Space Filler
2005-09-29,

Just have an urge to write, even though I have no idea about what, and I don't have the capacity for China Trip recall right now. So let's just see what comes out of my head, shall we?

Even though it's Thursday, it's the last day of the workweek for me. I'm taking the day off tomorrow to get brakes fixed (which needs to be done desperately - it's grinding metal now), renew my driver's license (note to self: shave in the morning) and, most importantly, spend the day with the Little Monkey (a.k.a. the baby). I'm a little stressed about coping with being out for so long without assured transportation, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm even considering testing out the city's meager shuttle bus line to get around for longer distances. Just her and me and the Snugli - yay.

In basement news, the closet is up and running, save for a ceiling light fixture. I did the drop ceiling in there are by myself! Now that I've seen it done, it's petty easy. Easier than the main part of the bedroom, because there are no windows to compensate for and I could give myself enough room to get tiles in easily. The bedroom was (and is) a tight fit. I hope to not have to do any accessing up in there any time soon. I shouldn't because all there is up there is some basic wiring and duct lines, but I'll knock on some wood anyway. Over the last couple of days I put up some corner shelving and hung some clothes rods, and last night we (finally) transferred the contents of our former closet downstairs. If all goes well, I might just get the rest of the ceiling done on Sunday.

We got the new OK GO album recently, and I've been listening to it during lunch on the Jukebox. I can't say it's as good as their first album, but it's still enjoyable. There's a lot of 70's rock influence, and they're still writing songs about ex-girlfriends (hey, who isn't?).

Speaking of our Jukebox, I've spent a little time organizing music, mainly in the form of id3 tags. We have a goal of digitizing our entire music library (so that it's on equal footing with all the stuff we have in mp3 format exclusively), so eventually the volume is going to be too considerable to manage easily without keeping the tags in line. I found a decent freeware app for editing, but then I found out that one could, with the right program, apply cover art references in the tag so that it shows up during the song on players that support that kind of thing. Must do this. I've also been playing around with m3u files (for those not in the know, they're playlist files for use with mp3 players). I'm hoping there's freeware out there to help with this task, because right now I'm using Excel to create playlists after the Jukebox makes a master list of everything on the hard drive. All I've managed so far is to make a favorites list. The Jukebox has a program that can create playlists based on analyzed song frequencies and matching like songs, but it has no good way of naming them (other than sing the name of one of the artists in the list), so it's pretty much useless, unless I want to go through the trouble of listening to every single playlist and finding an appropriate name myself. Not. Right now I just need to get myself to apply the Digitize-An-Album-A-Day program I thought up, so we can get our 350+ CD collection to be a little more accessible. Scary thing is, the Jukebox can hold pretty much all of it. And eventually I want to get a cheap PC with a good audio and video card to make it a dedicated multimedia source and attach it directly to the entertainment system. My brother, who has a Very Large HD television and some computer savvy, has not yet done this and my inner g33k has a great deal of difficulty in understanding why. It's just the way things should be, when given the means. I must talk to him about this; surely I can make him see the error of his ways.

Time to go and enjoy my bad-brakes-induced three-day weekend.

Evening Update

I just got word a little while ago that my mom�s husband is about to pass on to whatever�s next after life. He�s been suffering from cancer for a few years now, and just at the end of the week last week, they found out that it had spread to his brain. He was given about a month and a half, at best.

Now, tonight, I heard from my sister-in-law that he�d taken a turn for the worse, and asked my mom if he could move on. He was tired and done with fighting. She said yes, they said their goodbyes, and he closed his eyes and promptly went into a coma. He�ll most likely not survive the night.

So I'm going to go be with my mom tomorrow. I've got years of playing with babies ahead. And I�m going to count carefully every single day I have with her.

-- End Transmission --