This family vacation started with, "I think this is going to be our last trip here. This place is a dump." And true, it really kind of is, but a) it's still the beach, and b) it's still pretty fun.

The kids are being hilarious and are all getting along (all 8 of them, counting my cousin's friends' kids), so that's amazing. I made the mistake of teaching my little 4-year old cousin Kiley the most obnoxious knock-knock joke in the world (banana. banana. banana. orange. orange you glad I didn't say banana), which she has somehow morphed into: "TV. TV. TV. TV. TV. TV. Glasses. Orange you glad I didn't say banana...no. wait. TV...glasses." or some other variation ("orange you glasses I didn't say banana?") She's the cutest thing ever, and has decided that she loves Murphy and tries to kiss and hug (and headbutt) him every chance she gets, which as anyone might imagine, he absolutely hates. Also, I witnessed the longest game of tag in the history of time tonight...which only ended because the grown ups got tired of the screaming and running...especially after some of us got roped into playing, too.

Sadly, the necklace that Murphy made me on their rainy craft day a couple of days ago broke at a restaurant today and spilled beads all over the floor. I was able to salvage some of the beads before they all fell off, so all is not lost. I still have a cheap child's craft to hang around my neck, at least for the duration of the trip (or until it breaks again). Yay!

I haven't gotten as much reading/writing in as I would have liked by now, but there has been some insanely good and much-needed quality family time instead, which is 800 times better. Amy is the best sister-in-law I could have ever asked for, if asking for any one in particular would have been an option. And Murphy just slays me. I've been trying to write down the funny things that seem to spew out of his mouth, but I keep forgetting. Hearing him say, "Oh, no she didn't" complete with the accompanying gesture (one hand on hip, the other hand shaking the finger in a 'no-no' kind of way) and head-bob was enough to make me and my brother almost lose our collective shit.

Taking some good pictures, but I'll have to wait until I get home to post the majority of them, as my USB charger/connector for the phone doesn't work with my brother's laptop, so I'm down to just the car charger...which comes in handy when I just walk wherever I need to go. Maybe I'll take a drive around PCB tomorrow and let it get some juice while my skin takes a breather from the sun.

Oh, yeah. I got sunburned today, but I didn't think it was that bad...until I got out of the shower, which always happens. But still nice to feel, in an odd way.

However.

After a 4.5-hour interrupted nap in place of a restful, uninterrupted night's sleep on cushions pulled from a loveseat to a very slippery laminate floor, getting sunburned, and tiring oneself out from swimming in the ocean with children, one should not then board a "pirate ship" to spend two hours in the blazing sun with even more children (all armed with water pistols, plastic swords, tambourines, pirate hats, "buried treasure", face paint, and temporary tattoos), unless a) one is wearing something other than corduroy shorts--which feel awesome on sunburned legs--,and b) one has cash for the bar aboard said "pirate ship". Neither of which applied to me, unfortunately. I saw some dolphins, but ended up getting a little sea/sun-sick and spent a good bit of the final hour trapped in a booth in the bar area, which was kind of okay with me until all of the rocking started happening. I survived, though, and am happy to report that the fried oysters from The Boatyard totally made up for the Sea Dragon.

On the agenda for tomorrow: more swimming, more beach, more family time, and fireworks on the beach. I have to say, as much as I'm enjoying the time here, I am looking forward to Saturday very much when many adult beverages will be consumed, guilt- and judgment-free. Weeee.

Tickets are selling fast. I am planning on seeing Dark Knight on the 17th/18th midnight screening at Atlantic Station. If you are interested, tickets are on sale.

So my Dad's Day gift was a Behringer iAxe USB electric guitar. I was excited to get it because I rather wanted an electric, but didn't really want to deal with an amp, nor an interface for recording to my computer. The iAxe has a built in USB sound card that's hooked straight to the pickups. When you plug it in on a Windows system, it's seen as a USB audio device which is cool.

Unfortunately, there are a number of layers in the windows audio system (both the legacy and the new Vista system) which cause quite a bit of latency. This is not an issue for playback of sounds, since you can simply delay any visual feedback the same amount. Also, the delay isn't much, it's just around a tenth of a second or so, but that's enough to really screw up playing an instrument. Having almost a quarter second time between when you strike a note and when you hear it makes it impossible to listen to yourself while you play.

Luckily, there is a type of driver stack for windows called "ASIO", that allows direct-to-the-hardware communication, and removes almost all the latency issues present in the Windows driver model. Most professional music gear and high end sound cards come with a driver that supports ASIO, and most recording software meant for any kind of high end use supports it. The iAxe comes with one for its input (the guitar) and output (it has a headphone jack). This way you can hook in a pair of headphones, and have it sound like you've got it hooked up to any amp or effects pedal in existence (provided you know how to use VSTs).

But of course, they don't make drivers for Vista x64 for it.

After a few hours of gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes, I cam across this gem: ASIO4ALL. This is a universal ASIO driver that grants most consumer level and embedded sound cards (what almost everyone has) an ASIO stack. By using this instead of the standard iAxe driver, I was able to pipe sound from any input to any output on my system in a low latency fashion. It's actually brilliant, because that means that I can play through my 5.1 surround system, my USB headset, or the old headphone jack of the guitar.

Generally, I would recommend this over the iAxe drivers provided by Behringer for everyone on any version of Windows unless you *really* have a need for them. If you need to do any sound work at all on Windows, and can't spend the umpteen zillion on one of those professional cards, this is a great alternative.

TOWER CLIMBERS needed. Locally based company has opening for tower climbers. This listing brought to you by The Traverse City Record-Eagle.

I KNOW THIS IS THE ONE.

I always forget how unwieldy my hair gets at the beach. In my family, we have started calling this the "clown hair" effect.

Hopefully good news today, or in the next few.

This weekend should be fun. We're going to Grandma's to do the family thing early...around noonish. We'll probably take my future brother in law to the airport since he has to get back to the Navy. I figure it'd be nice to take him so Kaitlin can ride with him, and cry on the way back.

That evening we're probably going to Tony's. He got a new place off the Marietta Square, and we'll be able to see the fireworks from his new place. Nothing better than a party with the gays! And Stephanie and Robert should be there, too, so it'll be tons of fun.

Other than that, it should be pretty chill. My father in law will be in town for the weekend, and it's always nice to see him. It's going to suck balls when the rest of Levi's family moves. They close on their house next week. =P

What are you plans?

My back has been giving me issues since I got off the plane on Sunday. Today it feels like a pebble or a marble maybe is sitting just underneath my shoulder blade. It's a quiet, persistent pain. The kind that flares and then ebbs like ripples in a pond. Yet instead of a pond it's my right shoulder and the pain extends down my arm almost to my elbow making it quite painful to move (before anyone suggests I've already done a series of stretches in hopes of easing the muscle).

I thought it was my bra but after removing my bra it's gotten worse. To the point that I've wrapped one of my sarongs around me as if it were a dress and it doesn't even come near my shoulder but still the lack of pressure doesn't ease the pain.

On the upside I'm watching Rome. It's a really beautiful story and I'm surprised by how easy it is to decifer Latin/Italian, and how funny it is that I know/remember as much as I do.

To the point that I laughed at some graffiti and Ian asked me what I was laughing at. I said that the wall said Atia sucks cock, loosely translated mind you. He asked how I knew. Atia fellate (blank, because I couldn't read it). He nodded.

They also use Salve quite often. Always nice to hear a proper Latin greeting. I'm such a language nerd at times.

Will you two please get together, despite the fact that one of you is dead, and sing me duets until I fall asleep?

I think I'd have sweet dreams EVERY night.

Roy, you could even drive all night. *nods*

Thanks guys, you're the greatest ever!

Love,
Emily

Chrono Trigger on the DS!

http://www.destructoid.com/it-s-officialtoid-chrono-trigger-ds-is-coming-to-north-america-93413.phtml#ext

http://bitcast-b.bitgravity.com/websitedown/index.html

This is hilarious if you deal in any kind of tech support.

My step dad is in jail and I have to go to work and it's 4am so of course I can't get in touch with anyone.

This is not as frantic as it seems or sounds. I'm just at a loss as to what to do and everyone is sleeping.

They should let me talk to him soon (thankfully) and I'm telling Marcus he's covering my shift as soon as he gets in which will put us a man down but I have to take care of this.

*scratches head*

What the fuck?

Oh, and his insurance lapsed or some shit. So, no my Step Dad isn't a hard banging criminal or some shit.

so, recently, the onion AV club (of course) started reviewing my so-called life, which has finally been released on dvd.   and the reviewer (the hater herself) links to you tube episodes of mscl.  man, that show was great.  and yeah, the clothes look really dated now and there's some crappy tv elements, but it's solid.

actually, i kind of like the super-dated clothes.  mostly because i liked them then, but also because...hmm.

************************************************************

i don't know if you know this, but i love my grandma.  Love her.  love all my grandparents.  tehy are and were great.  grandma morawski - the one who's 89 and still has all her own teeth - is getting a little too senile to live on her own.  which is a problem mostly because she lives in chicago.  so my parents have decided that now is the time to move her down to be close to us.  right now the plan is to bring her down in that last week of july/first week of august, have her live with my parents for a bit and then take her to an assisted living home.  we'd probably just have her live with my folks, but the reason we're moving her down is because she's kind of slipping mentally.  'kind of'.  really.  and honestly, if i get to be 89, i expect i'll be more than a little dotty...anyway.

it's been a tough process for my folks, especially my mom.  what's not making it any easier is that, in addition to the emotional aspects of this stuff, they've got to do a lot of stuff around the house to make grandma feel at home.  we want her to have all of her own stuff, or most of it, so there's a lot of furniture re-arranging going on and painting and all sorts of stuff.  this house upheaval, i am somewhat embarassed to admit, has also involved a MAJOR overhaul of my old bedroom. 

i admit it, i'm a packrat.  i'm better about it now than i used to be, but yeah.  it's bad.  and it's been bad.  and when we lived in the house i grew up in, it was worse.  ask my friends from high school and they will tell yo uabout my insane room.  i moved most of that stuff to the house my family moved to after i graduated.  a lot of it has stayed in boxes.  and then i accrued more shit in college that stayed in other boxes (or piles, if applicable) in my room and my mom bugged me about it for years to get it cleaned up so they could use it.  and she finally did it.

this made some weird revelations for my mom.  first off, she realized that the reason i could find things in my piles of shit was because they were all organized.  or organized-ish.  at least i knew where everything was, and i'd be the one using it, so, meh.  that didn't surprise me too much. 

what did catch me was this weekend, when my family finally got together to celebrate father's day, she said that cleaning out my room (god, that's an embarassing admission) was really emotional for her.  and i said 'why?'  and she said that all the stuff she found had so many memories wrapped up in them and it was like going back through everything with our family all over again.  what's weird about that is that's the exact reason i could never get through throwing crap away and cleaning.  my mom throws things away, she just does.  but that's the whole thing with being a packrat, you want to hang on to that memory for as long as you can so you hang on to an object for forever.  it was weird to see her associate with that.  and she was getting kind of choked up about it even when she was telling me.  it was strange. 

also strange is watching your parents get older.  i'm pretty lucky that they're around and i can do that.  lucky, and also troubling for a world-class worrier such as myself.  like, my dad pointed out that he'll be 62 in 5 years.  that's unfathomable to me.  just...wow.  and they're having old married couple conversations while we're home - you know, mom'll say something, dad'll say something different and mom waves it off.  or vice versa.  and they don't remember things.  it's cute and troubling all at once.

it's hard to get old.  grandma's been saying that for the past 10 years.  it's hard to get old.  she's right.  she's really, completely right.  and i guess, right now, for me it's not that...well, no, life does get harder as you get older, just more things to worry about.  but, um...it's hard to watch your people get old.  and know that one day you're going to have take care of them, too. 

i don't know...

************************************************************

i don't know if this is the case for dudes, but being a pre-teen and my sister being a teen when my so-called life was actually airing kind of makes the whole thing ring that much truer.  my mom LOVED the show.  my sister LOVED the show.  a few years later when mtv started showing it, I loved the show.  because it just seemed so perfect.  all that shit -well except the angel thing, maybe - really existed and happened.  and watching it as an adult, and knowing that behind all that teen angst bullshit there lies further different bullshit, but that it's okay.  and eventually you move on. it just feels like...all that stuff was there, in every family, in one way or another.  and really in my family.  like...wow.  it's uh...it's strange.  and it's strange to have such a different perspective on the whole show.  anyway...

yeah.  that's kind of where i'm at now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_sports#Sports

I really just love to go outside and act ridiculous. Who wants to start leagues?

Farnarkeling - created by John Clarke, in the 1980s Australian TV comedy show The Gillies Report. It was played on a field called a grommet in periods called umlauts, with players 'warbling vigorously' with 'the bevelled orb'. Dave Sorensen was 'the hope of Australian farnarkeling'.

I also figure Miles dressed in a yellow cape would make an excellent golden snitch.

Should I take out a newspaper ad?

Also taking apps for my Winning team-no competition, just celebrating victories.

Headed to the beach with the fam tomorrow. Need to pack, but first....

a) Some work
b) Giving andrew some wisdom (yay, wisdom!)
c) Watching the Braves (v. Phillies) at Johnny's. Is Chipper Jones' name really "Chipper"? Who would do that to a kid?
d) Remember this?

Well. I was watching last Thursday's episode of The Daily Show today, and saw this (the main point is at 2:30):


So, this leads me to one of three possible conclusions:
1) I share a brain with one of the writers from The Daily Show
2) I obviously need a job working for The Daily Show, because, HELLOOOO? That was my joke first
3) One of the writers from The Daily Show reads this and stole my terminology (in which case, "Hello, My name is 'Flattered'")

I think it's 1 or 2, because there is absolutely no chance of 3, not even in my humor-writing dreams. Happy early 4th (and Happy Early Birthday to Laura (karura16)), though because I am a junkie, I'm sure there will be beach posting and such. Weeee!

http://www.wpbf.com/news/16758597/detail.html
Woman steals cat and uses it for extortion.

What a freak!

From: tbons' Manager
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 10:51 AM
To: Technology
Subject: Congratulations to tbons!

Congratulations to tbons on her promotion to Product Development Manager. tbons has been with the company for 5 years and over the last 2 years tbons has been an instrumental part of the Employer Product Development team. tbons has worked closely with Technology on several projects including search enhancements, Security, HTML Editor, French Canadian Site. She also plays a key role with sales and customer care support with site hosting, ecommerce product portal & corporate product portal, phone product and State/Gov't projects.

tbons has also been a part of our internal Leadership Development Program (LDS) for over 2 years and recently started Georgia Tech's Executive MBA in Management of Technology.

tbons has consistently demonstrated a strong work ethic and a dedication to success.

Congratulations tbons!

tbons' Manager
Sr. Product Development Manager


In other news - If you are looking for something fun and for a good cause in Atlanta, July 17 is a Karaoke contest for GOAL. Please click here for more details!

Saturday over dinner with friends I got some weird (dirty?) looks for expressing confusion over how anyone can not know how to swim.

Tonight I looked up "how to husk corn" on the internet.

Both are pretty obvious.

This picture was marked "an unwelcome guest" awwwww.

Your reply to a friend's post is mostly incoherent.

Mostly. To the point that you almost confuse yourself and can't begin to comprehend how to fix it.

*face palms*

Remind me to never travel ever again. I'm apparently no good at it.

Or maybe I need to be a more responsible vacation taker.

Whatever.