Tag: milestones

New hotness alert

On By Luther M. SilerIn Geek

Mental note: it takes four hours to buy a car.

This is the second time that one of us has bought a new car and we have been so starving afterwards that the only possible response was to get to the nearest fast food restaurant as fast as possible, thus the official New Car pics being taken in the parking lot of a fucking Taco Bell. My wife had her car totaled for her a couple of weeks ago (no injuries, thus my lack of mentioning it here) and after some intensive research decided on a 2024 Honda CRV hybrid, with many bells and whistles and lots of exciting features we’ll forget about and rediscover a couple of years down the road. It’s pretty. I didn’t spend a lot of time in it other than the test drive, so we’ll have to schedule a road trip somewhere soon. I was never a huge fan of the Honda Fit that just got wrecked, so while my wife’s car isn’t really a huge thing in my life– it’s her car– it’s nice to think that I’ll fit in it properly if I ever have to drive it.

But anyway. I have survived to Spring Break, and I even survived getting picked up from work and spending four hours buying a car and then filling myself with Taco Bell, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be dead in an hour, so I’m going to bounce. My brother and his family are going to be here tomorrow, apparently, so a smart person would start doing at least some light cleaning right now.

I never said I was smart.

I’m verklempt

On By Luther M. SilerIn Parenting

Forced Taught the boy to shave tonight, and his shitty little 12-year-old rat mustache is no more. He is disappointed. I have never identified more closely with my own father, who I recall having precisely the same conversation with me when he forced taught me to shave at about the same age. Also, I’ve reminded myself why I abhor disposable razors, which are even worse for a novice shaver, since he didn’t really know how to hold the razor and thus did less shaving than just shoving shaving cream around on his face.

I did not die yesterday, and in fact the boy’s team did quite well, and he managed a third place (of 23) in one of his events. The team, which is loaded with sixth graders (6-8 are eligible), did not qualify for nationals, but given that 2/3 of them had never competed before (and, oh, also, I don’t want to go to nationals) I’m pretty proud of him. That said, we got up at six and didn’t get home until about 10:30, so it was a long day, and I think all three of us feel somewhat robbed of our weekends.

Therefore: video games, of course.

In which I have been here a long time

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking, Geek1 Comment

I discovered a rogue bit of autocorrect had changed “Baldree” to “Balder” in the previous post and went to fix it, only to discover this little bit of blogwankery. My review of Bookstall & Bonedust was the four thousand, four hundred and forty-fourth post on the site, and this one is number four thousand, four hundred and forty-five.

Whew. That’s … that’s a whole lotta words, right there.

In which I approach milestones

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

This is my 2996th post, and I am just over 1500 words away from writing my millionth word on this blog. I’ve been keeping track pretty carefully over the last several weeks because I want them both to happen on the same post.

…I, uh, probably ought to start figuring out what I’m doing with that post, shouldn’t I? 🙂

The cat remains unnamed; current frontrunners include Gordon, Hup, Tyrion, Hodor, and I just suggested Hercules. I don’t understand why this is so difficult.

A random Sunday blogwanking note

On By Luther M. SilerIn Blogwanking1 Comment

I’m currently closing in on my millionth word written on this blog and my three thousandth post. I should find a way to finagle it so that they both happen on the same day.

… and then absolutely nothing will happen, except that I’ll have managed a weird nerd double-goal, but hey, it’ll feel cool to me.

In which the Great Old One emerges

On By Luther M. SilerIn life4 Comments

IMG_7694It looks like it took the cat just over six weeks to realize that the dog is really, truly dead and is not hiding somewhere in the house waiting for her to lower her guard.  The dog, mind you, never gave a damn whether the cat existed or not, and they’ve lived together for over ten years regardless, a length of time that you would think might convince the cat that the dog was, if not a friend, at least something not to be constantly feared.

BUT!  Witness, my friends, as my 20-year-old asshole cat Mizu takes the Sam Gamgee-esque single step that places her as far as she’s ever deliberately been from our bedroom, which you would be able to almost see the door of were hte picture at a slightly different angle.  We have been living in this house for seven years.  See that one paw on the grey flooring in our dining room?  it is literally the first time she has ever set foot in that room.  In seven years.  Not once.  A moment later, she went into the family room, which is to the left.  She’d never been in there either.

Five or six years from now, when my son is in middle school, she might allow him to pet her.

In which we’re official-official

On By Luther M. SilerIn life

thumbsupI am pleased to announce that I made it through yesterday without bloodshed or threat of jail.  The day wasn’t entirely without aggravation, as the muckety-mucks didn’t show up until about three hours after we were expecting them, leading to lots of sitting around and occasionally bellyaching about how Jesus, I just cannot clean anything else, enough of this nonsense.  When they finally did arrive, though, it was with basically nothing but praise for how the store looked, and my regional manager actually pulled me aside and said that he knew good and damn well just how much of the look of the place was due to my efforts.  It is entirely possible that this was just a little of him knowing I was pissed and blowing a bit of smoke up my ass, but dammit by that point I deserved some ass-smoke and I’m glad he took the time to do it.  There was one genuinely entertaining moment (at least for me) when two people who were with the group but hadn’t shown up with them at first got to the store, and what with everything else going on I didn’t notice them right away, and by the time I did notice them the national sales director was on his way over to them and saying hello.

Greeting guests right away is kind of a big deal in this business, as you can imagine, so that caused a bit of a heart attack.  I mean, yeah, I’ve got a foot out the door and all that, and this ultimately isn’t a big deal, but I still really don’t like looking like an asshole, and one of these guys deciding he needs to greet a guest for us is still kinda not good.

Anyway, long story short, I realized that they weren’t guests at the same time that they realized I thought they were guests, and at the very same time they realized what I must be thinking, and everybody had a big slightly embarrassed laugh about it.  And eventually I went the hell home where I belonged.

You’re probably thinking right now that the headline on the post doesn’t make a ton of sense.  True.  The other thing that happened yesterday is that I got a notification from NewJob that I have finally been approved by everyone who needs to approve me– and some of these folks must have been on vacation for the last few weeks– and I am real and I have a salary and everything, and while the number next to the salary isn’t surprising, it is definitely very pleasant.

Actually, that’s not quite true– I’m surprised that it’s the right number, if we’re being honest.  I was fully expecting to have to fight with somebody or at least send a pointed email to get someone to put my salary back to wherever it was when I left last time.  And I didn’t!  So contracts are signed and everything.  I think, ridiculously, the school board still has to sign off on me, but that’s a formality.  It’s “Hey, here’s this list, we cool?” and  they don’t read the list and go “Yeah, we cool,” and it’s done.

So.  This is happening.

Ten shifts left, guys.  I’m gonna play Bloodborne and finish a short story today and tomorrow, I think.  Let’s do this.

IT’S MY BIRTHDAY

On By Luther M. SilerIn life

“The Answer to the Great Question… Of Life, the Universe and Everything… Is… Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

…and if there’s a better way to describe me, on this, the first day of my 42nd year alive on this earth, than “infinite majesty and calm,” I want it caught and shot now.

I feel like as a lifelong devotee of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I should be greeting this year with a certain amount of fear and trembling, or at least enthusiastic anticipation.  42 needs to be big, right?  But my plans for today amount to sitting around and maybe watching The Last Jedi on Netflix.  I don’t even think we’re going out for dinner tonight.  So … not so much.  I’ll probably do something awesome eventually, though.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, I haven’t sold a book on Amazon in a minute, so if you were interested in buying an inexpensive-yet-entertaining ebook or perhaps contributing to my Patreon, it would be much appreciated.  Whatever you end up contributing will be worth it, I promise.  Or, if you’ve read my books, reviews are the greatest thing ever.  Please?