amiguriken

One of the things that was left undone when the house I'm now living in was finished was the clean-up. My porch has been covered with PVC pipe and fittings, bags of concrete, boards of varying lengths and widths, and loads of miscellaneous stuff (not a small amount of which was garbage) since the house was completed. It didn't bother me much this past winter, but as spring rolled around, I began hankering to sit on my porch. Also, my father likes to send people out to look at the rockwork on the chimney, and it's not been nice to have people drive by and see the mess that was on the porch.

I've been mentioning the need to clean it off for weeks now, and my mother finally took up the gauntlet and came down this afternoon. We spent a good two hours moving stuff around and throwing stuff away, but now, even though there is still stuff on my porch (and not a small amount of stuff crammed underneath it), I have a porch I can sit on while enjoying the summer weather. Hooray!

(Of course, now that it's done, I'll probably never go out--I keep all the blinds in my house closed all the time for a reason, after all.)

And, of course, this being my mom, there had to be at least one obligatory smartalecky comment. The one that made me laugh was in regards to all the money they spent on my education for me to end up as much manual labor as I've been doing lately.

And because I have nothing better to do (except go to bed, which I need to do), behind the cut are more pics from today's trip.

( Click here. You know you want to. )

Back in October I posted about my family's biannual trip to Noland's Creek, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for decoration at two of the cemeteries we have relatives buried in. Today was the spring trip, which was much more pleasant than the October trip.

I'm cutting for a ( pic dump. )

http://www.dressaday.com/2006/10/you-dont-have-to-be-pretty.html

My favorite quote from this short little blog entry is, 'Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female".'

Of course, I don't dress "pretty" very often at all. It might happen once a year. Usually I go for comfort, and I'm much happier advertising my geekiness via my t-shirts than I am advertising my femininity via pretty blouses. (Of course, I define myself more by my geekiness than my gender.)

But it's always nice to find another woman who agrees and isn't afraid to say something, especially when she makes the point that she's not saying you have to go completely anti-pretty to be a feminist either.

Be pretty or don't be pretty, but do it for yourself* and not because you feel you have to for society or for men or for other women.

*Okay, you can also do it for work if you need to. I think any judge in the district would frown more than a little if I wore my jeans and favorite Doctor Who t-shirt to court.

I started to write a post earlier about a particular pet peeve in fanfic (ficcers giving the characters the ficcers' personal likes and dislikes, such as tv shows and bands, particularly when such are obscure and unlikely to actually be known of, much less liked by, the characters, much less both of the two main characters of the show being written about, and I'm just going to stop right now before I end up with the rant I had decided not to write).

Instead, I have decided to briefly post about a couple of things that made me happy today.

My dad called me earlier today to ask me to come out to a field where he was planting potatoes. He needed me to go to town to pick up another bag of seed potatoes and wanted me to help with the planting.

I was more than happy to go and pick up the potatoes. That was simply a matter of driving to a store and telling them what I wanted. They even put the 50 lb. bag on the back of my pick-up (and can I just say how happy I am to have a pick-up now that I'm living in the country again!). So I went and picked up the potatoes and drove back to the field. When I got there, I saw that my father had wandered off, and my brother was hard at work popping onion bulbs into the ground. Since I didn't want to bother him, I decided to take the potatoes up myself. Now, I used to have no problem doing things like lugging 50 lb. bags around. But I've felt a lot weaker in the upper body for a little while now, and I wasn't entirely sure I could get the bag up on my shoulder. I am very happy and proud to say that I had no problem pulling this bag up over the side of my truck and onto my shoulder. It was even easier from that point to lug it up the side of the hill to the top of the field.

I have to admit that I actually had no intention of doing anything further in the garden. I have never liked gardening and have a long and valued history of doing anything I could to get out of having to work in the garden. But when I got to the top of the hill, I realized that it was only fair that I get out there and do some of the work--I eat a lot of those potatoes, especially among the first dug baby new potatoes. Also, well, the field was freshly plowed, which meant really soft dirt in which my feet would sink if I were to walk in it. I am a sucker for fresh, soft, slightly damp dirt between my toes. So I opened the bag and kicked off my shoes and set to planting seed potatoes for the fall. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. (For the record, today was fairly easy. The weather was very mild, and I only had to plant a little over a row of the things. If the weather had been warmer and/or I had spent the whole day planting several rows of potatoes, I would probably not be so happy about today's reminder that I'm a country girl.)

Now I just have to wait a few months for some nice, tiny new potatoes, which I love to eat raw. Of course, before that, there will be hoeing and digging them up and other fun.

http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0212wo.html

I haven't posted about it, but I've been following the story of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (CPSIA) since Neil Gaiman first brought it to my horrified attention.

The CPSIA is the most recent example of a feel-good, paternalistic law that has far more horrible consequences than previously believed. On the surface it seems like a good idea--let's keep lead-based paints out of products going to our children. But when you read and consider the actual effects of the law, it goes far beyond preventing toy manufacturers from using lead-based paints in their products. In a time of recession, when many people depend on thrift stores, this law has put that entire industry in danger. It will destroy many small businesses who will not be able to afford the prohibitive costs of testing. And then there's the destruction of books, which is the focus of the article linked above (and what this will mean for our libraries).

The law is over-broad and over-reaching, as anyone with any common sense can see. But far too many people in power refuse to see what they've done. Congress has already refused to consider amendments that would undo or mitigate some of the most damaging sections of the law, much less throw the law out.

Still, I think it's worthwhile to write your representatives about it and bring it to the attention of any local media you can. In the meantime, I hope that most of the books that have been affected by this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad law are not destroyed and can make a triumphant return to bookshelves everywhere within a few years. (And that my local thrift stores aren't shut down. And that small toy manufacturers aren't forced to retire and leave the market entirely to Mattel.)

I heard spring peepers today as I was walking from my parents' to my house.

They're not supposed to be out yet!

1. One of the problems with coming back to the small town in which I was raised to practice law is that I know and am related to far too many people in this town. Another attorney attempted to refer a client to me the other day, but when I saw the name on the card he passed me, I realized (out loud), "Hey, I think this is my cousin!" I'm also related to a sheriff's deputy and a DSS case worker. Additionally, I go to church with (and pretty much grew up with) a couple of other court-related personnel, including a DSS worker. Oh, and I spent years calling the husband of the DSS worker I work with the most "Susie" (he was best friends with my brothers and even lived with my parents for a while).
The most entertaining story I've got out of that is from one man's attempt to intimidate me outside of court a few weeks back. He tried the same stunt with several other court personnel that day, including the child's GAL, who told her husband what had happened. When she told her husband my name, his eyes grew wide and he said, "I know her dad. That guy's lucky he didn't try and hurt her." (A customer of my father's said, "He obviously doesn't know who your family is. You need to wear a t-shirt to court that just says 'I'm a Parton.'")

2. My family has a rather large pasture in which we always keep a small herd of cattle who, on occasion, have been known to find ways out of their pasture. Over the course of my life I have spent many an afternoon helping my father and brother chase the cattle back inside the fence. And yet, it was still rather surreal the other day to look out my parents' window and see a cow standing beside my pickup truck at my house. (It was still pretty fun herding them back into the pasture though. I don't know why I take such pleasure in that. Maybe it's just that it reminds me that I'm a country girl.)

3. One of the biggest problems with the rural life is a serious lack of people like myself. I'm afraid that I have yet to find another geek around my age. I know there must be someone somewhere, but I don't know how to find this possibly mythical person. People around here look at me funny when I start talking about Cylons or quoting Monty Python. It's depressing.

4. A concern I have about living around so many of my relatives is that there will be an increase in encouragements to date and even some meddling on that front. I have already had one aunt strongly hint that she had someone she'd be happy to set me up with. ARGH! Happily, it's only been the one incident, so maybe I'm safe. (Frankly, I doubt there are any guys around here who have enough in common with me to even consider the possibility of dating one.)

5. On a completely different topic, Watchmen was excellent. It stayed very true to the graphic novel, and I did not mind where it veered. Jeffery Dean Morgan made the Comedian likable, which is an amazing feat of acting! But I have to agree with most everyone else and say that Jackie Earle Haley stole the show with his Rorschach. He was absolutely perfect in every detail. I was just blown away. The only problem I have with his performance is that it was so good and the character is so memorable that I don't hear enough voices also praising the excellent work of Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl/Dan Dreiberg. And I was very impressed with Mr. Wilson's performance. He really captured some of the sadness and even the pathetic nature of Dreiberg's life post the Keene act.
My only complaint about the film is that there were times when the violence was so over-the-top it was cartoony, which always pulled me out of the movie.

While the Obama administration has stated that it does not support a plan to charge drivers a per-mile-driven tax, Congress is still looking at this as a viable option.
I, personally, strongly oppose any such move.
First, I do see it as an intrusion, albeit a minor one. It is yet another piece of my personal information that the government will then have, and I think they have too much as it is. Maybe there is no harm in a government agency knowing that I take regular driving trips for hundreds of miles. On the other hand, maybe there is.
Second, I'm already being heavily taxed for each mile I drive by way of gas taxes. Between my state and federal gas taxes (and my state is also looking at a per-mile plan, and the incompetent bastards are very likely to implement such a thing), I think the government already gets enough money out of me for each mile I drive. Especially when you consider that the type of vehicle I drive uses more gas, which means I end up paying more gas tax than your average Toyota driver.
Third, and most important to me personally, is that this tax would be a serious drain on anyone living in a rural area or having to commute to work. In other words, the poor and the middle class. I live in a rural area in Appalachia. In order for me to go to a grocery store, I have to drive ten miles to the nearest town and ten miles back. If I need to go to Wal-Mart, I have to drive nearly thirty miles there and back. When I need to make major changes to my cell phone service--forty-five miles. Due to gas prices, I already try to do everything I can in one trip. So, for instance, when I have to go to town to file a document with the Clerk of Court, I also make sure I do my banking and any shopping I need to do while I'm already there. A trip to Asheville (the nearest city) is a rare thing, usually made when we've got a rather long list of things we need to get that we can only get there. But even though we minimize our trips as much as possible to save on gas, the fact remains that we cannot cut them out of our lives. In rural areas, unless you are completely self-sufficient, you have to drive. And that means that we will be paying the bulk of any "per-mile" tax, tax which most of us cannot afford. Another sad fact of life in these rural communities is poverty. The majority of people in my county live under the poverty line already. With the recession deepening, everyone who has a job desperately needs to keep that job. But they have to drive to that job, and now they're being taxed even more for that. What happens when all of your paycheck is being eaten up simply by getting to work (as happened when gas prices got so outrageously high last year)? The worst thing is that, in North Carolina, I can all but guarantee that the rural areas would see very little of the tax money they paid in. The bulk of the money would be spent on building and repairing roads in the eastern part of the state, where the commuters have to spend two hours on the road just to drive ten miles. And while I feel for the commuters and believe those roads should be fixed, I don't think that taxing the rural population is the answer.
I have other concerns, particularly about a state-based system (how do you charge tourists who come from states with no such requirements? can you legally charge your own citizen for driving in another state?). But ultimately, well, I pay too much in taxes for too little already. I think the government would be better served to I think the government should, oh, I don't know, stop spending all our frakking money on useless projects and ridiculous earmarks and programs that don't work and focus on fixing the programs it already has rather than adding new ones. And do all of this before they start asking me to pay even more.

Since I haven't posted in a few, let's see how many things I can possibly cram into this one entry.

1. I've been showing my two-year-old niece bits of Doctor Who. Mostly I've been letting her watch this really fantastic fanvid of Who set to the song "Handlebars" by Flobots. According to my sister-in-law, my niece has been singing the chorus to the song for days now. She is also getting quite good at identifying Donna and Rose. She may supplant my previous moment of aunt-geek pride, which was when my niece Hope, then two, was infatuated with Farscape after catching a scene in which Rygel the 16th bit a guy's nose off.

2. In other aunt/niece geekery, I took the three oldest girls to Asheville to see Coraline in 3D. The movie was excellent, and the nieces thoroughly enjoyed it. A few weeks ago, I bought them each a copy of the movie tie-in paperback. Right now they all name it and Neil's The Graveyard Book among their favorite books. Of course, I think they say that mostly because I just gave them the latter book for Christmas, but I hold on to hope for their reading futures. I started them off on Neil a few years back with The Wolves in the Walls, which was Deanna's favorite book for a year or so. Sadly, it was deemed too scary for the kids at her preschool. (This year's Christmas list included copies of The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish for the little ones.)

3. I'm still back and forth on the whole opening my own firm thing. Some days I'm on top of the world (those would be the days I feel on top of all my cases). Others, I'm freaking out and considering all the ways I could possibly be committing malpractice. Tomorrow I have court, and I really should not be so relieved by the fact that we need continuances on all of my adjudications. But I am.

4. Speaking of court... I have been interested to see how some of my friends and I have dealt with being on the sides of court we've chosen. I have a very liberal friend, for instance, who works for the prosecutor's office and has been amazed at how much she likes it. Sadly, the more I deal with some of my clients, the more I find my cynicism being completely and totally validated. I'm not finding myself suddenly agreeing with the people who say "It's not really her fault. Look at her circumstances. All she needs is a chance." I will say that I have realized that being a bad parent does not make one a bad person. Quite often it just makes a person an idiot and/or incredibly selfish. But the problem is that the court system has to give all of these people a chance, and there are more than a few of them who may be good enough people but who are bad enough parents that everyone involved would be better off if their parental rights were cut off immediately. And I wouldn't argue against spaying and neutering quite a few of them either.

5. Meanwhile, part of the reason I'm back and forth on my decision to open my own firm is my own incompetence. I'm deathly paranoid of committing malpractice, of getting some tiny little thing wrong. For three years of law school, I maintained that law school should include a mandatory apprenticeship of some kind. Now that I'm out here on my own and finding out how little I know about the actual nuts and bolts (the technicalities as it were) of getting things done, I feel even more strongly that all law schools should be giving their students a lot more practical, hands-on training. Attorneys can destroy lives sometimes even more easily than doctors, but we are not held at all closely to their educational standards.

6. My iTunes just shuffled me Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper." I love this song.

7. Okay. I need to go do some work before I go to bed. This is one of the bad things about being an attorney in general--work can easily creep in at any time of the day or night. The job isn't necessarily eight to five, and when you have to get work done, you have to get it done regardless of the hour.

8. On the bright side, since I'm my own boss and I work from home, where my closet is just a room away, I can work all day in sweats or pjs if I like. Also, I don't have anyone to chide me for what I wear to the Clerk of Court's office. I really can't explain how happy it makes me to do things like dress in my blue button-up shirt, khaki pants, and bright red Chucks to go file documents.

It is a little-known fact that I absolutely adore the Twilight anti-fandom. I've never read any of Stephanie Meyers' novels, and since I've read about them, I don't really want to. (Except every now and then when I want to join in the rants.) Even if I didn't buy into the biased (and usually utterly hilarious) reviews, the insane (and usually utterly hilarious in their stupidity) fan responses to negative reviews of these books would have me convinced that Twilight is a "phenomenon" I want nothing to do with.

It is a slightly more well-known fact that I used to be a huge Stephen King fan. I picked up my first King novel (Firestarter) somewhere around sixth grade, and I read almost everything he had published up through Delores Claiborne. (I hated that novel so much that the only thing I've read by King since have been the new Dark Tower books, and I debated not reading those despite my insane love for Roland and his small band.)

I was highly amused, therefore, to encounter this article on Yahoo's front page: http://omg.yahoo.com/news/stephen-king-on-twilight-author-stephenie-meyer-can-t-write-worth-a-darn/18406?nc

It's just funny to me to think of the screaming teens turning their crybaby "Leave Stephanie alone!" ire against someone like King. I know that the majority of Meyers' mostly youthful audience probably really doesn't even know who King is, and I laugh to think of the repeated "He's just jealous!" remarks that have probably already sprung up on messageboards across the internet. I can already see the rants about "Who does he think he is?" (just one of the biggest best-selling authors in the world) and even "I've never even heard of him" (but I bet money you've heard of at least one of his movies). (Too bad the real posts will have terrifying grammar and a miserable amount of all-caps followed by far too many exclamation points.) In my musings, however, you get replies that include a great deal of responses from King readers who really just laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

I'm really very amused by the word "pepper" right now. It looks hilarious spelled out, is even funnier pluralized, and is a lot of fun just to say. "Pepper, pepper, pepper. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!"

I think I need more sleep.

1. I spent all of Friday morning and part of Friday afternoon in court as moral support for my sister-in-law, whose ex was attempting to have his child support lowered. Due to how this court operates (recessed while Child Support Services [CSS] agents speak with the debtors), we talked and laughed a lot. I think this probably disturbed the ex, who I'm sure was at least hoping to piss my sister-in-law off. As a matter of fact, his behavior had us laughing quite a bit. I really want to talk about all of his stupidity, but I feel as though it would be inappropriate right now. It was funny though. I can say that my sister-in-law was about to die laughing at him when I went up and spoke with a couple of the attorneys present, laughing and smiling and even picking up a document from one of them. She just knew he had been intimidated by that. Their hearing ended up being continued. I'm planning to attend the next one carrying my briefcase. I'm sure I'll have a legitimate reason for it then.

2. I love Neil Gaiman. I just feel that needed to be said. Neil is my other favorite author, and his novels and his blog are among my happy places.

3. I'm currently following a handful of interesting and at least semi-famous people on twitter: Neil Gaiman, Wil Wheaton, Greg Grunberg, Jonathan Coulton, and David Hewlett. The first four of these people are remarkably prolific twitterers and fairly regularly amuse me.

4. I have to go to court in another county tomorrow. I don't want to go, but that's the job.

5. I really have got to get my fee agreement put together this evening. I also need to make sure I've got the certs of service and letters together for an Order I need to serve on the other parties/counsel this week.

6. Lawyer talk sounds far more important and interesting than what I actually do, I assure you.

7. Boston Legal is a wholly inaccurate representation of the practice of law. It's not nearly as interesting as that either. I wish I believed it were also a wholly inaccurate representation of the morals of your average lawyer.

8. I watched In Bruges last night and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was more dark than I had thought it would be, but it was dark in a good way. For some reason I thought it would be more humourous than it was, but I'm not complaining.

9. Really should do some work now. Really don't want to. Also need sleep. Do not want!

Hey, the last one for the meme. I'm going to try to think of at least one happy thing a day whether I post it here or not. I really have too much to be thankful for to carry on and moan and bitch too much. Knowing that doesn't stop me, but...

Okay, my main happy thing for today is karate. I got pretty stressed out over the whole opening my own firm thing this morning and afternoon as I dealt with some business issues. I was nearly in tears and intentionally chose to comfort myself with food (Diet Dr. Pepper and a Heath bar--it did help a little), which is something I'm trying not to do. But this evening, I had a two-hour karate class. And while class itself is a good thing, tonight was particularly happy for me as we practiced self-defense, starting with rolling. You want to guess what my favorite thing to practice in self-defense classes is? Yep. I was bouncing after my first forward roll. Now I've completely lost my backward roll (I was never all that good at it anyway), but I even added to my forward roll repertoire tonight by leaping over something and rolling. It was a good night.

Another happy thing was that I lost another pound at Weight Watchers. I'm almost halfway to my goal now, and I'm back at the weight I carried most of 3L year. (I really packed on pounds this summer while studying for the bar.) Whoo-hoo! For anyone who's interested, my goal is 150 lbs. Now that sounds like a lot, but on my frame, it's really not. It's about the smallest I can be and be physically healthy. I'm just lucky that when I lose weight my curves only become more defined.

And the third happy thing I'll post about is this: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10147171-38.html (yeah, I'm too lazy to do a pretty link). The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is dead! Hooray, hooray, hooray! I was exposed to this law while taking Internet law in law school (that's a lot of law for one sentence), and I hated it from the first moment I saw it. I just wish we could get rid of the DMCA. I would do a little dance of glee upon its bloated corpse. (Thank you glitterandlube for the link--I can't believe I missed this!)

One day I'm going to do one gargantuan huge post about all the ways I love the First Amendment. But not today. I think I should hold onto it as my permanent happy thought. I fall and break my leg - hey, at least I still have freedom of speech! I get sued for malpractice - hey, at least I can still badmouth my government! All my stuff goes up in a tragic house fire - hey, I'm allowed to pray about it. To any god I want! Or even not! Whoo-hoo! And those are just my absolute favorite parts of my favorite amendment. This wonderful amendment not only gives us two of our most important and powerful rights, it contains even more! Ah. I smile just thinking about it.

And on that happy note, I think I need to get some sleep. Court tomorrow, though happily as moral support and not an attorney. Unless I need to be.

Hrm...Today I made myself happy by finally taking the time to sort through a lot of the documents I've had spread out on my desk, organize them in file folders, and stick them in my active files case (which will be expanded into a file cabinet as soon as I can feasibly do so).
I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to things like organization, filing, and cleaning (okay, and a lot of other things), but when I do these things and get finished, I feel oh, so accomplished and pleased.
Sadly, I'm not entirely finished. I have another stack of documents on one of my GAL clients that I still need to sort and file but had sort of forgotten about as they are not easily seen in their hiding place behind my laptop and printer.

More generally, I am regularly made happy by my friends. I have really been blessed throughout my life to have some of the best friends a person could ask for. I still have my best friends from high school and college, friends from work and life in G'boro, friends from the internet, and several close friends from law school, where we have the sorts of bonds forged by people sharing horrible experiences. I may not have many non-family friends where I'm living right now (and none if I discount attorneys), but I do have friends all over. And thanks to the wonderful, incredible, amazing (and sometimes frightening) tool of the internet, I have access to most all of my friends everywhere. How cool is that? And you want to know something even cooler? Many of my friends have very different political and/or religious beliefs than me, and we all still get along! My friends kick ass, that's all I'm saying.

In other news, I have to go set up an IOLTA account on the 'morrow so that I can have my first non-appointed client send me a check to deposit in it.
Just thinking about all of this sent me running to the FBI's site to put in my application. Hey, this is seriously scary stuff folks! My dear friend prynne12 is working at a firm and composed a very well written rant earlier today about just how little our law school educations have prepared us for the actual practice of law. If people who work at firms, with experienced attorneys, are having problems, how is someone on her own going to fare? With trepidation, that's how.

Well, most of my friends' happy day post would be the inauguration of President Obama (and already he gets more respect from me than I ever gave Bill Clinton--but I was younger and he was more of a jackass). It's not mine, though his inauguration is also not a bad day post for me either. I didn't vote for him, but so far he's given me no reason to doubt his sincerity and every reason to hope for positive change that I personally can believe in. I continue to hope that he's the best president we've ever had. Also, I really did like his speech. That was an excellent speech.

That said, today's happy point...damn...urm...finding out that I can reasonably charge $150 an hour? I spent the day doing work to set myself up as a business entity. I now have a federal id number and am trying to find out what I need to set up an IOLTA trust account. I did get a little work done on cases, but most of the day was spent on business administration stuff. That's not really happy stuff in and of itself, but maybe one day it will be.

Hell's bells. What is my happy place today?

I know. Terry Pratchett. I've started re-reading Going Postal, which is an excellent, excellent book. Pterry is my favorite author and has been for several years. I have reread all of his Discworld novels several times and I find something new each time. Also, I laugh each and every time. Pratchett's books were one of my comfort places through law school. If I was stressed or down, I could pull out a Discworld book and find my happy place again. (Heh. My zen place rides around through space on a flat planet held on the backs of four elephants riding on the back of a giant turtle. That's really not funny except where it is.)

Today I got a picture message on my phone of my four-month old nephew being held in the mouth of a stuffed alligator. The picture was amusing in and of itself as my nephew had an expression that clearly said, "Really, Dad?" But then my sister-in-law called. While my brother was holding my poor wee nephew in the 'gator's mouth, my two-year-old niece stood by shouting, "No, Elvis! No! Not in the mouth!" This made me laugh twice-over: first in my niece's general reaction to the picture and second in her use of my nickname for her baby brother. BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

Edited to Add: Now with picture:

Let's see. What has made me happy today?

1. Making candy. Today I made some Oreo truffles. They're really simple: take a package of Oreos and stick 'em (not all once) in the blender. Get 'em so that you can't see any cream. Then take an eight-ounce package of cream cheese at room temperature and mix it in with the Oreo stuff. Ball 'em up, stick 'em in the refrigerator for about an hour, then take them out and dip them in the melted chocolate of your choice. (I always melt my chocolate using a double broiler and adding half a block of wax.) They are pretty good. However, I think I like the other candies I make (coconut balls and peanut butter balls) better. Still, the point is that I like making candy.

2. Band From TV. I haven't heard much of their stuff, but just the fact that these guys get together and perform amuses me. And it doesn't hurt that I love Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman on Heroes) and Hugh Laurie (House on House, and if you didn't know that, shame on you!). You can find their performance from Friday night's Leno on Youtube. And while I'm talking about them, I have to say that I never cared for Jesse Spencer's character Chase on House, but I adore him for playing the violin with the band.

3. LEGO video games. I have Star Wars 2, Indiana Jones, and Batman in the LEGO games, and I adore each and every one of them. LEGO Star Wars 2 is still my favorite, despite the difficulty of some of the sections. Anyway, they're loads of fun to play. I've spent many pleasant hours this weekend playing the Batman game.

Today's moment of happiness is Battlestar Galactica, which pleases me in many, many ways, not the least of which is how it can still surprise me. BSG, I salute you!

Okay, so I didn't really do much today, and nothing really happened to me. I hate the cold passionately and preferred to spend the day indoors and bundled up. So what made me happy in this time of unrelenting cold?

Dinner consisting of a pulled pork barbecue sandwich and my favorite french fries on the planet followed by baking peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies with two of my brothers and my oldest niece. Maybe food shouldn't make me happy, but dammit, it was good food!

Physical Labor

A Few More Pics

Spring Trip

Damn Straight

Happy Things

Oh Look, It's Another Overbroad, Over-reaching Terrible Law

Spring? Really?

The Joys of Rural Life (and Some Other Shite)

Per Mile Tax

One of Those Posts

Now I Need to ReRead The Gunslinger

Pepper

A Collection of Random Things

Happy Day 8

Happy Day 7

Happy Day 6

Happy Day 5

Happy Day 4

Happy Number 3

Happy Day 2

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