Got an acceptance notice from Stories of the Imagination…

$325, or about $0.03 a word for something I wrote over a year ago. Not going to be my regular vocation, but it’s nice to be published. They only retain “First North American Serial Rights”, so I still own it, and can resell it again after August (When the Spring 2002 issue sees print.)

See the inspiration here

A domestic cat has reportedly been cloned at a Texas A&M University research center.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/707050.asp

Red of desire,
Black of the night,
Orange of the fire,
A world to ignite:
This was the color of passion.

–Excerpt from Sensorium by Robert E. Kogan

Recent pictures here… unmodified as of yet.

Off to work… I look forward to seeing my sweetheart tonight. 🙂

The condiment museum. Behold…the power of the internet.

Statement of Purpose
The Condiment Packet Museum exists to provide documentation and display of condiments found in packets. The packets in the Museum are specifically all packets other than sugar packets, which are currently well documented by other sources. We think they look cool. So there.

Newtie just brought me his crinkle-mouse. Aww… an early valentine from my little boy. 🙂

Appointment with Dr Dolchin Monday, March 4, 1pm. Review sleep information, possible surgery, phasing out cpap.

Heavy Rain due tonight and tomorrow, Taxi it to work.

I’m glad that my sweetheart is doing better… was icky-sicky earlier in the week, with some looming flu hanging overhead. 🙂

Newt was gabby this morning…Not sure what he wanted… plenty of fresh sand, food and water, and I spent a goodly amount of the morning with him in my arms like a baby, giving him bouncy-loves, and smooches on the nose, and giving chase around the house. He really likes the amazon box that _Flyboy_ came in, and is flexing his shredding abilities on the flaps while he sits inside. I actually took him on a tour of the courtyard out front today, just to let him sniff the outside air and bat at the hedge-leaves as I held him in my arms. I suspect he was just wanting to hear the sound of his own voice. (I’m guilty of that, myself… I sing in the shower at times.) I’ve noticed that while he doesn’t watch TV directly, Newt digs the stereo left on, or the TV…I think he likes a little background noise. I think he likes the vibration as well as the heat from the tube, because he’ll lay on top of the speakers if the radio is on.

Set the laptop to install DirectX as I was heading out the door today… hopefully the missing file will find where it needs to fall.

After dropping things off at the post office, I caught the bus in to work…. something about the mild hum, and general quietness of the passengers lowered me into a torpor level of hibernation…vaguely aware of my surroundings, but mostly blanked, dropping the number of mental cylinders firing to about 3 or 4 our of the usual 12. You could tell that it’s Ash Wednesday, the bus was more crowded with a number of people dressed in church clothes and signature forehead-markings of the holiday.

I missed the transfer by moments, so I took a little walk over to McDonalds to grab a drink and return to the station to await the next bus… The girl behind the counter was a little tweaked. “May I take your order… uh, why are you looking at me like that?” I don’t think I had any expression on my face at all…or maybe she meant “Why the blank expression?” My reply was a smile and then “I don’t know… it’s just the face I’m wearing. I’m sleepy. May I have a large orange juice?” No dice. Apparently, they stop the orange juice with breakfast. Sort of weird to me, no prep involved to my knowledge… Don’t they do coffee all day? Anyhow, I settled for a large coke, hoping that the additional caffeine would give me a needed boost. (no luck there, either… but at least my thirst was finally quenched.) The girl behind the counter went over to another who was doing drive through duty , and pointed at me as I filled my soda from the fountain. I don’t think she realized that I was pretty much looking right at them as I was doing so, maybe off and to the right a bit. It’s kind of funny to me that people still have the same mannerisms year after year. Since I wandered over from the bus station, and meandered back, I suspect that they thought I was stoned or something. Had I more energy or interest, I might’ve had a bit of fun with them, gibbering about ants on my arms, the walls breathing or some such.

Still in the market for a nice bike, a beach cruiser to tool around on for morning walkies (will become rollies?) and commute to work on. I really don’t want a car, unless I have to make a bigger drive.

I just realized I’ve not done many “pictures of the day” since my vacation. I want to get back into that, as it’s nice to have an image to look back on the day as well as words. I’ve sent a couple to snap club, which is a fun thing…. 320 x 240 only. a neat archive of assorted folks pictures.

Well, back to work, dear journal. I hope the system you live on is happy and healthy, and the new features come into place soon. *hope hope* especially for an internal search engine. I really would like to type “poop” or whatever, and see what entries turn up (I imagine “sweetie” or “Newt” would return an interestingly high number of values).

Stuff happening in February this month in Fort Lauderdale. Couldn’t they spread it out a bit? flipside, there’s yummy food of every stripe available. 🙂 Sakes… Melting pot, indeed. I don’t even need to mention the Brazilian, Cuban, Finnish and Hatian elements that are a part of daily life, too.

Greek fest, African-American history celebration (I missed that one, it was last weekend), Canada fest, Irish fest, Italian fest, Seminole tribal fair, Texas chili cook-off, ren fest, mardi gras, Scottish festival … I imagine that next month it’ll be Belgians and People of Russo/Austrailain decent. Th elevel of diversity always impresses me…. I’m just surprised that so much is bundled into one small month!

The Germans get a month in September… not counting Oktoberfest.

Hmmm… somehow, I got a major scrape behind my left knee. Was I attacked by newt during the night? catch the flesh on some sharp object? Aliens botching a chip implant (or removal?) I need a personal forensics team to dance for my amusement. A few notes before I hop into the shower.

galactic battlegrounds will have to wait. for some reason, ol’ directx 8.1 doesn’t want to install. I suspect lappie needs a reformat, and I’m not going to do that until I can back up the vital stuff off of the hard drive.

Hey… Alton Brown has a place to rant? How neat! Probably the most nifty guy on cable that’s not involved with the discovery channel. Not very frequently updated, though. I’m impressed by his scientific knowledge, humor, and mass of trivial data. Mind you, his website is a mass of useless graphics, but it can be looked past. Tonight’s Episode of good eats is about cocoa. Food network, at 9pm EST.

Speaking of chocolate… note to self: overnight the yummies to my dearest before work today, along with some other goodies… been lacking in my timelyness…more tricky to do net-ordering of stuff from work, too.

Ok.. time for the pod to enter the rain-box.