Matt Maupin's remains have been found.
I can't believe I like doing this stuff. Still can't quite figure out if I have the MT templates right.
Update: Boy, do I feel stupid -- when you tell Movable Type to use the publishing queue, you can sit there and click "Publish" all day long, and it won't happen until the job runs.
Like an idiot, I did a massive upgrade on my server without taking the time to back up the blog. It appears to have fared better than I would have thought, but most of the setup has been lost. I'm still working on recovering things.
A nasty sore throat/headache isn't helping things.
I'm apparently also a movie geek. I just started watching "Hell is for Heroes", a decent WWII movie with the interesting credit of "and introducing Bob Newhart". During the opening credits, I said to myself, "Hey, I bet Leonard Rosenman wrote the score for this!"
Yep, he did. The similarities between the score for "Hell is for Heroes" (1962) and "The Lord of the Rings" (1978) is scary. Seriously, if I took the soundtracks for both movies and shuffled them together, it'd be tough to tell which track came from which movie.
And, in a rare show of Disney humor, he did the score for "Fantastic Voyage" and the "Body Wars" ride.
And, for a little Christmas cheer, Katie Reider's version of "Silent Night", live from Festivus Maximus 2004:
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I received 85 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you? |
| Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds hereCanon powershot | |
Why, yes, I am bored. (Warning: by default, the results of these quizzes include spammy
links.):
Trying to get through a day of work on three hours of sleep.
OK, so I'm slow. But I've finally posted the pictures from this year's Thanksgiving, including group photos of Mom, Dad and all their kids, and one of them with most of their grandkids.
So, what am I thankful for this year?
Family
Even when I'm doing something stupid, they're supporting me. They don't hold back their advice, but respect that I have to make my own decisions. It helps that they're a weird, fun group.
Friends
I'm still amazed at the friends I have. I just hope I've been as good for them as they've been for me.
The Return of an Old Friend
An old friend I've missed dearly got back in touch recently. Knowing that I haven't been forgotten is great; anything beyond that will be incredible.
My Career
It's been years of hard work, of sacrifice, and loads of stress, but I'm at a place -- or at least closing in on the place -- where I've wanted to be. I have a job where I get lots of respect, lots of responsibility, and lots of opportunities. That so many of my co-workers are also friends is even better.
That Guy From the Subway Next to Bradley, Summer of '93
Another cryptic one, but here's the explanation: one day, Novak, Shrijay, and I decided to hit Subway for lunch. While we were eating, this guy came up to us and asked us if we were engineers (we were talking about the kinds of things electrical engineering student talk about). "Yes..." He continued:
I just want to thank you guys. I make my living playing electronic music, and I just wouldn't be able to support my family if it weren't for people like you.
That's a moment that's stuck with me through all these years. It's been one of those little nuggets that, when I'm exhausted, frustrated, sick of it all, I think back to this fellow. No matter how insignificant what we do may seem, we're creating opportunities for other people. We're touching lives, leaving our mark, even if we can't see it.
The Little Stuff
Not nearly important, but still things I'm thankful for:
- Technology; the new opportunities, the new abilities, we're developing for ourselves is amazing. We can communicate so easily; there are people I've never met in person who I count as good acquaintances, and friends I haven't seen in years who are just as close as when we lived in the same dorm.
- Music; it can cut through to my emotions in ways I can hardly understand. Some music helps me dig into my work, get into Flow. Other music (like Blues Traveler's "She Isn't Mine") can express what I'm feeling better than I ever could.
- Walt Disney; here's a guy who died before I was born, but what he created has given me so much fun. One of my nieces said she had never seen me smile before we were at Disney World; I certainly had, but not nearly as often or for as long. And as far as I'm concerned, the Carousel of Progress is one of the clearest expressions of the American spirit I've ever seen -- not just the concept of progress, but of tomorrow being better, of being able to make our future, rather than having it happen to us.
Interesting little quiz:
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. | |
| North Central | |
| The West | |
| Boston | |
| The Inland North | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| The Northeast | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
They nailed it!
I'm starting to hate weekends. Oh, sure, I don't have to go into work, and can often go the entire day without thinking about work. But that's part of the problem -- my brain's free to think about OTHER things.
Ah, well. I'm caught up in a drama I've seen played out before. I'm pretty sure I know how it will end (poorly, painfully), but I'm just not able to say screw it and walk away. I don't know if it's boundless optimism, foolishness, or what.
(Apropos: Roy Orbison's "She's a Mystery to Me" just came on the iPod.)
Life has been particularly hectic the last month. Most of it is good, even if not as good as I wish it were.
I've been amazed at the support I've gotten from friends. I knew they were all incredible people, but I don't quite understand why I deserve the help they've given me. Maybe I'm just being hard on myself, but they've been more help to me than I've ever been to them.
So thanks, Mel, Kent, and Kate. No matter how all this turns out, I've realized how lucky I am to have friends like all of you.
Two hobbies collide! Eureka Miniatures have released 15mm Mississippian Moundbuilder miniatures!
*whimper*
Looks like I'm back into the 15mm scale!
Last weekend I helped my friend Kent (and a team of excellent people) produce a short video for the 48 Hour Film Festival. You can see the result here.
The good news is we almost certainly came in second in our group. The bad news is we came in second. But, really, the winner was so good, it doesn't hurt to lose to them. When I can find a link to that film, I'll post it, too.
Instapundit asks:
Hmm. Speaking of Rules of Engagement: "Bush's words will lead to more pointed questions than ever before â?? especially the part about U.S. troops operating under 'too many restrictions.' Why did he allow that?"
Here's my theory for why the ROEs were too restrictive: politics, driven
by the "Abu Ghraib/Matt Maupin" dynamic. Basically, the crimes of the
jihadis are never exposed to the extent the crimes -- real and imagined --
of US forces are. I'd bet that since January 2005, major US papers have
mentioned Abu Ghraib at least once a week, while the fate of Matt Maupin
is a regular topic only here in his hometown.
So the pressure on the US forces is to be more cautious, to do less that
the press could use against them. So we get idiocy like guards at Gitmo
not being allowed to even handle a copy of the Koran, like not striking
terrorists gathered for a funeral despite the presence of high value
targets. It's not something that necessarily came down from on high, or
even happened all at once. It's just grown, out of an abundance of caution
and a fear of the only truly dangerous enemy we have -- our own press.
Sounds tasty, doesn't it?
(Heh. Posting from the phone doesn't give me any idea what the size of the picture is. Better quality than I expected, though.)
Don't get too excited; I'm just testing posting from my phone.
Here's a shot of my latest completed mini:
Found some photos from family gatherings and added them to the gallery. I've also added some of the photos from my road trip earlier this year. Still working on those photos, as well as the shots from my Disney trip last year.
Oh, and I tweaked the photos that show up on the right-hand side of the site. The upper block is from the family albums, the next one is from the miniatures albums, then the road trip photos, and finally from the most recent photos added to the site.
