sylvar

Free dinner at Trang Viet Cuisine.

Watched a Babylon 5 episode ("Sic Transit Vir") with Jodi, who rarely has any interest in it, but put up with it for my birthday -- and Amanda, who is watching the whole series with me (we're on S5E02 next, which I think has the Declaration of Principles).

Will watch an episode of Buffy (S2E01, whatever that turns out to be) soon.

A bit of drama, but that's how LJ is sometimes. I might should have put my birthday stuff into a different post. Ah well. I know y'all wish only the best for us, and I love you for it.

For the record, Jodi is quite capable of handling graduate work; she's taken many graduate seminars and been graded as a graduate student (and earned good grades even by grad-student standards), and the organizer of the PIKSI all-expenses-paid trip told her that her references are glowing. And we do regularly discuss the job prospects available in this area that don't involve four hours a day waiting for hourly bus routes to connect. But she's gung-ho on GRE prep, to which the thousands of filed index cards for vocabulary study will attest. And that's going to not only get her into graduate school, but get her fully funded somewhere. She's not as dumb as I look. ;)

I didn't like the idea of selling the camera. At first, I downright hated the idea. But it gradually dawned on me that it was the single most powerful thing I can do to move in the right direction, and now I think it's a darned good idea. A bit humbling, but wise. When I have enough free time, I'll write some more crossword puzzles or sell some articles, and I'll use the proceeds to get a decent digital with some sort of optical zoom. I really don't need pro-am gear, I just 'shiny' it.

The road trip is still on; Dad's paying for gasoline and we're gonna use CouchSurfing.com to find places to sleep. (If you know someone in Nashville, St. Louis, DeKalb, Milwaukee, Kalamazoo, Oxford OH, Cleveland, Kent OH, Boston, Blacksburg VA, or Atlanta who would like some polite houseguests who plan to bring a gift like some key lime juice or other Floridiana, let me know!) So it's basically just food for an expense, and we were planning to eat some of that anyway. (Though not necessarily the likes of R. Thomas, Giordano's, or equivalent legendary foodstuffs of the cities we're visiting. For that matter, if you know a must-eat food along the way, speak up! We're already planning to have some frozen custard, too.)

And by the way, we DO have air conditioning in the car; it was my dad's graduation present to Jodi and his birthday present to me, and a very generous present at that. So it's all good.

We should really have some sort of get-together so people can hear more about our lives than I have time to post. Who's interested?

I spent my lunch break at a nearby cemetery as a volunteer photographer for Find-A-Grave. I figure it's interesting, it gets me outside, it serves others -- hard to go wrong there. I took dozens of photos but I've only uploaded a few so far -- that's time-consuming, I've found, and I'd rather get work done at the office and deal with grave photos at other times.

The interesting thing was that the wind was blowing a flowerpot so that it was starting to lean away, which would make the shot a lot easier to get. (I haven't moved anything left at a grave in order to take a photo. I'm not sure how I feel about that.) I prayed, "OK, God, just a little more wind and I'll get this shot." A few seconds later, the flowerpot hit a tipping point and was suddenly out of the way. I got the shot and said "Thanks, God, I got it." And a few seconds after that, the wind holding the flowers down subsided. The flowerpot returned to its original angle.

Sure, it can be explained entirely by reason. But as Brother Alwyn said (or will say in around 1,255 years, according to Babylon 5 chronology), "Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one." And aren't miracles all in the timing?

Jeff Conaway as Kenickie	Jeff Conaway as Zack Allen

I just finished watching Dickie Roberts, Former Child Star. I don't know who recommended it to me, but it was pretty good. If you can't stand David Spade, just watch the credits -- they're hilarious.

In other news, I'm sick. Haven't been in the office all week. Fever of 102.7 F earlier tonight. I slept all day and I'll probably do the same tomorrow. This sucks.