From the Hall: 08/01/2005

Califuneral

It was a nice service. It was good for me because I got the background story on some people whom I hadn't known much about. It's a shame, because I'm much more familiar with my mom's side of the family than my dad's, but I'm still shamefully ignorant on all the connections and whatnot.

After the memorial service, there was a reception at Aunt Cathie's house. It was all right, something of an awkward social situation for me, as I was unfamiliar with more or less everyone there. I did get to meet some second-cousins I had been unaware of, but I don't think that relationship is going to be terribly relevant to my life.

The only real conversation I had was with my semi-aunt, the confusingly-named Lisa. Since my mom's name is Elissa, and she's known as Lisa for short, my aunt is differentiated by being called Little Lisa. She's an occupational therapist in Vallejo, so we don't see her much.

Also, for the record, we're getting back Monday night, not Sunday night.

Oakland

Well, we made it to Oakland okay. Our flights were decent, not too much turbulence or anything. I made it without being sedated, my fear of flying seeming to have largely dissipated.

The one anecdote I have to relate from today is this: As we were driving along the highway after picking up our rental we were stopped, waiting to merge, right next to a patch of scrub brush. Glancing over, I noticed that there were dozens of goats grazing. Right next to the highway.

I come from Pennsylvania, the most rural state, and I have not seen anything comparable. This is why I love California.

California for the weekend

I spent yesterday and today at Chris', and tomorrow morning I'm flying to California.

My mother's aunt - my great-aunt - passed away a couple of days ago so we're flying out there for her funeral. It's a sad thing. I didn't know her that well (I think I only met her once) but she made a strong impression on me and I know she was important to my mom.

The other bad but comparatively inconsequential thing is that I'm going to miss Gabo's birthday party. You needn't worry, though, Gabo: You'll get your present one way or another.

I believe we return late ~~Sunday~~ Monday night, but I'll try and fit in some blogging while we're there. And of course, I'm bringing my camera.

Airship adventures

I know, I still haven't posted that one entry. I swear, it'll happen. I can't promise it'll happen soon, but eventually.

From 12-8 today I was at Gus' with Ben, Quiggy, and Evan, playing our Dungeons & Dragons Eberron campaign.

It was a good session. My gnome artificer (it's hard to tell people I play a level nine gnome artificer without laughing a little) actually built an airship, which is awesome, as well as various other magical goods.

It was plenty fun, despite my sore throat. We're hoping to get together next week, too.

Good and bad

Yesterday and today were action-packed, lots to recount.

Yesterday I went to see March of the Penguins with Rachel at the UA King of Prussia Stadium and IMAX. It was awesome to see her again, the last time was seven or eight weeks ago. I rather like the new parental policy of letting me date who I'd like to.

Rachel looked fantastic, really fit. The movie was also pretty good. You just can't say no to Morgan Freeman.

After the movie we crossed over to the King of Prussia mall. We walked around, got drinks, and checked out the cooler stores. It was a good time, cut short by an inconvenience derived from bad health in my family.

My Uncle Chris--who is not actually my uncle but my father's cousin--was in a hospital in Delaware to have his leaky (or "regurgitant or insufficient") aortic valve replaced and to have, as it turned out, three bypasses. I had to leave early so that we could make it before visiting hours were over.

It was this morning that Uncle Chris went through open heart surgery. Just a couple of minutes ago I heard from my mom that he's just starting to come to. In the past he's made remarkable fast recoveries after operations, but after something of this magnitude, there's not really any such thing as full recovery. His life will be different.

However, I did not stay in the house moping. I went over to Ben's for a pool party with him, Gus, David, Brian, Alexandra., and Nicky and Alex D. It was fun, although I have many wounds on various parts of my body from the edge of Ben's pool. I think it was worth it, though.

Wilde reading

I apologize for the lack of posts. I have been preoccupied, mostly with doing nothing, but recently with my summer reading. My list is as follows:

For English:
For World History:
1. Herman Hesse - Siddhartha
And the school-wide requirement:
1. Tobias Wolff - Old School

As yet I have only begun The Picture of Dorian Gray. I am enjoying it much more than I thought I would. One of my favorite passages so far is this:

“The terror of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us.”

So insightful, and so very relevant in this age we live in.

Since I have a literary theme going in this post, I believe I'll tell you what I got my sister for her birthday: What Shall I Say?: A Guide to Letter Writing for Ladies. She often agonizes over her online missives, and I got her this in the hopes of alleviating her pains somewhat. She was appreciative.

August 13th

Happy birthday, Hope.

Physicality and upgrades

My physical yesterday went all right. I've gained 1.25" (3.175cm) and 18lb (8.165kg) since last year. I've still got some growin' left to do, so it's all good.

In technology news, I upgraded my four-year-old iBook to Mac OS 10.4. Even though it's running on a 500MHz PowerPC G3 processor with 640 MB of SDRAM, it's running pretty nicely. Even Spotlight is pretty speedy.

Things are done

SuperGus!,
originally uploaded by dougward.

Well, I lied in my last post. Rather than updating it, I'm just making a new one.

My day subbing for my sister went all right. It was a much smaller group, nine kids compared to twenty-five. Of course, I'd die if I did it all week.

As for photos, they're uploading right now. I cut down the 126 photos to a more reasonable 74 or so. Check out the VA05 tag to see 'em all (I recommend seeing them as a slideshow).

Some especially good photos:

Some of you might have noticed that I started GeoTagging some of my photos, under the geotagged tag.

Tomorrow I have my annual physical. Fun!

I'm back

We made good time on the way back and I arrived at Gus' house at about 2:30. Another half-hour and I was home.

I've gotten all of my photos onto my computer, but it'll be a bit before I can get them onto Flickr. I took 126 photos all-in-all, and it'll take me a bit to figure out which ones to upload.

While I was gone, I got a phone call from my sister telling me, in essence, that she was going to skip her first day of work at Chester Springs Studio so that she could see a friend and she needed me to cover for her. Weak-minded as I am, I agreed to help her out, so tomorrow I return to Chester Springs.

I'll update this post once I get all of my photos uploaded.