Uncomfortably numb

We had gone to Mobile before they announced that hurricane Katrina was headed to New Orleans so we just stayed there. Unfortunately since we did not know there was a hurricane coming we were not able to prepare the house, nor did we bring anything with us but 2 changes of clothes. From the looks of things in New Orleans it is quite possible we have lost everything we own including the house. And in only a month we were moving too. Even if the house is relatively ok, most of our things were in a storage unit at ground level next to the river. It will be probably another week before we can get over there to see how bad things are. It would actually be better to lose everything and just collect the insurance than to have to deal with repairs or reconstruction, which could take months or longer. We are somewhat in a state of shock and feeling numb now. *Sigh* It is very disheartening, but at least we are alive.

Go West, Part 2

Well, we're back from Portland. After living all my life in the Central Time zone, it looks like I'm moving to Pacific Time. In short, we loved the area and are looking forward to moving now. We rented an apartment in the Lake Oswego area, just SW of the city. We are on a hill so will have a nice view from our apartment window. We still plan to buy, but want to get to know the different neighborhoods first. And, properties are expensive out there, so it might take a while to find something affordable.

We decided on an apartment on the second day so we got to spend the next 5 days just being tourists. I will post some pics when I get a chance.

After the great weather in Portland, the next six weeks in New Orleans is going to go really slowly, especially since it is as hot as hell here.

Go West, Part 1

Off to Portland tomorrow to find an apartment. Since we don't want to feel rushed in buying we are going to rent first and get to know the area. We have been packing up the house so everything can go into storage until we find a permanent house--we don't want to ever have to unpack again! Of course now that almost everything is packed, I keep thinking of things I need, but too late. I will just have to live without them for 6 months or so.

Hopefully we will find a nice place. At this time we plan on moving out there at the beginning of October. Bear has been checking places on the internet so we have a good idea of where to look already.

Willy Wonka, WIlly Wonka

Bob and I went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today. The melding of Roald Dahl and Tim Burton seems to work very well. It is much darker than the prior film version, and much closer to the feel of the book. Johnny Depp gives another over-the-top performance. The music by Danny Elfman fits, especially the instrumentals. I am still undecided about the Oompa-Loompa songs. All in all however, I would say I enjoyed it.

Bangkok Street Dogs

This blog should interest Chuck, as he might have seen some of these dogs when he was in Bangkok. Bangkok Street Dogs

Amazing Honda Ad

Sometimes advertising is art. Whoever did this ad was both very talented and very patient. Amazing Honda Ad

A Safari shortcoming

Something I just discovered is that Safari does not play well with the Blogger editor. You can create a blog, but the only formatting options that show up are spell check and insert picture. I never knew about this on my old iBook since I didn't start my blog until after it had died, so all my blogging up to this point had been done on the PC. I will use Firefox to post, but Safari really is my browser of choice these days. Hopefully this will be remedied at some point in the future.

The Apple of my I

I am now happily typing this on my new Mac. I got a 12" Powerbook to replace the 12" iBook that died. I like the smaller size and weight, plus the 15" Powerbook I would have wanted was $500 more, so....

Everything about it is better than the old iBook except for one thing: wireless reception range is terrible. With the old iBook I could be anywhere in the house and still get a signal to web surf. With the Powerbook I have to be in the same room as the base station. Apparently the aluminum casing of the Powerbook shields it from receiving the wifi signal very well, unlike the plastic case of the iBook. Maybe I will research if a booster antennae for the Airport base station would help. Otherwise it certainly is much faster (G4 1.5 GHz versus G3 600 MHz) and I get almost 4 hours off a battery charge. All in all, I am very happy with it. :-)

Deep in the heart of Texas

We evacuated for hurricane Dennis last week, but luckily it turned out to not be any threat to New Orleans. Since it looked like to was going east, we went west to Texas and visited some friends. We spent the first night in Houston with the ex-in-laws. Very nice folks. Then we went on to Brenham and home of Bluebell Ice Cream. We drove to Austin one day and went to the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. Everything and more than you could ever want to know about Texas history. It was 102° in Austin, but at least the humidity was lower.

Although it was nice seeing friends we were glad to get back home. Let's hope the rest of the hurricane season is less active.

Go Martians!

I saw the new version of War of the Worlds. Disappointing. I feel about it the same way I felt about A.I. There just aren't any sympathetic characters. Tom Cruise's character is a jerk, and in my mind he never redeems himself. The son is annoying and selfish and the daughter screams way too much. Dakota Fanning is a fine actress (the next Jodie Foster perhaps) but her character goes from acting very mature for her age to screaming hysterically in fear. Humans are portrayed as a bad lot (as they are in reality actually) and as usual, I was rooting for the Martians to wipe out humanity. I also have problems with some of the logistics and science, which I won't go into for those who haven't seen the film yet. Bear says I just "think too much" and over analyze. Guilty as charged. The special effects were fine, but I never got involved with the movie. I give it a grade C.

Free Katie From the Clutches of Tom Cruise

Self explanatory. What IS she thinking???

FreeKatie.com - Free Katie From the Clutches of Tom Cruise

Cindy sucked, Dennis might too!

Tropical storm Cindy, a minor storm, rendered us without electricity for nearly 18 hours. Luckily we didn't have any damage to the house. But New Orleans in the summertime without AC is not pleasant. And now hurricane Dennis might hit us this weekend. Yet another reason for us to move from the Gulf Coast. Someday a devestating hurricane will hit the Crescent City, and we hope NOT to be here when it does.

Arkansas, the Natural State

Having gone on two separate visits recently and done months of web research, we've decided that Arkansas is probably not our future home. Being in the Ozarks wasn't any cooler than summertime is in New Orleans. We looked at houses and most are dismal in our price range, or devoid of character and lots with any view cost too much to leave enough to build a house we would want. Plus, I think we both decided we want a more urban environment. So while we could probably live in The Heights in Little Rock, Russellville (and Hot Springs too) has too little to offer us in amenities we want, like shopping and restaurants.

When you aren't constrained by work and can pick anywhere to live (finances permitting) it becomes more difficult to decide. Our next round of exploration lies in the west, probably in the Portland, Oregon region. The climate is better, it's gay-friendly (and a "blue state" even!) and it has a large enough metropolitan area to have diversity. If we go out there and don't like it either it's back to square one. We'll see.

I now pronounce you.....

The wedding was lovely. The groom couldn't stop smiling and the bride couldn't stop crying. The flowers and cake were beautiful and the food most sumptuous. It was held at Annabelle Mansion in Burleson, Texas. It was apparently once the home of country music singer George Strait. Should Bear and I ever be allowed to get married in this country we wouldn't go for something so lavish or traditional, but it was a most pleasant event to attend.

Going to the Big D

We're off to Dallas for Bear's nephew's wedding. Then up to Arkansas to look at property for a potential relocation to the area. It will be hard to be without ready access to the internet while we are away, it it has become such a part of our daily routine. We will survive no doubt.

Maybe I will finally have time to catch up on some reading that always gets neglected somehow. More on how the trip when when I return.

I miss my tiger

Ever since my iBook died 2 weeks ago I've been forced to use my Dell PC for all my computer activity. The more I use Windows the more it just annoys me after the elegance of Mac OSX Tiger. Granted, there are some programs on the PC side I can't use on a Mac, like Hello, for uploading photos to this site for example, but in my general day to day use I MUCH prefer Mac. Of course, I have been a Mac user since they were introduced in 1984 so I am a bit more familiar with them.

Why hasn't Microsoft fixed the way you organize your links in Internet Explorer? Argh! Could the window be any smaller? Safari is much easier in this respect. And since I don't have a printer hooked up I often would save pages as pdfs for later reading, but nope, can't do it in Windows. (And yes, I know it is because OSX's Aqua uses display PostScript.) So when I try to save a webarchive sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't.

And why do uninstallers under Windows not ever seem to actually unistall anything? I can run them and think I am done, but nope, there in the Programs folder still sits the application folder FILLED with all manner of junk.

Start menu. Yuck! I could go on and on.

Ok, so you are asking why I even have a PC then if I dislike Windows so much? Primarily I got it to play games. And there is software you can only get in a Windows version, so you are stuck there. As long as I was just using the PC to play World of Warcraft (yes, I know it runs on Mac OS but my iBook couldn't handle it, it just wasn't powerful enough being a few years old) or Guild Wars I didn't notice all other things about Windows that I didn't like nearly as much, because I seldom had to interact with them. But after being so used to the grace of the Mac OS, especially OSX, I just don't see how so many people are complacent with Windows.

Well enough ranting. Windows users are the majority, and us Mac users just a small minority. I guess I will always be in the minority, one way or another, whether in lifestyle, beliefs, etc. I am pretty happy with that actually. I have no desire to be smack in the middle of a bell curve.

Badgers and Bears, oh my!

(l to r) Badger and Bear.

I promised one of my World of Warcraft friends I would post a picture of myself and my partner. I took this with my webcam so it's not the most flattering photo, but probably fairly accurate.

What's all this then?

I've decided to try out this whole "blogging" thing. I can rant or rave so my friends can see what's on my mind without having to to ACTUALLY LISTEN to my rants or raves. So you see, this is really for their benefit. At least that is my justification. Time will tell.