New Year, New Stuff

I’m not a person for resolutions, I think they’re pretty much a promise to yourself that you know even as you make it that it will probably be broken. So I don’t bother.

But I did do something last year that I persisted with for the entire year, and I’m kinda proud of that. I kept a fairly accurate list of every movie that I saw and every book that I read for recreational purposes. My intent is to post this list in the forthcoming days, it will be in multiple parts as I intend on commenting on all of them. I don’t recall the exact counts, but I averaged over three books a month and probably a similar number for films, the film count being somewhat lower due to the fact that there’s only five screens in a 50 mile radius of where I live.

And though it was not a specific goal, I posted a lot more here than in the past, even going so far as to become a paid member, the only web site that I pay for. It might be a matter of living in a very rural community, i.e. sometimes not a heck of a lot else to do. ;)


So for 2006? Again, not resolutions, but things that I need to do. First and most importantly, pay more attention to nutrition. That’s not to say that my diet is horrible, I’m averaging 15 lbs lighter than when I was living in Phoenix, but that’s mainly due to the absence of readily available fast food up here, i.e. there ain’t any. I need to prepare more of my meals from scratch. I made a start on it last night at the observatory by making a big salad for our gourmet night/NYE dinner. Big salads are one of my fav meals: lots of Romaine, spinach, red onion, and throw in sliced almonds, croutons, cheese, and a good dressing. I don’t have much of a problem doing big salads for dinner pretty much every night, though it can be a lot of work the way that I make ‘em. I need to gain some add’l L33t Cutt1ng Sk1lz to speed up my salad production. I’m doing a fair job of keeping the kitchen moderately clean and organized, so that’s maybe Non-Resolution 1.5.

Second, also important, I need to be more focused on doing homework. I failed my pre-algebra class mainly because I really hate algebra. I hadn’t studied it in over 25 years and I have never used it in my 20 years of database programming. I heartily agree that some professions depend on it, but I don’t think it’s the universal requirement that a lot of education systems think it is. It certainly doesn’t hurt, but neither does it help. Anyway, since my degree requires a unit, and I can’t take that unit until I complete pre-algebra, I gotta get my butt in gear and pass this turkey.

Third, the universal “fitness” thingie. Both Russ and I could really benefit by walking a mile or so a day, but it always seems like I’m recovering from something. I’m healthy for a month or so, then I get sick again. Very much an ARGH! moment.

Fourth, though not last in terms of importance, WORK ON MY F*ING GAMES! I really need to get some of these selling in stores, particularly as my employment will be ending in the next week or so. I have the same problem as a bio I heard of this guy on NPR yesterday afternoon, I have so many ideas that I’d rather work on something new than go back and finish revising an older idea. I’ve started three more games since I moved up here with pretty much zero work on any other game that I’d previously done anything with.

Fifth, and a high priority, CLEAN THIS F*ING PLACE UP! :) We haven’t made a bit of progress in unboxing my stuff and rearranging to accommodate it all (which will include purging a great many books). I could blame several things in my life as not having functional space, i.e. tables to work on, etc., but that’s a cop-out. It definitely is not easy with the very narrow intersections between Russet’s schedule and mine, so that’s something we both definitely need to work on.


So there you have it. Not resolutions per se, but things that I need to work on. Hopefully we’ll make some progress on this stuff, time will tell.

Good and Bad in 2005

The best thing in 2005 was me getting married! Russet and I have been very happy, I guess it’s been seven months and counting, and hopefully that will continue for aye and a day. It’s been more than a bit of a readjustment moving up here, most notably for the lack of movie screens and book stores, as witnessed by my going back to Phoenix averaging monthly. Oddly, every time that I’ve been in Phoenix since moving up here in August, I don’t think I’ve seen a movie once. I definitely want to see Brokeback Mountain while I’m down for my next trip, we’ll see if I pull that off. I had an opportunity before Christmas to catch a sneak with Magic Rat for Memoirs of a Geisha, but I just wasn’t well enough.

It looks like my next trip will probably be the last until mid-March when we go down for the Arizona Renaissance Festival and the Pleasure Feast with a bunch of good friends.

I also had a good job for most of 2005, working for the Arizona Dept. of Education. I created a database summary of statistical/student information related to the No Child Left Behind program. As much as I hate to admit it, I owe my job to Dubya. But that will be ending in another week or so and I’ll be on the hunt again. I’ll probably be doing some volunteer work in Alamogordo at the hospital and the space museum in hopes that one of them might turn into a job.

And though we didn’t have a “White Christmas”, I did have a White Birthday nine days prior. I wish I’d taken some photos, it was quite pretty, it was only a couple inches of snow, just enough to cover everything nicely. Recently the overnight low has been in the mid 30’s, but there’s no moisture, thus no snow.


2005 was a good year for death, a strange way of putting it, but what I mean is that I was not as badly affected as deaths in the previous year. In 2004, I lost three friends, all of whom were in my film club and I’d known them for 10-20 or more years each. Jack was a pretty horrible, long, lingering, cancer death, I’m glad he’s out of pain. He was a huge film fan and spent a lot of years working as a projectionist. He had a lot of great stories that he related over the years. The other two were quite unexpected: one a massive heart attack, the other a post-operative blood clot, they both died pretty much instantly. The latter particularly hurt as Dave was younger than I am, but he was waaay overweight. Still, it hurt really bad. The former, the heart attack, was Jim Cryer. I worked with him in the late 70’s/early 80’s doing film programming for conventions. He was a nice guy and had the most amazing collection of movies that I’d ever seen. He was an expert on video and was frequently the videographer for local conventions and frequently for major regional conventions also.

This year has seen loss, most notably Russet’s father passing away eleven days after our wedding. I so wish I’d had more time with him, he was quite a guy and we really hit it off well. I miss him, but it just isn’t possible to really hurt from a loss that you never had a chance to understand the scope of what could have been. Russ still gets melancholy/teary occasionally as well is her right, we’re both very thankful that her mother is still ticking away. I consider myself quite fortunate that I still have my parents, but I know the day is closer than I’d like that they won’t be there.

I lost two other friends, Ray and Barry, both died of cancer. Ray Gish was the art show coordinator for most of the SF/F conventions in the Phoenix area. Ray, and his then-wife Terry, were very instrumental in getting me into the organizing side of conventions, I did a lot of film programs under one or both of them. Barry Bard was a great guy, he was a film promoter for the local SF/F convention scene. He would go out of state to promote films, he was regularly a fixture at San Diego ComicCon doing his thing and giving away freebies and posters and stuff. As far as I know, he never received compensation from the film studios, he did it all just for the love of movies. Unfortunately I only saw Ray and Barry maybe two or three times a year, still, their loss will sting.