In Memorium

Ethel Walker
July 14th, 1924 - July 3rd, 2008

Holy crap, I totally forgot about this thing.

I have the RSS feed bookmarked, and I actually caught myself saying "This dude never updates anymore" before realizing that I'm a guy like me.

I've grown my hair out fairly long... I mean, I could put it in a small, stubby ponytail if I so chose, which I don't, because I think ponytails are low-class on guys. Eventually, I'd like to look like Eddie Vedder...



And I think I'm getting there. I've got a beard, as well, but that's mostly out of laziness and not wanting to go through shaving on a regular basis.

I set up a myspace page with a few song samples of stuff I just recorded so's I can whore myself out to bands and see if I can get into something regular. If you're a myspace friend already, I'll be friending you shortly on the new account for massive listenings. Be careful, though, because it may make your head explode with goodness.

Not really. Your head is safe unless you put the volume up too loud.

A system of fluid-filled bladders...

Been a scary and draining last few days... yesterday morning, Mom drove herself to the emergency room with severe chest/back pain. They ran some tests and discovered that her gallbladder was infected and her gallstones were acting up. This, of course, meant that she needed to have surgery to remove the blasted thing. I stayed with her from 4:30 until about 10:30 when she went in for surgery. The surgeon called around 12:30 with good news: the surgery went well and she was doing fine. I called her early this morning and talked with her a bit, then went to bed and couldn't really sleep. The phone calls from family started pouring in around 8am, and I ended up sleeping intermittently until about 3:00. Now I'm waiting for my aunt to come over and we're going to head over to the hospital together for a bit.

The surgery was laproscopic, so there are only two or three incision holes and they're very tiny. I've been out of it ever since she told me she was going to the emergency room... can't really focus on anything for too long, can't keep the house in shape... oh well. Things'll be back to normal soon enough.

Allez Cuisine!

I figure I should update this sumbitch with some news... I've lost about 8 inches or so off my waist since september. I'm heading to the big & tall shoppe tomorrow to buy some new pants, which will hopefully be too big in a few months. I've started exercising a bit for the first time, and, though I'm sore, I can tell it's helping.

Also, I've decided to take action and give my life direction for the first time in god knows how long. I'm going to do everything in my power to enroll in culinary school by fall 2008. It's probably going to be the Art Institute of Orange County's culinary school, and I'm going to see if I can get my associates in culinary arts and pastry arts.

I'm excited! Things are looking up.

Lights! Thisses! Action!

I sold my extra Wii (I had three, including one that's not portable and you can't play Zelda on) on the eBays, and promptly had an extra $350 in my paypal account, to go along with the $140 that I had previously. The first thing I did was buy my dream compact camera, the Nikon Coolpix s51. 8.1 megapixels, 16" x 20" pictures, one-touch portrait mode, high ISO shooting, vibration compensation, and one hell of a zoom. And it's everything it's cracked up to be.

There are a few gripes that I've got, the first of which being that Vista *spit* doesn't play well with it when you plug in the USB cable. It asks for drivers, of which there are none, so you can't get it to recognize that it's a camera and/or a portable USB storage device. This can be overcome in two ways. 1) Remove SD memory card from camera and plug into printer's SD card slot, or 2) Boot over to the Mac side and just connect normally and let iPhoto take care of everything automagically. The second gripe is that it doesn't come with a dock for charging. I got spoiled by my previous camera, a Sony that I bought 2½ years ago, that plugged into a dock that was plugged into both the power outlet and the computer via USB, charging the camera and connecting to the computer at the same time. This one just has a standalone battery charger that you have to put the battery into, and a loose combination USB and RCA cable. It's a bit of an inconvenience, but it's not dealbreaking, especially when you get what this camera brings to the table in return.

I'm gushing, I know, but I'm so very happy with this thing.

My plans for it? Well, I'm glad you asked. First and foremost I'm going to be taking food porn every chance I get. Speaking of which, there's a bunch of Thanksgiving pictures up on my Flickr so give those a look. Secondly, I just bought a Gorillapod and am going to use that and the record video feature of the camera to possibly maybe put together a cooking show demo, and edit it together with iMovie HD. Just something I'm throwing around in my head. Just an idea.

With that, i'm off to bed, with thoughts of food dancing all through my head.

Lesser Man

I have good news to report! I've gone down 2 shirt sizes since I first saw the nutritionist and started eating healthy. All my pants (shorts) are all athletic drawstring shorts, so I can't really measure how my waist has gone down, as the strings untie after every wash. Still, though, I'm losing a bunch of weight, and that ain't not nothin' to not shake a stick at none.

Fwoosh!

Okay, there are some huge fires about 5 miles away from here, and the santa ana winds are expected to be 35mph sustained and up to 75mph gusts. There's a chance we'll have to evacuate if the winds push it forward. I am not looking forward to possibly having to jam my life into my new beetle and high-tail it out of here. I've been thinking what I need to take, and I think I have the list down.

2 guitars and 1 bass, computer, external hard drive, iPod, camera, wiis, DS, phone, dad's recipes.

The hardest part is going to be getting the cats into the car. They're... not outside cats. And one doesn't like being picked up at ALL.

I'm a bit anxious, if you can't tell. I'm going to try to sleep now.