Category: Life

Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).

While working on my changes to the VectorLover theme I happened to look at CoffeeBear’s stats; where I noticed somethng odd.  An ancient post (all the way back to ’04!) was receiving a couple of hits from Twitter of all places. Now I’ll admit the post was not my best piece of writing — in fact it was mudune and rather dull — so I was curious as to why it got somebody’s attention.

I checked out the tweet but that didn’t make any sense.  It didn’t help me to figure out what was going on that the tweet used is.gd to shorten the URLs. Eventually I realized that the person who tweeted my post just made a typo.  Yup, they used a lower-case “k” in the shortened URL when they should have used an upper-case “K”.  That’s all it took to send their traffic my way vs. their intended destination.  Oh well, I guess nobody really is listening to me reading my posts.  *sigh*

As mentioned before, I’ve been going to the dentist getting my teeth fixed up after slightly more than a few years of neglect1. Monday started the next round of pain2. A couple more fillings on one side of my mouth and a sealer to try preventing a cavity from forming on a back-tooth. The dentist did a good job of numbing the area she’s worked on but even with the numbness it was still highly unpleasant.

I mean seriously the numbness only goes down so far but the vibration from their tools penetrates much further. Plus there’s the distinctly nasty scent of burning tooth from when they drill. *shudder* And if that wasn’t bad enough, my sinuses have been acting up. Which lead to me feeling like I was choking a couple of times while the dentist was working inside my mouth. See they’ve got this mouth-spreader/suction device they shove in first but if you don’t keep your tongue in just the right place the suction doesn’t work. And keeping your tongue in that exact spot gets tiring, so you move around a bit; mere moments later you’re choking.

On the bright side, I think I only have 2 more punishments visits left to fill in cavities.  Also the dentist office appears to have over-charged me on a previous visit, so I after all the fun I got to leave without whipping out the wallet.  Yeah, I’m just skipping with joy and happiness.  *sigh*

1 What can I say, I hate going to the dentist.
2 When my dental insurance says they won’t pay anymore for the year, I have to start scheduling my suffering for the next year. My pocketbook and I can only stand so much misery before calling it quits.

  • Celebrating Obama’s election.
  • Trying to work my way through 100 push-ups, but having to restart a couple of weeks.  Especially week 4 which I’m currently on restart #3 due to holiday & snow-shovelling madness.
  • Panicking over the economy.
  • Beating my head against wxPython & Py2EXE.
  • Twittering
  • Enjoying a very Horrible Christmas1.
  • Reading a lot.
  • Pining for a new camera.
  • Buying new shoes as the sole of my old shoes had worn away enough to leak water in under the ball of my foot.
  • Attending holiday festivities with friends.

Update: Forgot to mention I was also participating in DrawMo, which is like NaNoWrMo but for artists. Well, I was sort of participating. In that I tried to draw something new every day but didn’t quite make it every day (but I did catch up on later days) and I’ve yet to scan/post my sketches for it. *shrug* Oh well.

1 Highly recommend both the soundtrack and the DVD, 5 stars, 2 thumbs up, etc, etc…

Drove up to Mom’s house.  We should have arrived between 9-10 hours after we started.  One wrong turn meant we arrived 12 hours after we started1.  On the bright side, it was a pretty drive (at least until it got dark) and we did arrive safely.

It was a good visit and while we were there:

  • enjoyed a bit of Christmas fun at Bronner’s
  • bought a new hat (kind of like this but in a dark grey)
  • picked up a new light fixture for our porch (only $56!)
  • picked up Zoe’s Tale and read it (very likey Mr. Scalzi’s best work yet)
  • some books from the local used book store
  • ate far too much food, including some fresh taffy we picked up in Frankenmuth
  • reminisced with Mom & Aunt Penny (including going through a bunch of old photos)

Ah, good times.  🙂

Update: Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  Friday (day before we came back) got a call from awelkin that our furnace had gone out while we were gone and the indoor temp was down to 40 degrees.  Urk!  Fortunately with some slight prompting, the inestimable Bryon was able to revive it.  My in-laws stopped in to check on it the next day while we were in transit and the house was all nice and warm again.  Wahoo!

1 Versus the 9-10 hours we were expecting the drive to take.

The following events are true.  Names have not been changed to protect the innocent or guilty.

SCENE: McKibben household kitchen, lunch time.  Brats freshly cooked on the Foreman Grill are steaming slightly.  Plates with buns sit in front of the grill. Michelle stands between Mark and the refrigerator.  Michelle spins around, retrieves the ketchup and turns back to Mark.

MARK: “Squirt me baby.”

MICHELLE gives MARK a dirty look.

MICHELLE: “I don’t beat you enough.”