Author: cheerfulchaotic

I want to buy blokus and race for the galaxy. Not sure what else to buy, but I’m sure there are other games I’d like to have. Maybe blue moon city. But suggest away. I want to get a large enough order to get free shipping =) I also want to get games that friends want to play.

talk on transgender exclusion from propsed civil rights legislation: wed in in andersonville or thu in wicker park
church grounds day 12/1
Green collar jobs summit a week from friday 12/7
krista mock trial, gay gamer meetup, and nerd concert 12/8
chicago conservation corps graduation ceremony (not for me) 12/13
board game night 12/15
trip to Zville for mom’s bday 12/21-12/24, followed immediately by a week long trip to the bay area (12/24-1/1)
1/12 board game night
maybe board game night?
National engineers without borders convention in seattle at the end of march?

need to start spanish classes sometime too, and check out various options for evening grad school for environmental things.

+ a free southwest ticket to somewhere. Oh the possibilities….

Lets list my involvements:

Lambda (My WoW guild) and associated people
Second Unitarian, including the green sanctuary committee, young adult group and queer group.
Engineers without borders – nascent and growing involvement
Running for a position on the interim council of GAO’s new union
Chicago Conservation Corps – trying, but it’s working out poorly
Foresight design initiative volunteer and attendee (green drinks people)
board gaming.

That’s alot, right?

It all feels so fluffy, and I still feel underinvolved. I seriously want to live in an intentional community. But not one of the “run away to previously undeveloped land, live a impoverished/technologically primitive lifestyle and shun contact with the outside world” sorts of intentional communities. I’d actually like to reside in a center for demonstration of clean/green/sustainable technologies, welcoming outside visitors, engagements of varying length, and still focusing on creating a community all the while, embedded in an urban fabric. That pretty much sounds like something that I’d have to create, because I don’t think I’m going to find it, and I don’t think there are people aching to market such a development to middling income 30-somethings.

Before leaving town, I went out to dinner with Kraig at an ethiopian restaurant. I was, quite frankly, a wreck. I have anxiety issues, and he’s kinda intimidating. Tall, muscular and very sure of himself. Ugh. He still seems very interested in me, though given how I’ve been acting lately, I can’t figure out why. Anyway.

Then I flew out to middle of nowhere Kentucky the next morning. Well, almost. I got to the gate for my 6:25am flight at 6:23. Door was closed, I didn’t get on. Rebooked for the 10:55 flight. Went back home, found my laptop charger, stuffed it and laptop into bag, and grabbed directions to the veggie restaurant in Louisville, since they would now be open when I landed. Made it to airport, flew to Louisville, without a hitch. Rented car. Found the restaurant easily. Had a free lunch (customer appreciation day, unbeknownst to me). Donated $15 to charity. Drove to lexington (1.5 hours). Picked up a tofurky and other veggie fare from a natural food store.

Drove down to london and got lost. I ended up spending an hour wandering around looking for Dennis’s place. I was actually one road down and across the highway from him like 30 minutes before I actually got to his place by a very different route, though I wouldn’t realize that until I was leaving to return. I spent thanksgiving with my new cousin (whom Dennis says he will teach to call me “uncle”), Dennis, granny, Ana, Ileana, and a few of their relatives. Dennis convinced me to stay, and covered me on my increased car rental costs, yay Dennis. (the ticket price change was chump change by comparison. Yay, Southwest).

I was up late to welcome Susie, Moyce, Abbas, Ali, Asha, Sarah, and Zarah (aunt, uncle and cousins). I schooled my non-blood relatives in scrabble, and was in turn schooled by my blood relatives. Abbas wanted to play scrabble, but got Kevin (our uncle) to pinch hit for him.

I spent the vacation on food, scrabble, and talk. It was good. I regret nothing. =) I was kinda sad to leave at the end. I talked about a wide variety of topics. European history and health care policy with Dennis, biodiesel and Ethanol with Brad, learning spanish and tofurky with lots of relatives. Dennis was quite focused on Vodka pie crust. This is not a typical weekend for me. Hopefully there will be more of the good in future years.

So, I got vista with my laptop. I am far less than impressed. It won’t run any of my older games. It’s incredibly slow for World of Warcraft. And the processor is far from pathetic. I’m torn between going all ubuntu and making my laptop win2k pro. Ubuntu would let me enjoy the dual core 64-bitness of the machine. Win2kP would run all my games. I could just partition the hard drive with a windows partition, a linux partition, and a fat partition for WoW (so that I can run it under both wine and windows). Though FAT sucks, and might degrade WoW performance. Hmmm.

Let’s see…

Thursday, I stayed a little late at work to finish something up. Then and I went out for Mexican and then saw The Sparrow. A compelling play about an orphan who is more than she seems, returning to her home town. It was actually quite good. It has a clear narrative, the acting is good and almost never so overdone as to be offputting (which is rare for me in a stage production). In places it’s almost a musical. There is very little in the way of set, though props are used to good effect. They also make good use of sound and lighting. I was impressed by the choreography and surprised by how well they made the ‘supernatural’ effects work. I recommend seeing it, and it actually isn’t sold out like I previously thought. Hell, I might even see it again. (Though at $50 / seat….)

Friday I got up at roughly my usual time and flew out to Dallas for the board game geek convention. It’s not a huge convention, it took up one decent size ballroom and several smaller rooms, but compared to PAX, Creating Change, or Origins, it’s pretty tiny. I saw not long after I got there. He was my roommate, but we didn’t get to spend much time interacting that weekend. As I usually do at cons, I spent my first 30-60 minutes feeling horribly clueless, out of place, and not sure what to do. Then some kind soul took pity on me and pulled me into a game. A few games later, I ran into . I played many games with his friend Patrick and several with him.

The first game was Gangster

An opportunity for others then an opportunity for me:

For others: I have two (may be possible to acquire more) tickets to see “The Sparrow” on thursday evening and no one to see it with. It has rave reviews. An orphan returns to the town where she was the sole survivor of a disaster affecting her class for her senior year of high school. The town tries to accept her and she tries to fit in. PS, she has supernatural abilities.

For me (and limited others): one of my WoW guildmates has a free one-way southwest flight to be used before t-day. I have no t-day plans. Sadly, it seems my bay area peeps will not be available over t-day. And the return trip is pricy. (Pricier than a round trip for some other weekend with more notice). Where could I go with that? Or, why should I stay in chicago?

Hey all,

As it turns out, I’ll be in the Bay Area from Christmas Eve through new years. If you’ll be around then and would like to hang out, hit me up.