Today was one of the first Saturdays that I have had free for some time now, so I thought I would just kicked back for the day and decompress.  I got up early and took care of a bunch of chores, and then I ran out for a few errands which included getting a new Hawaiian shirt and with some used network equipment.  Once I got home and took a nice nap to recharge my "Z" quota.

After I woke up and returned from Slumberland, I headed out to the Barnes & Noble at Crossroads to get the September Sky and Telescope which has an article in which I was mentioned (but that's for another blog).  After leaving the Crossroads area I deiced to head on over to I-90 and go for a little joy ride to get my mind off all the stuff that's gone on lately such as my Mom's heart attacks, my accident, and even work.

I originally just wanted to drive up to North Bend, then I decided to go to the pass, and from there I said the "Hell with it" and took my truck completely over the hump and over to Eastern Washington.  I thought about going to some diner in Cle Elum, but then I remembered that I hadn't been to Ellensburg in almost 40 years, so off I went.

You know, if you are not used to it, it is sort of a shock to go from one side of the Cascades to the other especially when you are used to all the trees we have on the Western side.  I am not saying that Eastern Washington doesn't have some great scenery, but I did notice how sparse the trees were - at least from my point of view.  It was a nice drive though and traffic was really civil when compared to I-5 and I-405.

As I headed towards Ellensburg I noticed some tall structures off on a hill to the Northeast of me, and I soon realized that they were wind turbines. While almost barren of trees the hills were still quite stunning and I had to keep reminding myself to keep my eyes on the road.

Once I pulled in to Ellensburg I hit the main drag and headed in to the down town area.  It is interesting to not that I did not see any building over two stories tall, and relatively old which I found kind of neat.  I wish I had brought my camera so I could have taken some pictures and posted them here.  Maybe next time.

It was getting close to 6:00 PM and I hadn't eaten since 11:00 AM, so I started looking for some place to get some grub.  I didn't want to go to any of the usual fast food chain places, but instead I wanted something local and unique to Ellensburg.  As I was cruising around and trying to find something to calm the tiger in my tummy I came upon Happy's Market and decided to go inside and buy a pop, and ask for a recommendation.  I got my pop and asked the clerk if he knew of any good local places to eat, and without hesitation he suggested the Red Horse Diner which was just a mile down the street, so off I went in search of eats, and man did I find them!

It turns out that the Read Horse Diner is an old gas station that was converted in to a fantastic little diner.  My memory is a little fuzzy, but I believe that the red horse logo for the diner is actually the old Phillips Petroleum logo.  Any ways that logo along with all the other great memorabilia that covered the walls just fit the place and made the experience even more nostalgic and enjoyable for me.  I like going out and finding funky places, and the Read Horse Diner fit the bill, and so did the fantastic burger I got there.

My default burger of choice for most places is a bacon cheese burger, and I was going to order the 409 burger which is the diner's name for their bacon cheese burger but then I came across the the Red Horse burger.  It was basically a bacon cheese burger, but with grilled ham added.  I had never had a burger with ham, so I figured I would try it.  

Maybe I was extra hungry, but damn!, it was good burger and it was gone in just a few bites.  The ham added a little extra saltiness to the burger which for me was perfect.  The burger was done just right, had the right amount of mayo, and pickles.  It was just perfect!  

Now the fries were OK in that they were your usual frozen steak fries with seasoning salt ala Red Robin.  While it would have been nice if they were fresh cut fries, they were still good as well as quite plentiful. Having said that I think that the next time I swing by the Red Horse Diner I am going to try their onion rings, because they look really good (at least they do on the web site).  I will also say that the staff at the diner was exceptionally nice, and even gave me a free refill of Diet Coke for the road.  

After topping off topping off my tummy, I headed off to top off my gas tank before I hit I-90 and headed back home.  I had a relaxing trip back, and got home right at 8:00 PM.  I think I made pretty good time in that I took just 4.5 hours to cover 100 miles each way, enjoyed a great burger, and for the most part I did it all at the posted speed limit. That is except for the eating burger for which I think I set a new world record.

All in all, it was a great trip and I had a great time.  I highly recommend you visit the Red Horse Diner, and next time I head over that way I am bringing my camera so I can post some snaps of the trip. Cheers - Nemo  

In a nutshell, I was injured in a car accident tonight while taking an alternate route home due to the I-90 construction, and after a harrowing cab ride home from the hospital, I found out my mom has had another heart attack (three small ones in the last two weeks.)

I am a sore from the accident, though my little Ford Ranger seems to have gotten through with a minor scrape or two on the rear fender.  The other driver's Accura had a mashed up hood from rear-ending me.  What pisses me is that the three guys in the other car were laughing after the accident, that is until the State Trooper showed up.  I don't know what was scarier, the accident or the cab ride home.  I didn't have anyone to take me home, so I had to take a cab, and it was like an E Ticket ride at Disneyland.

When I got home there were a couple of calls from family stating that my mom was back in the hospital.  She has had three minor heart attacks in the last two weeks, and it doesn't look good.  I have to arrange some sort of care for her which is hard since she lives far away from me.

Not to sound selfish, but I am worried about how this all will impact my new job, since I am on a 90 day probation as a new employee.  What's scary is that I have to deal with all this on my own. That kind of hit me when I was laying in the ER and wondering how I got home, and then it really hit me after I got home at 10:00 PM and talked to my relatives.  I am hoping things will turn around, but I won't be blogging for a few days until the dust settles.

OK, so I lied.  I have been meaning to post a lot more, but until recently I have just been too busy or trashed to post.  I am starting to settle in at my new job tough and everything is going well, so as time goes by I will get back in to the routine of posting more regularly.  Right now my biggest two challenges with work are making sure I take a break now and then, and dealing with the commute, but these are trivial when compared to the positive aspects of the job, and the great people I am working with.

Having said that I did take advantage of the 4th of July holiday to decompress a little by taking a drive.  Because I work in the South-end of Seattle I have been wanting to explore and rediscover the area.  I say rediscover since I used to deliver medical supplies in that area about 30 years ago.  One of my favorite roads to drive back then was Military Road, so on Friday I decided to take a trip down Memory Lane via Military Road.  I thought I had seen virtually all of Military Road, but apparently not.  I started out at 200th St. and headed as far South as I could go.  It was a blast staying off the Freeway and just winding all over the place.  I finally ended up at a "T" intersection which is the junction of Military Road and Enchanted Parkway / Meridian.  Turning right would put me on Enchanted Parkway, and turning left would put me on Meridian.  I really didn't want to end up at Enchanted Park (a local theme park for those of you not in the area), so I decided to turn left and head down Meridian because I knew I would eventually end up in the South Hill area of Puyallup which I have never really explored before.  

After driving through Edgewood, Milton and Fife, I finally ended up in Puyallup and headed on up to the South Hill area. I would be an understatement to describe the South Hill area as one giant strip mall, but that's exactly what it is; one strip mall after another.  I really didn't want to spend too much time checking out all the interesting places, but I did see a few places that I want to check out at a later date, and there is also a Sonic Drive-In there, so that's another reason to return.

I continued driving South enjoying the view of the countryside, and eventually ended up in Eatonville, Land of Ramtha!  Yeah, I know, but aside from that Eatonville is a nice little town.  I drove around town for a bit, and then headed back North.  I ended back up at 200th St. and continued to head North on Military Road until it merged with Des Moines Way.  All-in-all it was nice drive and a great way to decompress.

That was the cruzin part, now comes the bruzin and onion part.  I decided to do a little more cleaning around the place and guess I over worked my back a bit because it's hurting (and falling the previous weekend didn't help anything either).  I am happy with the results of the cleaning though and I am started working on a few projects I have had on the back burner for a while.  One of these projects unfortunately turned into an onion, and by that I mean the more I peeled away at it, the more tears I shed (figuratively).  Basically I tried to install Windows XP on a system a few months ago, but something wasn't right so I gave up. Maybe I should have given up permanently because as I picked up the project again this weekend, it just turned in to a death march.  As it turns out, the system had a bad hard drive, and something was seriously wrong with the NIC drivers I installed.  I finally swapped the drive with a new one that I forgot I also tired on this box on the previous attempt, so I was pleasantly surprised as not having to reinstall XP on the drive.  Unfortunately my joy didn't last because as I finally was able to get things going and install the updates the system started crashing.  The third problem with the system turns out to be a memory issue, but I think I can pick up some PC 2700 DDR fairly cheap, so all is not lost.  If that doesn't do the trick, I bag the system and use what I can on another system.

Well that's it for now.  I have to get up earlier than usual because I-90 Westbound is all mucked up for the next two weeks, so it's off to Slumberland for me.

PS:  Be sure to check out my latest Slumberland post:  Washington Weirdness: UFOs, radioactive wasps, and the wall of gum.

I am still getting used to my new work schedule plus I haven't had much free time lately, so that is why I haven't posted recently.  Hopefully things will settle down soon.  

Work is going along well and my brain is getting stuffed with lot's of new and useful information.  I have also been making headway on cleaning up the place.  Today I gave my paper shredder a real workout, and ended up stuffing a recycling bin full of stuff.  I definitely have gotten my money's worth out of that little shredder.

Sleep is going OK, with only a few rough night's in the last few weeks.  Once I get settled in to my new routine I'll start getting back to posting more.  I have several good posts lined up for the Slumberland blog, so keep an eye out for those.

Well that's it for now.

Today was the first day at my new job.  Given that I am still a little gun shy from being laid off from the last job after only six weeks, I am not going to say too much about the actual organization until at least six weeks have gone.  I just don't want to jinx myself.

I will say that I am very impressed and happy with the people I work with, and I think this job is a move in the right direction for me.  I am definitely going to learn a lot at this new job, and it is a big change for me in that I am no longer working as just a test technician for hardware and/or software.  I am actually moving more into IT, and it feels right.

Having said that, I am a little wiped out from having a very sleepless night last night.  After almost 10 months of being mostly unemployed, I was really apprehensive about today, but except for being a little tired, and having a headache for a while, everything went well.

I am feeling a lot better about things now.  Well I need to head off to Slumberland. 

Check out my latest posting over at my Slumberland blog:  Washington Weirdness: The Lake Sammamish Seal

It's about Butch the Lake Sammamish Seal.  Butch was a harbor seal that lived in the lake for close to 25 years. Cheers! 

Well I went and did it!  Even though I promised myself not to do so I went ahead stepped into the fray again, and volunteered to chair the NWSFS elections.  I must say though that I am really enjoying the experience this time around in part because my learning curve isn't as steep, and also because I am finding that working on the elections is helping to pull me out of the blahs that I have been in due to being unemployed.

Also I am getting a lot of help from folks and for that I am very grateful.  Because of some timing issues I have had to improvise a bit, but aside from correcting a few typos things is going very very smoothly.

I wish my house cleaning would go as smoothly.  It's not so much the work that is making things drag a little as it is the constant beating up on myself for not being a better house keeper, and I have to say I do get a little maudlin while dredging up old stuff and deciding whether I should toss it or not.  I am also finding that it sucks doing this all by myself.  I really don't need someone to help so much as it would be nice to have someone to talk to while doing the work to help break up the monotony, and relieve some of the stress that comes from dredging through the past.

But I have to trudge on and keep on tossing old stuff.  I decided to take a bunch of old prints and posters that had been laying around for years to the NWSFS Social last night and I offered them up to all those who attended, but no one was really interested.  The hosts were nice enough to say that they would take the prints and posters to the Norwescon Volunteer Picnic in July, and hopefully they could give them away as gifts to some of the volunteers.  What's funny is that some of those prints and posters are close to 30 years old (and the posters have never been opened) so in come cases they may be older than the volunteers!  I do hope that those who get the gifts do enjoy them.  It's a shame that those prints and posters were stashed away for so long and I never really had a chance to enjoy them, but I am happy that someone may eventually find joy in them.  

Speaking of giving away stuff I gave away a pair of binoculars I got in exchange for some Coke Rewards Points. I gave the binoculars to a volunteer for a astronomy group who works with local students wishing to learn more about astronomy.  I have started a project called "Colas for the Cosmos" over on the CloudyMidnights blog, where I am collecting Coke Rewards Points and using them to get telescopes and/or binoculars to give to local students.  If you are a regular Coke drinker then maybe you might want to get involved, or start your own Colas for the Cosmos project.  Drop me a line if you are interested.

OK, that is enough of a break from cleaning for now.  I have to get back to dusting and vacuuming. 

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.  I have been either too busy or too burned out to really feel like writing.  I have posted a few things in my technical blog, so you can go there for a read and a laugh or two. I have a couple of good ideas about what I want to write about here, so I will try my best to get some stuff posted over the weekend.

In the mean time, watch this video of my favorite cryptid, the Thylacine, the last known specimen of which died at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania in 1936 - Last Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacine, 1933:


Swing by Slumberland if you have the time

The picture is harmless enough, but the use of the "F-word" might require discretion at work.

Winnie the Pooh On The Swine Flu:

http://www.city.com/forums/topic271_post471.html#471

Cheers ~

After a depressingly harsh day of looking for work and not coming up with much I decided to get the Hell out of the house.  So I jumped in the truck, grabbed a bit to eat, and headed off to Kelsey Creek Park here in Bellevue.  As the crow flies, the park isn't that far from my place, but to get there I would have to traverse a steep hill and my bum knee just isn't up to the task right now, so that is why I drove down to the park.

Once I got to the park I was able to quietly sit in my truck and enjoy my food, and then afterwards take a nice walk on the reasonably flat terrain around the barns located at the park.  While I did enjoy the peaceful walk, I was occasionally brought back to reality from a breeze that reminded me that I was down wind of the barns and their residents.

After the walk I went to the store, picked up some groceries, and then headed home where I pounded out my first blog entry about the book Weird Washington.  The post "Washington Weirdness: Mel's Hole" is over on the Slumberland blog.  Swing by and give it a read if you are so inclined.

Other than that, there isn't much new stuff to post about, so it's off to Slumberland for me!

I guess I haven't been all that active in the Nemo Black blogsphere lately, but there really hasn't been anything new to post about; I'm still looking for work, and sleep still sucks. I did get a couple of "Dear Job Applicant" letters last week, but that's it.  Hopefully something will come along soon.

I have made major progress on cleaning up the spare room, and I am starting to sort through all the junk  My plan is to turn that room into my study/computer lab within a couple of months, so that once I get back to work my living room will actually be a living room once again and I will have a nice place to decompress a little, or at least that's the plan.

Now should things turn out where I end up having to move I will have at least pared down the junk I will have to take with me.  Right now I'm keeping the moving option on the back burner though I am looking more and more at Northern California as an option since there may be some opportunities for me down there.  Given that I have lived in the Seattle area all my life I don't know how well I will adapt to a new location, but maybe it will be a good thing.  Then again just getting out of the bunker and living someplace else in the Seattle area might be a good move for me too. I'll just have to see what comes down the road and roll with it.  

Well it's time to head off to Slumberland and catch some sleep (hopefully)

Check out the latest posts at the Slumberland blog:

• Big box + big cat = Lot's of cute fun

Yesterday I decided to start reorganizing my spare bedroom and change it from a storage coffer to a study/computer lab.  I have a long ways to go, but I made a major dent and got over some serious inertia that I have been fighting for some time.

I honestly feel I can go through the stuff much more quickly now and trim down what I have to make life much simpler, and to make things easier should I have to move.

The job search is depressing at time, but I keep plugging away and try not to get too down about it.  At least now when I need to take a break and walk away from the computer for a while I can go into the spare bedroom and sort stuff for a while.

Unfortunately I overexerted my back, but most of the heavy lifting is done so I can let it rest for a while and heal up.

Sleep has been sucky, but now that the weather is turning I think I will get more energy and get moving.

Last night was one of the roughest nights I have had in a long time.  I don't know what was going on, but I woke up about 3:00 AM this morning with a painful cramp in my left leg.  The cramp eventually subsided, and I was able to get back to sleep.  The gorillas must have kept on pounding on me afterwards because when I finally got out of bed this AM, I literally felt like someone beat the stuffings out of me.  I am really sore all over.  I am just thankful I have lots of Tylenol and Advil available.

At first glance when I saw the headline below on Digg, I thought it was either a story from The Onion, or an early April Fools Day joke, but apparently it is not:

From the Huffington Post:  Vegan Pet Food: Is It OK To Raise A Cat Vegan?

Are these people serious?  Cat's are carnivores plain, and simple!  They require a diet of 75 to 80 percent protein.  It is fine for humans to choose their diet, but animals do not have that luxury. Anyone who forces a cat to consume a vegan diet should be charged with animal cruelty! 

Aren't things screwed up enough in this world without having to mess with kitty's diet?  I hope when these people die their reluctantly vegan cats eat them! :(

Just a short note to point people towards the list of books I just posted over at my main blog: Looking for advice on what writing books I should keep 

Take a look and let me know which books I should keep, and which ones you might want.

Cheers ~ Nemo B)

I have decided to pare down many of the books that I have, but I going to so in small steps. Right now I am currently going through many of the books on writing that I have, but have never read.

Before I begin the culling of the herd, I would like to hear from others as to what books they consider the essential books for beginning writers such as myself?  I am asking this on the off-chance that I may already have some of the books, so I can hold on to them now and avoid having to repurchase them later.

I realize that posting the list of books I have now might make things easier, but I would like to get some input now so as to better help me go through the books.  Letting me know of your suggestions before then will help me a lot.  

To help you better advise me I will let you know that I want to write both short science fiction, and scientific articles.  So if you have any suggestions feel free to drop me a line.  I really would appreciate it.

Well the Seattle PI is now a web based zine instead of a print newspaper.   Check out the Gawker article "Snarky Farewell From Seattle PI Staffer".  

I guess one of the staffers just couldn't resist themselves.  It's actually a very poignant statement of the changes taking place in printed news media. :-)

This has been one of those weeks where the clowns and gorillas got to me in my sleep all week long, so I am feeling a little ragged right now.  That's not to say that the week has been all negative.  I am seeing more jobs being listed, so I am feeling a little more optimistic about my job search.  Hopefully things turn positive and I will land a new job soon.

Today I started digging through a stack of old notes full of story ideas, and thoughts on writing.  I cannot believe how old and nonsensical some of this stuff is, but it's worth going through especially since doing so snapped some neurons, and piqued my interest in writing again.  I'm not sure how much writing I will get done, but organizing, and updating these ideas should be a creative diversion for a while. Some of the ideas are very juvenile and would be unrealistic to write about now, but I think I can glean some useful concepts from some of them.  I'll post more as this project progresses.

I have two really good movies to recommend for those of you who like action and drama.  The first recommendation is "Nid de guêpes" (The Nest).  I agree with the reviewer on IMBD.com that this is one white knuckle of a ride, and Nadia Farès just rocks in this movie.  This summary does a pretty good idea of describing the movie. If you are in to action flicks then take a look at this one.  Hopefully it won't get reworked, and trashed by Hollywood because it's great as is.

My second recommendation is "Dead Man's Shoes" which is one intense drama full of rage and revenge. While more spartan in production costs than "Nid de guêpes", "Dead Man's Shoes" is still a great movie to watch.  Read the IMDB.com summary for full details.

I know I could have gone into a lot more detail for both movies, but I didn't want to risk giving too much away, plus the summaries on IMBD.com do a pretty good job of describing the plot for each movie.

Speaking of movies, albeit bad movies, it's mutant fish day on the SciFi channel, so I think I will celebrate and have fish & chips for dinner.  Does anyone know of a good place to get Snakehead fish & chips? B-)

I'll be posting more of my personal content on this blog instead of my MySpace blog.  The primary reasons is that  MySpace completely bollixed things up with their latest censorship.......er I mean security measure. 

It's bad enough that they block all links to every BlogSpot blog as a malicious site, but now if you even happen mention Blogspot in a message on MySpace, the message fails the spam check and you account is considered phished, so you must reset your password.  That is just plain Forest Gump stupid.

It's just as well, since I do pay for this blog, so I might as well use it.

PS: The LJ rich text editor is magnitudes better than MySpace's POS.

If you are reading this blog you are either one of my LJ friends, or you clicked a link that was included on one of the recent NWSFS News Blogs on MySpace or Blogspot.

If you are the latter, you may have noticed that the two news blogs have been a little erratic lately.  The reason for this is that two weeks ago I was laid off from my job, and I have been focusing on finding a new job, as well as learning new skills.  Lay-offs are a fact of life, and I have every intention of making the best out of the experience.

What this means for the two NWSFS News Blogs that I manage is that I can no longer put in the time working on those blogs as I had in the past, and unfortunately this means there will be some major changes to the blogs unless I get some help managing certain sections.

As of today the MySpace Blog will now consist primarily of a weekly posting with occasional special notices.  Links to all official NWSFS notices will be included, as well as the NWSFS Live Journal notices, Local events, and Convention listings.  Links to all the Blogspot Blog pages will also be included, and if practical any special notices I can included as time permits.

The effects to the Blogspot blog will be more drastic.  Effective immediately the Blog Feeds and News and Science Fiction News Feeds pages will be essentially mothballed.  The pages will be left open and there may be an occasional posting, but for the most part it will be up to the readers of those pages to utilize the RSS feeds I have put in place to find their news.  I hate to do this, but these are the most labor intensive pages to produce.  If someone is interested in taking over the editing of these pages and post articles on specific blogs, I would be more than happy to hand over the reins and help them when I can.  Unfortunately no one has answered the call so far.

Isaac Alexander has been doing a great job with the  Cascadia Convention & Events News, and will continue to do so for as long as he wishes to.  I will still compile a monthly listing for the  Local News section, but I would like to hand this over to a local fan if possible.  Because of my personal interest, I will continue to post on the Science News section.   The Special Notices and Features section will only be updated if properly formatted notices are submitted. I do not have time to correct formatting errors and typos.  The Main Page will still have all the links and RSS feeds you will need for NWSFS news, and there will be news posted as time permits.

Like I said, it is sad to do this because the blog was a labor of love for me, but as of now I can no longer afford the labor.  If you are interested in helping with the blogs, specifically the Blogspot blog, please contact me.

If any of you are interested in reading another one of my blogs that I am using as a journal of my studies and job search you can find it here, and if you happen to be on Linkedin.com, feel free to drop me a line there.

Cheers,

Jim Cox (aka Nemo Black)