Dale Miller

Sunup/Sundown Swimwear is running a swimsuit contest and I am entered. Vote for me, please?

The voting is strange. You send a message to sunup01@yahoo.com with the contestant number in the subject line. I’m number 6. You can see the others at the link I provided above. You can vote for one male and one female contestant (different email messages).

Help me out here?

Have I ever mentioned that I’m a bit of a pack-rat at times?

It’s amazing the things I find while looking for something else.

Yesterday was interesting. You never realize how much you are in demand until things break. Apparently the testing that was supposed to occur before I did the upgrade this weekend was not terribly thorough. A number of minor problems were discovered, none of which were show-stoppers, but all of which had to be fixed “now”. So I managed to stay quite busy yesterday.

In my drawing class we started self-portraits. I did badly enough trying to draw my hand, how am I going to manage my face? But I sat down and started drawing. I hadn’t realized how much I could get into that. I was working away when a couple of people started to pack up, and I looked up at the clock. I had been sitting there working on that for 95 minutes, and hadn’t even looked around the room. I may actually turn out a drawing that looks something like me. I’ve decided that I will never be an “artist”, because I simply don’t have the patience for it, but knowing that I am able to turn out something that’s non-terrible makes me feel a bit better about myself.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew there was a time change this weekend. The fact didn’t really bring itself to my consciousness, however, until I was driving in to work this morning and realized that there was no traffic. So, I arrived at work an hour early. I think I need to change my clocks when I get home tonight. :)

I’ve had a fairly pleasant weekend. I wasn’t feeling very good on Friday, so I just came home after work.

Saturday I cleaned a bit on the house, and Mark came over to get my help making him some clothes for an SCA event he wants to attend. He left me his new box set of Indiana Jones movies, so I sat down Saturday night and watched all three of them. Maybe not very productive, but kind of fun.

I woke up early this morning to do a VMS upgrade on one of the systems at work. Preparation pays off. :) I added a second CD reader to it on Friday so I wouldn’t have to change CDs during the upgrade. I upgraded the system firmware and was halfway through the O/S upgrade before I even got out of bed. I could have finished it from there, but my laptop was starting to drain the batteries, and my charger was in the other room.

Most everything went smoothly, but I’m having problems with DECNET over TCP/IP links to our VAX systems running Multinet. It worked on the other Alpha I upgraded, and I don’t think I did anything different. There’s nothing obviously misconfigured, it just doesn’t work. I think my solution may be to change all the VAXen to use UCX and then it won’t be a problem. I needed to do that anyway, this just pushes the timeline forward.

I was planning on having a Halloween party, and had already invited a bunch of people. However with the serious lack of responses to the invitation coupled with my general depression, I decided to cancel it. I suspect I would have gotten all worked up over it, and then disappointed when only a couple of people showed up.

I love this weather. I can sit outside and just enjoy the fresh air (while typing on a computer, there’s something wrong with that). I didn’t take one thing into account when I moved up here. There are lots of gunshots in the woods this time of year. I have heard more “people” noises in the last two weekends than I did all summer. It’s still not like living in the city, though. I would rather hear occasional rifle shots than noisy car stereos.

I really need to get back into the habit of posting regularly. This once-a-week nonsense just doesn’t work.

However, it’s been an interesting week. One of my co-workers turned in a sudden resignation. I’m not at all sure of the circumstances, but it meant that we had to run around and change passwords on a bunch of systems and network gear. The long-term ramifications will mean some changes around here (mostly for the better), but in the short term, things may be a bit strained.

I had lunch with a young woman by the name of Harvest yesterday. I have been talking to her online for a couple of weeks, and we decided to meet. She had sent me some pictures, so I knew she was cute, but as it turns out, the pictures didn’t do her justice. She was truly lovely. Unfortunately, she’s also married. I think that’s the story of my life.

On a downside, Carrie hasn’t called. I was hoping to hear from her this week. Maybe she decided that a man who wears skirts didn’t fit into her lifestyle.

There was a bunch more I wanted to say, but now I’ve forgotten it. I really do need to update more often.

This has been an interesting weekend. Friday night I went to get my copy of “Sex in the South” signed by Suzi. I was not particularly impressed with Wordsworth, but they sold all the copies they had (which means to me that they didn’t order enough). I later learned that if I had stayed around I would have seen Carrie again. Leaving too early seems to be the story of my life. After the book-signing, I went to Sufficient Grounds for dinner and girl-watching.

I spent quite a bit of Saturday working around the house. I finished re-wiring the outside light on the storage room, cut shelves for the upstairs closets, put about half the railing on the deck, put up a board to hang keys on, put new shelves in the my storage building, and generally cleaned things up.

I was planning to go to a costume party Saturday night (thrown by someone I’ve never met), and had devised a “bondage cheerleader” costume which I thought would work well. However, mid-afternoon Saturday Suzi decided to meet me for coffee at S.G. I thought I would be there for an hour or so and then go to the party, so I showed up in costume. I ended up spending 2-1/2 hours talking to Suzi, and decided to skip the party.

I got up early this morning to go into work and move computers. It needed to be done, but was no fun. I overused my hands and was actually in quite a bit of pain by the time I left.

I spent the afternoon reading and taking a nap. Carrie told me I need to watch the movie “Ed Wood”, so I watched it this evening. I had no idea what to expect, but I enjoyed it. I’m not sure what effect it was supposed to have, but it gives me some hope for myself. It also makes me want to go rent some of Wood’s movies. I have heard of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” for many years, but have never seen it.

mandersley

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imitari

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incoherentrant

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poorwhiteboy

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I’m behind on updating, as usual. Let’s see –

Tuesday night I went to Suzi Parker’s book reading party at Ciao Baci. That was interesting. It’s not a place I had been before, and probably won’t be going back soon. The food was excellent, but a bit out of my usual price range. I’m very glad that I went, however. I met a very nice young woman (Carrie) there, and spend an hour and a half talking to her. She’s supposed to call me this next week, but we shall see. The crowd there was not in my usual social circle. Lots of people that I will probably read about in the paper over the next few years (and not because they dress funny). Suzi did her reading about 9:00. I ended up sitting next to her mother while she read about a B&D party she attended in Alabama. Turns out mom was a proofreader for the book. I expect people are going to either love it or hate it — and most of the ones who hate won’t actually read it. I got home late and crashed.

Last night I went by Wordsworth to actually purchase a copy of “Sex in the South”. They already have them available even though the actual launch isn’t until tomorrow night. There’s just something wrong about that, but I didn’t complain. I have read one chapter so far — the one with me in it. :) I liked the writing. Suzi manages a good blend of fact and humor. I’m hoping to finish the rest of the book tonight, but I have to get a homework assignment finished for art, so I probably should do that instead.

Today Cinderella and Ashley go to the vet to be spayed. I’m sure they will just adore that, but it’s for their own good (and mine as well).

I have changed hosting providers for skirtman.org, and I hope things change over fairly cleanly. Depending on which nameserver I query, I can manage to get either address at the moment. That should clear out and only give the new one by this time tomorrow.