Notes from Erich
[Most Recent Entries]
[Calendar View]
[Friends]
Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Erich Schneider's LiveJournal:
[ << Previous 20 ]
| Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 | | 11:01 pm |
Active
Today I went for a 40 mile bike ride with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) broncochick -my longest ever. It featured a flat tire, a confrontation with an angry motorist, and a really tough hill at the end, but we made it. Then, tonight clynne and I went out for the Dungeon Master Guardian of the Flame episode, where we saw old friends in the cast, crew, and audience. Plus, mycroftca autographed my copy of another one of the Traveller adventures he wrote back in the day. (Now I just need to find a copy of his Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game adventure, The Mines of Selka.) | | Thursday, November 5th, 2009 | | 11:00 am |
Present
Hey folks ... I'm still alive. Not only that, I'm now 38. I had a nice birthday yesterday which featured dinner at a great local Thai place (Saladang Song) with about 20 people, organized by my dear wife. Thank you honey! Last weekend, I dressed in my Meistersinger von Nürnberg outfit for a Halloween party, and the weekend before, as Mr. Fantastic at Space is the Place. At the latter, I was one of five finalists for the costume contest, but lost out to a guy with a truly excellent '50s robot costume. This weekend we are going camping out in the desert, where we intend to sleep in the bed of our truck for the first time. Our big cat Sydney went to the vet yesterday for his semi-annual checkup. Those of you who know him will be amazed to hear that his weight was down to between 11 and 12 pounds, down two pounds from his last visit. That's a fairly rapid bit of weight loss (last July he was 16 lbs.) so that guy needs to put on a bit more. | | Sunday, October 11th, 2009 | | 6:16 am |
Costumes 2
My companions and I were talked to by an LA Times reporter and photographer at the costume sale, and my name and a quote made it into their article! | | Saturday, October 10th, 2009 | | 5:26 pm |
Costumes
Today was the LA Opera's first ever costume sale. Thanks to a friend who went early and secured a good place in line, I managed to score some good stuff. Pictures after the cut. ( My haul ) | | Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | | 10:04 am |
Back
I flew up to Reno Monday afternoon. Connie-Lynne left her campsite at about 8pm, actually got to the highway at about 10, and was in our room at 12:30am. Fortunately I had decided to take a little nap at 10, and woke up at about 12:20am thinking "where is she?". We had a nice reunion. Tuesday, we mostly sat around, although I did take the truck out to get its air filter and oil changed. We ate at the Atlantis' "Bistro Napa" restaurant again and had the wacky Chocolate Hamburger dessert again. Just as cognitive dissonance-inducing as last time. Yesterday, we drove back, with a slightly later start than we wanted due to having to go buy a lug wrench so we could get the sway bar chains for the trailer attached correctly. We left Reno at noon and got to Bishop a little after 4, where we stopped for dinner, leaving town at around 5:30; we pulled up to the house at about 10pm last night, with both cats happy to see us. Connie-Lynne's co-mayor job has been handed over to some other capable hands, so I'm looking forward to her working only one full-time job for a while! | | Monday, September 7th, 2009 | | 10:03 am |
Flight
Today, I am flying up to Reno, where there is some chance I will meet up with Connie-Lynne, who left for Burning Man-related activities 15 days ago. It all depends on whether or not she leaves the event this evening, or tomorrow morning. Either way, we have a hotel room at the Atlantis resort tonight and tomorrow night, and will be driving back down to LA together on Wednesday. Yay! Edit: Just got a text message from her, saying she's leaving tonight, so I will get to see her tonight! Double yay! | | Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009 | | 8:13 pm |
Work
Unexpected layoffs at work today. I survived. Two people from my group of fifteen did not. | | Sunday, August 30th, 2009 | | 4:06 pm |
Fires
Hey everyone ... just wanted to let you all know that Connie-Lynne's and my house in Altadena is not currently under any threat from the big Station Fire. It got to within about a mile of our house, but no evacuations for our neighborhood were ever ordered, and it looks like the main action is now well away from us. It was pretty smoky this morning, though (less so now as the wind is blowing the smoke north). Here's a shot I took at about 6pm yesterday of a big tanker plane dropping fire retardant. This was taken at an intersection very close to where we live. The planes were circling right over our house.  | | Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 | | 10:04 pm |
Resting
So it's been a few weeks since I last posted anything. They have been fairly eventful. ( Stuff )So now it's just me and the cats for two weeks ... I'm flying up to Reno to meet Connie-Lynne when she leaves Burning Man, where we'll have one or two nights at the Atlantis hotel before accompanying her on the drive home. In the meantime I have quite a few things I'm going to be doing, like catching up for the boardgaming I've missed in the last few weeks ... I'll also be going to Ground Control tomorrow night, for the first time in many months. | | Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | | 12:09 am |
Weekend
Two things I wanted to get down before it was too late: This Saturday, we were in a parade! We went up to Lake Hughes to visit some friends up there during "49er Day," the annual town festival. Some Gigsville friends of ours brought their motorized tiki bar, "Barzilla", and a bunch of us rode on it in the parade. Auspiciously, Barzilla was exhibitor #49 in the parade. (Riding around on Barzilla at Burning Man was always one of the more enjoyable things I did out there.) Then, Saturday night, we went to Space Is The Place and I wore one of my silver unitards, plus some blinking raver lights. The getup was very popular with the attendees - I posed for many photos, both solo and with clynne (who had on a silver top with black piping - several couples commented on how great we looked skating together.) It was a remarkably comfortable skating outfit and I think the additional freedom of movement led to me skating better. One of the event organizers had some photos taken of me for use on a flier later this year. | | Friday, July 24th, 2009 | | 6:14 am |
Glass
Last night I went to the Hollywood Bowl and saw Koyaanisqatsi, with live music by the Philip Glass Ensemble, the LA Philharmonic, and the LA Master Chorale. It was marvelous. The choral parts were particularly great - the deep resonant bass of the man singing "Koyaanisqatsi" over and over was chilling. Before the film, Glass himself performed a solo piano piece and the ensemble performed a piece from Glassworks that was composed for the film but not used, and the final bit of Einstein on the Beach. Oh, and they also performed the national anthem to start everything off. Other bonuses were (a) going along with a friend who is also part of the "spouses not so into Philip Glass" club (b) taking the shuttle bus from Pasadena to the Bowl and avoiding traffic, parking, and entrance/exit nightmares, and (c) bumping into norma_leigh and her boyfriend after the show. | | Sunday, July 19th, 2009 | | 12:56 pm |
| | Saturday, June 27th, 2009 | | 9:52 am |
Circus
The two of us went to the circus last night and had a tremendously good time. We went last year, but this year was even better. With their new tent they have a lot more space and better-arranged seats, and they make really good use of it - even though the storyline behind the show is the same, it is muchh, much more fun. It didn't hurt that we sprang for really good seats. Some of you who are old hands with modern circuses (Cirque du Soleil etc.) may not be as impressed as I was. But knowing nothing else, I say, if you're in the LA area, make the effort to go see it. You will not be able to stop smiling. | | Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 | | 9:49 pm |
Done!
Many years ago, in grad school, a local TV station started showing the original Star Trek in its production order. I decided to start watching the episodes and to take notes while doing so, so I could see when various concepts were introduced into the series. The station stopped showing the episodes in production order after two weeks, though, so I stopped watching them. I kept my incomplete file of notes, and vowed that one day I'd take up the project again. Two and a half years ago, I asked for the original series of Star Trek on DVD. To my surprise, several members of the Villani family went in and got them all for me, and I restarted the project. Tonight, I finished it! A few nights ago I watched the last filmed episode, "Turnabout Intruder", and tonight I watched the original pilot, "The Cage". Perhaps I will write up a report with my findings. For now let me just say that although a "First Federation" is mentioned in the third filmed episode, "the" Federation itself is not mentioned until the 19th, and it isn't until the 23rd that we hear of the "United Federation of Planets" (in one of my favorite episodes, "A Taste of Armageddon"). I regret that I did not think to note those episodes when Capt. Kirk loses his shirt, and those where he engages in fisticuffs (a majority of the episodes, I think). My next project of this kind? Well, also since grad school I've wanted to watch the Indian TV series adaptation of the Mahabharata. A local Indian grocery store has the 16-DVD, 94-episode set for $100... | | Sunday, June 7th, 2009 | | 9:29 am |
My friend.
Twenty years ago today (technically, tonight), my best friend, Erin Hellner, died. We met when we became members of the same student residence at Caltech in 1987; at the time of his death, he was on a leave of absence from school but still living in Pasadena and working there. We were both computer science students, both rabid Larry Niven and Led Zeppelin fans, and it was he who introduced me to the Dead Kennedys and the Sex Pistols. Erin died as a result of autoerotic asphyxiation. Was it suicide? I don't know. One thing I do know is that a copy of the Loompanics book catalog for 1989 was circulating around our circle at the time, and it had an article on "autoerotic asphyxiation and why it is a totally stupid thing you should not try, because you can easily kill yourself". He had certainly read it. What was he thinking? I'll never know. How would my life be different now if he were alive? I know for certain that had he been alive for six more months, I would not have done certain things that changed the course of my life for the next few years. Looking back on the last 20 years those things seem pretty minor now, so the most probable effect is that my life is a little less rich for not having him around. I was going to dedicate my Ph. D. dissertation to him, but I never finished it, so that never happened. I have some physical photos of him but I've never scanned them in; the only thing close to one I can find online is the one below, which shows some wall art that was drawn up in our student house, based off of a picture of him throwing a tennis ball (while playing a traditional game of the house). RIP, Erin. Oh the things you could've done.  | | Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 | | 1:16 pm |
Clericus
So, those of you who are fans of Father Ted (and if you haven't seen it and are one or more of (a) Irish in heritage (b) Catholic practicing or lapsed, or (c) a fan of British broad comedy, you should watch it immediately) know that there's an episode involving an all-priest soccer league on Craggy Island, complete with tournaments that are taken very seriously. "Ha ha," we thought when we saw that, "in the Father Ted universe the Church is still so all-pervasive that you can have all-priest soccer leagues." Well, a few days ago when I was reading an Italian newspaper online, I learned that in Italy there actually has been such a tournament for the last three years, the Clericus Cup, consisting solely of teams of priests and seminarians from the various institutions around Rome. This year a team of American priests is in the finals for the first time. I don't know if they stole the idea from the TV show or not. | | Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 | | 11:33 pm |
Find
I went to play games at Game Empire tonight, and in the used RPG bins found a copy of the old FASA Traveller adventure Action Aboard: Adventures on the King Richard written by none other than mycroftca back in his Chicago gaming days. Hopefully I'll remember to bring it along for an autograph the next time I am going to see him - unfortunately I will have to miss Dungeon Master this weekend due to a prior commitment. That's two of his Traveller adventures I've managed to find now... | | Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 | | 10:53 pm |
| | Monday, May 11th, 2009 | | 9:14 pm |
Salvage
So here's an OK-looking pair of shoes:  OK, the insides are a little damaged but they're a not terribly shabby pair of brown leather Sketchers. I found these shoes sitting on the street next to a bus stop while walking to the library two months ago. They looked perfectly OK and happened to be exactly my size, but the laces were messed up. I eventually got replacement laces and today managed to wear them to work, finally. And they turned out to be pretty nice! So don't let anyone say that good things can't come to you out of the blue. (But now, based on my scavenging success, one of my co-workers says I'm now qualified for the job "hobo" if things get much worse.) | | Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | | 9:47 am |
Yo
Hello, all. I know it's been two months since I posted anything here. Mostly it's been because the stuff that's been going on for me hasn't been stuff I've wanted to tell lots of people about. I have been spending a lot of my free time learning Italian. I've done the first two levels of the Pimsleur course on Italian and am about a third of the way through the third. My comprehension is enough that I can read Italian newspapers and Wikipedia articles on-line, which is a time sink that can eat up any amount of time I have. Plus there's downloading clips of Italian TV shows and trying to understand what they're saying. Here's a picture of a visitor from space standing in front of an interesting dome. We attended a wedding inside that dome. (It's the Integratron out near Joshua Tree.) |
[ << Previous 20 ]
|
