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oct 31 -- yesterday was henry's karate dojo halloween party -- he decided to be peter pan, we took him, he had a great time. we hung out at the starbucks and played with the Blazer browser on my IIIc via dan's cellphone :) a couple of days ago we installed the extra 17GB hard drive in my desktop computer (strangelove) so now i have a little elbow room (i had 6 in there before). i've had linux on it forever, and windows on my laptop, but now i have enough room on here to put windows on, too, so i can play games on a better machine. today is halloween so i'm wearing my 1809 dress -- the only chance i ever get to wear it, really, and it is quite lovely.

oct 29 -- mmm grilled cheese on sourdough. yesterday was sunday, i dunno what we did. hmmm... slept really late, oh yeah we went to the movies! we saw "K-PAX" which didn't suck and was actually really good. shock, shock. we figured out that it was the only GOOD movie we've seen in the theater together, which is pretty pathetic. we barely ever even go because everything sucks so hard. sigh. anyway, go see K-PAX.

oct 27 -- we went to the wild animal park today! it was cold and foggy here on the coast, and i was hoping maybe it would be similar weather inland but of course it was clear. but luckily it wasn't too hot and there were nice cool breezes. we went up on condor ridge, where we'd never been before and saw a roadrunner and parrots and porcupines and prairie dogs and a ferret and magpies and a tortoise, and of course the california condors! and there was a beautiful view out over the valley from there and we saw the lions asleep in the shade. it was lovely :)

oct 26 -- hmm... wednesday we taped enterprise again and i watched it after i got henry to bed. that episode (the one with the lost colony people who lived underground) sucked less than any previous episode, it really did. it was actually... pretty good, relatively speaking. yes, it had plot holes, but they were only big enough to drive a VW bus through, as opposed to the plot holes in the previous episode (the one where Trip gets impregnated by an alien) which had plot holes big enough to drive an ocean liner through. and some of the charcters are levelling out... the doctor and the captain are likeable, and the vulcan girl was less annoying and emotional, though i'd still like to punch her in the mouth. henry and i are reading "the mouse and the motorcycle" which i read to him a couple years ago but he doesn't remember it. he loves it, and i am enjoying it too. thank goodness for beverly cleary! i've been beta-testing this new RPG for palmOS, aldon's crossing, and a new version came out yesterday. this is the best palm rpg i've ever played! it's still very much a work in progress, but it's going to be amazing when it's done. since i've been testing it for a long time, i've played the same quests over and over -- but it's still enjoyable!

oct 23 -- yay i found my headphone Y-adapter!! it was in my I Love Lucy lunchbox. i feel a lot better today, just some sniffles and nasty phlegm in the morning. i slept great last night but had the world's strangest dreams all night long -- the kind of dreams that are so strange you just can't even describe them 'cause they won't go into words. wierd, loud, long, bright dreams. i bought some Burt's Bees Orange Oil Facial Cleanser today, 'cause i tried kirsten's and liked it a lot. nice stuff, smells good, makes my face feel nice.

oct 22 -- last night a dragonfly got into the house. a HUGE dragonfly. it was about 4 inches long and bright blue, and it was hovering around the lights in the room by the kitchen. dan was planning to smash it but that would have made a huge mess so i managed to trap it in a laundry basket and get it outside.. was this easy? no! :) but i managed to rescue the poor thing. i mean, the enormous, buzzing, flying, scary, monster-sized thing!

oct 21 -- yesterday was another wonderful day. i'm still sick so i felt sniffley and yucky all day but we had such a nice time anyway. the ham radio people were packing up by the time we got there, but there were a few tables left so we walked around and collected flyers and leaflets and looked at equipment... and then dan took photos of a WWII tank that was parked at the national guard armory right nest to the rec center where the ham radio thing was. and then we went to compusa to look at ethernet cables, thinking they might have better prices than best buy, but NO, they are just as terrible so we'll get them from outpost.com or somewhere. and then we went to starbucks 'cause we were thirsty, and then we went home and i was feeling pretty worn out by then so dan took care of me and brought me juice and went to the store for Vicks Vaporub and we watched part of SNL but it was awful so we switched to the dog show on the animal channel. very soothing :) anyway yesterday was wonderful and i am very very very happy.

oct 20 -- bah i'm tired. i have a cold so i didn't sleep very well, had a couple nightmares, woke up too early 'cause the dog went bananas, and i couldn't get back to sleep. oh well, i had a shower and now i'm going to work on cleaning up the terrible tv room which looks like a hurricane went through it, and then later we are going to some ham radio event in san diego. that should be fun! i don't care much about ham radio but dan does and it's fun to go to stuff like that together.

oct 19 -- henry and i have the sniffles and i felt pretty bad yesterday but i think i feel better today. i'm reading "busman's honeymoon" and it's SO GOOD. henry's getting better and better at reading. a couple days ago we worked with his magnetic words for a while and i made mixed-up sentences for him to unscramble. that was fun :) today he has gymnastics and karate and i'll drive him down to matthew's in the evening. oh, after visiting gilrain.com i decided to post a favorite song now and then for your listening pleasure.

oct 16 -- a few days ago dan cut my hair for me -- it was getting long and straggly so he cut a couple inches off the ends and now it is much easier to brush. he did a good job! this morning henry and i watched "the magic flute" which was absolutely wonderful. he liked the dragon and all the little animals, and he says he wants to be papageno for halloween. until he thinks of someone else to be, of course :)

oct 14 -- yesterday was a perfect day. dan coded most of the day and i read (finished "thrones, dominations") and played rollercoaster tycoon and went to the store, and in the evening we watched "castaway" which was pretty good and very intense. but the movie skipped over what i was most interested in seeing -- namely, how does a person react to being rescued after four years alone on an island? they skipped from when he saw the boat that presumably rescued him to like two weeks later. anyway... yesterday was wonderful and i am very very happy :) today has been good too! i went to the other branch of the carlsbad library, the one on Dove Street or Lane or Way or whatever. big lovely airy library! i got The Magic Flute on dvd -- the ingmar bergman one i had on beta many many many years ago :) and i got "busman's honeymoon" which was the real reason i went to that branch anyway.

oct 13 -- hmm, missed some days there. yesterday i found an extremely delicious flavour of Ben and Jerry's ice cream called "from russia with buzz". ate a pint for dinner. well, i gave some to dan too. we took a walk at the beach last night -- very peaceful and pleasant -- and we stayed up very late and this morning i slept very late and dan is still sleeping and we are going to have a wonderful day! ooo i just got a screenshot of our other humanclock photo. heheh. oh, my birthday present from susan arrived -- a pair of black leather clogs from hanna andersson -- and they are lovely :) henry has really been enjoying his karate classes. here's the website for his dojo:goju karate center. if anyone is interested in karate classes in north san diego county, i'd highly recommend them.

oct 09 -- yay we are on humanclock! we have been on for quite a while but i kept forgetting to check. we should be on at 11:50am and 11:51am, and today i happened to remember to check at 11:51!

oct 08 -- henry and i just made a mancala game with an eggcarton, two bowls, and 48 almonds. it's really fun! here are the rules: mancala rules. we play with the egyptian rules, because henry had a computer game once which played that way, so it is familiar to us. i won the first game, and henry won the second because he forced me to empty all my cups, and was then allowed to place all the remaining stones in his mancala. neat game!

oct 07 -- yesterday i dl'd "shrek" off morpheus... took 300 minutes or so but i did it overnight and when i woke up, there it was! and then the trick was to figure out how to play an .avi file in linux... it took me a very long time to figure it out but i did. in case you have debian linux and you want to play an .avi file, here's what you do: apt-get install avifile-player and then run aviplay. :) simple as can be but it sure was hard to find out how. well, now henry can watch shrek on my computer. the one i got has chinese subtitles, oddly enough. i took henry to the library today and showed him how to find books about cowboys -- his latest obsession.

oct 05 -- i think i am coming down with something... i feel funny, sort of that "i'm getting sick" feeling. ugh. well, i went to the store and got lots of juice and instant soup.

oct 04 -- we took henry to his first karate class today, and he really enjoyed it.

oct 03 -- happy birthday kathy! last night we were watching next generation and dan said,"riker is just a big sissy -- picard can take him on any day!" and somehow that struck me as extremely funny.

oct 02 -- yesterday i was extremely productive. first i cleared out a lot of space in the garage, and then i moved my desktop computer and henry's desktop computer down from our bedroom to the garage and set both up in the Command Center, and then i cleaned the bedroom very well (ugh the computer desk was just horrid) and then i created a bed for henry on the computer desk! it's very large and stable, and he's delighted and slept on his new bed last night. well, i guess that all doesn't sound like THAT much work but it really was. :) it's so nice to have a clean bedroom and have henry's bed up off the floor. today we watched a few episodes of Next Generation (TNN is having a marathon) and henry and i started building a motorcycle with his erector set. oh, and i made banana muffins.

oct 01 -- well, i updated the "about me" section of this page. there's still some work to be done but it's better. i sound slightly less airheaded. i also moved henry's book page over into kayray.org, and began updating it. more to come!

But wait, there's MORE!

2004

jan