. (They performed a lovely instrumental arrangement of Lou & Peter Berryman's Wonderful Madison, which my father decided to sing along with. For the processional, we used a fine old Welsh marching tune, "Men of Harlech" (the SCA folk who were there found it mightily amusing), and our recessional was PDQ Bach's "To Curry Favor, Favor Curry" (sans airhorn, more's the pity). So we all marched out the back, and the wedding party had turned into a noisy sort of group hug, and metesten suddenly stopped. "The receiving line!" she shouted, and we all ran around to the side of the building before everyone else got there. The post-wedding photography and reception were more of the same. About three years later, metesten and I ran into the photographer and his wife at a furniture store. They still remembered us--"Yeah, your wedding was the one where everyone was singing all the time! And really happy without being drunk!" I think we left the reception around ten, but it went on for another couple of hours. Since then, a lot has happened...I went back to school, we had daughter J, I got into grad school, we had son A, I finished grad school and only had two job offers (picked the closest one; Livermore was way out of my father-in-law's comfort zone), postdoc at Argonne for a couple of years, moved to Illinois, metesten went back to school...a long time. But it's still fun, and I wouldn't change a thing. [1] Really. It was t-shirt weather, and I have the pictures to prove it. [2] In his favorite picture of himself, he wore a plaid jacket and tie. Different kinds of plaid, of course. | | Thursday, November 13th, 2008 | | 9:03 pm |
WindyCon?
So who's going? I know shsilver will be there [1], and I'm pretty sure beamjockey will be...anyone else? metesten and I will be hanging out, probably trying to avoid working in the con suite (it's s tough habit to break). [1] I've got the rest of the Analogs for you, btw. | | Friday, November 7th, 2008 | | 9:36 am |
| | Friday, October 31st, 2008 | | 8:10 am |
| | Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | | 3:44 pm |
Courtesy of Billzilla
Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow. | | Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | | 7:07 pm |
| | Friday, September 26th, 2008 | | 4:03 pm |
| | Monday, September 8th, 2008 | | 10:23 am |
| | Friday, September 5th, 2008 | | 10:46 am |
| | Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 | | 8:28 am |
| | Monday, August 11th, 2008 | | 9:37 pm |
Magazines Available NOW
But not for long. My mother is moving to a condominium and doesn't have a lot of room for extras. Among the extras being left behind is a near-complete run of Astounding/Analog from about 1957 to the present, along with a few miscellaneous Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines from the late 1950's-early 1960's. I don't have room for them, either, and since metesten is allergic to old paper [1] I couldn't really take them long-term anyway [2]. If you're interested in them, let me know ASAP. ETA: In case it wasn't clear, they're free for the asking. [1] Really. She spent several months going through old lab records when she worked for the City of Madison, and came out unable to handle old paper w/o developing itching and a nasty skin rash around her eyes. [2] I've already exceeded my quota, bringing in old paperbacks from the family library. | | Friday, August 8th, 2008 | | 12:52 pm |
Mostly Pointed at badger2305....
catalana is a philosophy professor. She posted this in honor of International Blog Against Racism Week (specifically discussing race & higher education), and I thought it deserved wider dissemination. |
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