May 12, 2000 | May 13, 2000 | May 14, 2000

Everything Statistics

Statistics               stats   wa7   inc  l_stats l_wa7
Total Number of Nodes:  511529  2170  4597   506932  1766
Total Number of Users:   14396    40    32    14364    41
Total Number of Links: 1431075 18928 18757  1412318 18957
Current node_id:        547454  2273  4670   542784  1874

Everything's Best Users

Users                  XP wa7 inc   l_XP l_wa7
Pseudo_Intellectual 10370 152  71  10299 166
dem bones           10122 119  29  10093 134
jessicapierce        9925  93  24   9901 105
pukesick             7264 123 150   7114 119
DMan                 6779 147 145   6634 147
Saige                6759 195 133   6626 205

Server time: 00:21 Sat May 13 2000  
Your Fellow Noders(27)

l_ = last (previous) value
inc = increase in stats value
wa7 = ((stats + (6 * l_wa7))/7) = weighted average with denominator 7

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A little bit more description of "wa7" the smoothened value of the increase in stats, given in weighted average with denominator 7. Thanks to /dev/joe for help regarding weighted average.

Still Waiting for Everything Snapshot.

To node ...
E2 best feature ready html editor, industrial strength editor, writeup as bookmark / bookmark can be nodes that cannot be hard link to, stop words characters / google search help
Malaysia Magazines, distributors, Proton Saga, Wira, Waja
Others airport code, XKL, KUL, batteries, alkaline rechargeable, GrandCell

11:50 EET

Happy birthday to me!

Yes, I turned 21 today.

I really like birthdays. You get gifts and congratulations for doing nothing special, apart from surviving another year. Then again, in today's crime-infested world where everything causes cancer, this might be a feat worth rewarding.

Oh, and my father has a twisted sense of humor. Since I suffer from mild arachnophobia, I got an electric fly swatter. Nice.

I just hope I don't die from a cake overdose.


14:45

I was buying a fiber optic lamp at the supermarket, and the girl working on the register was the one I had my first kiss with at the age of 6. A funny coincidence, I didn't even know she works there.

It's all piling up. All those little things, trinkets, in my life. They are spreading over my bed, my dresser, overflowing from the laundry basket and spreading along the floor, dishes coming out of the sink, compost and fruit flies. Filth its all filth. My goal before I went to bed was to clean all of this, to organize, to rid the apartment of its evil dirt demons, sadly I got to tired and wrote this and took a shower. At least I cleaned myself up. The problem with this place is the amount of people crammed into, to small of a space, of which we are suppose to be grateful. The problem is that out of five people, none of us likes to clean. The problem is that the vacuum, which is strategically, placed in the hallway just trips me every time I head for the bathroom. And the worst problem is that I was walking around barefoot the other day only to get a penny sized piece of glass stuck in my foot. Ugh... Now the problem is that my foot hurts!

It's all piling up and I think I'll give up for a little while, well till the dawn breaks in the morn and then perhaps I shall make these breakable goals again. And perhaps I wont just trip over the vacuum I'll vacuum, and do the dishes, and take out the compost and the trash, and the recycling, and, and, and...

I developed pictures today. I found this picture of a friend who I have a feeling I won’t see again. As I printed it I thought of her. She was a photographer too, much better than I. It was so precious to have her image. It's that wistful, forlorn, warm, feeling like I was a child again, only knowing I would lose my childhood in a matter of hours. I love that feeling. Nostalgia of a sort. I guess its a bit of the realization of how good times have been and how wonderful some are. She was always a little bit nervous, neurotic, yet uninhibited. Warm and sharp and incredibly humorous with a sarcastic wit, almost unequaled. People loved her, and gathered around, even the characters who were too cool for most. She never realized the worship she inspired and she never thought herself particularly cool... but she could drink and dance and laugh, and tell stories, in a light, in creativity and passion...

My neighbor stopped on the road while I was on my walk yesterday to tell me she didn't recognize me I had lost so much weight. She tells me that in two weeks she'll be done as a Teacher's Aide and will be joining me on my walks. Yesterday I was pleased and looking forward to her company , but today for some reason, I guess I'm feeling a little selfish, I realize that I like going on my walks alone. I like them because it gives me time,in bad moments to refocus on the more positive things in life, or think things through.

Husband and I went to Sears at the Mall yesterday to return a dress shirt. While he shopped for a new one I went to the Ladies Room. Of the three stalls there, two were occupied. As quietly as possible I prepared to go about my business in the third stall. The woman in the first stall began blatantly performing noisy bodily functions, vast reverberating cracks of sounds accompanied by intermittent grousing. I discreetly peered under the stall to see if perhaps a man had mistakenly entered the wrong restroom (my apologies to the male gender for making this assumption, but in all honesty living with three men in my home,this was the only sensible explanation that came mind) The offender was definitely female.
Then the nose blowing began, a honking sound.....loud and echoing around the tiled bathroom. That was it, I could no longer sit quietly and pretend she was not there. My stall mate next to me and I stopped immediately. In silent agreement and having no desire to even see this person, it became a race for time to exit as quickly as possible while the other woman was still in the stall.
My husband revisited this tale many times for the remainder of the day:)

I was surprised to learn that on my husbands side of the family, having two brothers and several male cousins , he is the only person to have male children to pass on his family's name. It was kinda nifty to notice how important this is to him. Asked him to rent the video The Three Kings he brought home The Three Amigos:) Oh well it was a funny movie so we watched it again. Number One Son has been sitting on his Financial Aid award from his college for a month. So much going on for him with the Prom, finals and graduation. I just hope it's not too late for him to receive the Federal Work Study Award.

Number Two Son was excited to get place in Algebra 3-4 his Freshman year of High School, now he's got his sights on Honors Science and has definitely decided to enroll in both Summer School Sessions to get his Foreign Language Requirements out of the way.

Their pro-active attitude about learning amazes me sometimes. I mean Number One Son in the midst of all my illness, hubby working 80 hours a week, and no help from me he still managed to earn recognition in Who's Who Among American High School Students all four years of High School. Number Two Son in Honors Math Classes. Both never missing a quarter on the Honor Roll. A mother couldn't ask for more!

Wisdom says,
Who ever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD.
- Proverbs 8:35 (NRSV)

Devotion

Hemotolgy and television double team me in a sadistic attempt to torture and humiliate me. I wouldn't have minded so much except I'm not masochistic enough to handle that kind of thing. I never, ever, want to fast again. And on a more personal note, I didn't get to see Jenny today, but I did stop by the mall to waste my money on a stupid Hallmark holiday present for my mom. What to go capitalism, why don't you give us another morally distorting event that tells us we have to go out and buy. Don't even get me started on what happened to Christmas.

Seems like my life lately has consisted of 2 main themes: 1) Hurry up and wait, and 2) Back to the old drawing board. Having to rely on perseverance, patience and faith gets pretty old after a while.

Then there's my neighbor's son, Cliff. He's owed us some money for several months and said it would be repaid by yesterday. Of course the deadbeat idiot made another excuse... he had to buy food. This is the same alleged friend who gave his word that we'd get our due - no problem - because he'd racked up so much overtime at work. Funny, I had to wrap pennies last night to by my sick toddler some Pedialyte (all our money had already been spent on paying our bills, thank you!) whereas that f***ing *CENSORED* went out and got drunk. Bought food - my ass!!!

Damn, I need a good laugh before I go ballistic... HELP!!!

Saturday. Wake up and slide back into sleep and wake up and back to sleep and wake up and get up and read a little and fall asleep on the floor and wake up with carpetface. The workers are grinding and blasting in the basement but two floors up it's just a loud hum, not hard to sleep to. Pete's house is spacious and breezy and has a kid in it.

Home, I get a little morbid and a lot shaky-worried. Probably no one who has ever been nice to me has ever meant it. Probably getting life insurance was good because it will be a financial relief to my parents when I die. I think about suicide which cheers me up (shhh, keep reading) because I know I am so far from it now. Years ago, it was just a question of when. Now it is clearly a "never," which cheers me up for about five minutes before I realize I don't have any power over anything anyway. I test myself with the same thought that has sent me spiraling for weeks, and hey look, it still works. I take a shower and end up yelling and crying and doing a pretty good job shaving my legs at the same time. Talents born of depression.

I do the only thing that makes sense, write to edebroux. Dear Bizz I don't know what to do and I miss the hell out of you every day. I'm tired and this is too hard and I need a job and how long can I pretend nothing is wrong? If you were here we would find a way to laugh at it.

Two pages later I am better enough to call her sister, who is the right voice this time. Paula and I talk about firemen and doctors and how they can do the things they have to. She says she worries every times she goes down the stairs that she will fall and kill the baby. She tells me a horrible story about a woman who was eight months in and the baby smothered itself in the placenta and she had to go through labor anyway. I tell her the thing that makes me keep crying, and it makes me cry. Then somehow we are past it and on to swollen feet and mother's day and crazyass cats. I thank her before we hang up. "Girl," she says, "I'm just glad you quit cryin'. You call me next time it happens."

Today I graduated from college, saw my friend Chris for the first time in two years, and said goodbye to my SO for the summer. It was a long day.

-/+

I was up too late last night and up too early this morning

After waking up at 3:30 in the morning, I began to get a little cranky. I allowed some of the jackasses to get to me during a General Quarters drill, and then proceeded to send the shit from above flowing straight down to the guys I'm in charge of. Piss Poor Leadership, and I know better. I have a tendency to take out my frustrations on others when I can't take them out on the ones who are pissing me off. (They're usually either a higher rank or my bosses, so I can't really dig into them.) This tendency infuriates me. I feel like a bully, abusing those I should be shepherding. I like to think of myself as a guardian of the meek, not their oppressor.

Weakness. My great uncle wouldn't have tolerated it, nor my dad. Great Uncle, Sergeant Major, United States Marine Corps, Leonard Horan. Served in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. He was the youngest Drill Instructor ever to serve at Parris Island. He gave me some advice just before I received my commission in the Navy: "Take care of your troops." Simple concept, but not always the easiest thing to do.

I'm not going to start into a big long dissertation on the concept of leadership and the military, but I reserve the right to do so at any time.

I even lost my temper in Chatterbox

I told a new newbie (unlike myself, hee hee), cloth, to STFU. I begged the EDB to eat the entire chatterbox, or at least me. I needed a nap.

To the great joy of all who interacted with me today...

I finally took a nap--slept for three hours. I now need to write a poem or letter to my wife for Mother's Day, and figure out what to do for my mom. I think I'll do that in the morning.

I finally wrote a story...

I really like the nodeshell world fiction project. It helped inspire to write an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, I really finished it. In my quest to become an actual writer rather than just a dilettante, I have started and dropped a bunch of stories. the noise of worms is the first one I have finished. I'll admit it's not really very long or developed, but I'm still kind of proud of it. Heck, it's even getting some votes. Woo Hoo for me. Thanks saige and E2.

After a wonderful, sunny day, the sky darkened and took on that gorgeous green tinge that preceeds a downpour.

The rain started slowly - large drops, not many of them. Seconds later, I couldn't see the shed at the bottom of the garden for rain!

We decided to check that the upstairs windows weren't letting any in. My wife decided to do it, as she was going that way, anyway.

Then I heard her calling to me from the kitchen, "Come here, you've got to see this!"

The outside kitchen door was closed - but you'd hardly have known - water was streaming in, incredibly fast! The floor must have been nearly an inch deep in water already!

We both just stood there, staring in disbelief. Eventually we worked out the rain was getting in over the top of the door. We'd complained almost as soon as we'd moved in that the door should never have been mounted on the outside - and now we had a great example of why!

I got my umbrella and we took a look from the outside. The gutter was overflowing, right above the door, letting all the rain from the rear extension's roof flood down the wall. The top of the kitchen door sticks out just proud of the frame and was drawing the flood around, into the kitchen.

We started bailing - sweeping the water back out as fast as we could. After about 45 minutes, the rain stopped. We were exhausted - so we sat down and had tea and cake (as one does). Oh, and talked about what to do about it.

Then it started raining again. Heavily... but not quite as bad (so it seemed) and only for about ten minutes. So we swept out the rain and set to. We fixed up a strip of wood, just so the door frame sticks out further than the top of the door. That should stop it...

Of course, the sky then cleared and it's a bright sunny day today...

May 15, 2000

Tonight was a very good night. Our Town our eighth grade class play closed tonight after two performances. After the show, a bunch of us (being Taylor, me, Erica, Lauren, Neely, Christie, Kaleen, Topher, John and Ashley and all our parents), went to Shake Pit, a local ice cream kind of hang out thing. We played Truth Or Dare, which involved throwing things into the road behind us, Neely flashing all of Main Street (kind of), and rejected dares included Neely hitting on the cashier woman, Erica kissing the man that was smoking after saying passionately "I've always wondered what it would be like to kiss a man that smoked" *kiss* "Yep. Disgusting" and walk away. It was alot of fun, and now I get to watch Britney Spears on Saturday Night Live which promises to be interesting, as Britney is not the sharpest tool in the shed. As a matter of fact, she is so far out of the shed...she's three miles past the nice flowing stream nine miles away from the shed.

Anyway...