Flash past

I *really* hope that therealjae found her passport and made it to Singapore... I saw her briefly flash past at the gate in Minneapolis (we were both connecting, and our times overlapped). Wish I could have done something... sigh.

Wish lists

I haven't started Christmas shopping yet... haven't even thought about it. Conversely, I'm being bugged by several people (on LJ and off) for gift ideas as far as I'm concerned. I haven't thought much about that, either... there isn't much that I want, at least not in terms of material goods. I have the bottom levels of Maslow's hierarchy covered, already... broader, more significant things (a change in US politics, world peace, healing a sick relative) aren't gift-able.

I have problems in recent years in not viewing the entire season as just an excuse to spend money in support of business and our capitalist society, not much different than if I'd spent $1K on auto repairs. Whatever religious or spiritual significance it contains seems swallowed in secularly-desperate spend-spend-spend hype.

( (grumble) here's a list, skippable by all but about four readers )

I feel a bit silly listing things, a bit like I'm selling-out to the dominant paradigm.(wry smile), but if nothing else it provides a glimpse of my marginal priorities and interests at this moment...

Rocky

It's been stormy here all day, with sheets of water and high winds at times. patgreene has been ill and in bed for most of the day, so I've been watching the kids and shopping online. Including for a new DSL provider -- telocity is going away in <90 days, according to today's newspaper. So we'll need yet another email transition in a month or so. Sigh. After reading online reviews, I signed up with DSLExtreme (despite the name *). But I'm tired of having to resubscribe to mailing lists and notifying friends -- I only just got around to updating the SFSI lists 2 weeks ago, so I could unsubscribe from AOL.

I need something more stable, more solid and predictable, address-wise. Carved in stone, as it were... so I'm registering my own domain name, lithic.net. I'll probably rename our machines (paleo, neo) and router (endo)... not a bad choice for a part-time geophysicist. Besides, "vitreous" was already taken...

Given Pat's condition, it is just as well that we had earlier bowed out of going to a party tonight, for complex reasons. I had had thoughts of going contra dancing, but am taking care of the kids instead. And there are rare flashes of lightning outside. Cool. I attempted to go shopping this afternoon, made no headway but had an entertaining 2-hour coffee with brooksmoses instead :-).