Ha ha. Terror alert "Bert". The web is filled with funny people.

Stayed up way to late last night in There. The wife was stretching her wings socializing and I wanted to encourage that.

Lots of people at meditation last night. Good questions and discussion. I was afraid we were going to hit the euthenasia question again, which is always hairy and emotional, but instead it was the bug question. *whew* After everyone cleared out the wife and I got a question, which had been bothering us, answered to our satisfaction. It seems there are some practices in Therevada which are holdovers from past superstitious habits, but Bhante assured us we don't need to be concerned with practicing those bits if we don't want to.

I guess that's it for now.

Man, haven't been here in a while. Let's see... Been staying up late playing Port Royale, which hits all my freelance-trading buttons. Also playing Tron 2.0, which absolutely rocks. It's like being in the movie, which is what we all dream of. Also got a new zabuton from California Morning Designs. It's really comfy. I recommend their products; I have their zafu as well. Um, that's about it. I haven't been in There much with them being down so often and all.

A blog within a blog on our weekend trip to Maine.

2003-08-07
� 18:15: On our way to Maine. Listening to Bhikkhu Bohdi give a talk on Buddhist study vs. Buddhist practice and how to properly combine the two.
� 19:00: That was kinda hard to listen to; it was a sentence of English followed by the translation in Chinese. It made both me and Janet sleepy. Now we are listening to Michael Roehm, who is a very dynamic speaker, and the talk is all in English. I feel somewhat bad for the Chinese members of the audience.
� 24:00: Checked in into a motel just over the border into Maine. Continental breakfast included! Dinner was quite excellent Chinese buffet in... somewhere. Drive was pretty easy - more cars than I expected, but I was able to maintain at least 75 to 80 the whole way. BTW, this keyboard rocks!

2003-08-08
� 12:30: Slept not so well; pillow case was kinda rough. Breakfast was OK; no toast or bagels, just donuts of which I had a half. Today's drive was also just OK, mostly small roads. Still raining lots. Janet is in a happy, anticipatory mood. I guess I'm just waiting to get there.
� 13:15: Lunch - awesome. Fish chowder, non-greasy stuffed mushrooms, & kick my ass bluberry pie! Of note from Janet's plate was a pickled cauliflower. The place is called Jed's on Rt. 1 in Belfast, ME.
� 18:45: Just finished Forest Farm, aka the Good Life Center. It was very pretty, the garden abundant. Most important "take away" is that the promise of an easy life is real. Once you get the place build and the garden started, there is not much work to do to keep it going, it seems. The intern was complaining there isn't enough work to do! The down side to our visit is we couldn't get any real info on construction techniques. Another thing we came away with is a determination to find more people and places to visit and maybe intern at, like other farms. Also, I need to look for homesteading communities; I still believe they might exist.
� 19:15: Dinner at the Blue Moose. I had a fried eggplant boat filled with seafood, sausage, and a spicy sauce. I could easily imagine it tasting yucky, but it was very well balanced and obviously prepared with skill. Janet was dissappointed her rissotto was too light on the vegetables.

2003-08-09
� 12:15: Had a good sleep last night. Temperature was very comfortable. I love having a nice big tent to stretch out in. On our way today, we stopped in an Oceanarium. Got to see a lobster hatchery and learn about lobstering from a... lobsterer, I guess. Just got into Bar Harbor. Having lunch at a vegan place. Maybe do some shopping. Or maybe watch a whale.

2003-08-10
� 15:00: Spent yesterday shopping the heck outta Bar Harbor. I informed Janet of a bit of tension she was causing me and afterwards things were better. Last night was another decent night of camping. This whole time the weather was just good enough to not be a real detriment. Today, needed to decide between faster Rt. 95 or scenic Rt. 1. It was foggy when we took off so we were leaning towards the disappointing choice of 95. But as we neared the decision point, it cleared up and became the first beautiful day all weekend. Scenic route it is! We hit a great flea market, an awesome used book shop, and drove through some pretty towns.

2003-08-11
� 11:45: The rest of the drive home was pretty straightforward. Listened to two more Dhamma talks. Was able to go fast and steady right until we hit New York, then the roads got crowded. Got home exactly at 23:30. Slept well. Today I am all psyched to do this thing! (the move to the country and have a farm thing) I feel so positive I will love it.

Where have I been? Spending most of my time in There.

Check this out: a review of the oldest MMORPG in existence... Real Life.

Wow, it's been a while. I'm sure my huge audience misses me. Anyway, latest news is I've been juicing. I got a juicer as a wedding present a while back, but never got around to checking it out. So a few days ago I got a juicing book, bought some produce, and made some juice. I won't go into every gory detail, but I will warn you to be careful with the garlic! It made what would have been a perfectly fine drink really foul.

Also, I started N.O.L.F. 2 and it is pretty good. So far no real plot. Also, it seems to encourage more gun play. In 1, you could sneak around and avoid conflict. Plus, if you did end up in a firefight, you'd most likely get killed. In this one, I'm finding it very difficult to sneak around and much easier to just clear out the level of all baddies and then explore with impunity. We'll see how it progresses.

Oh, and I'm still losing weight, which is cool. I stopped Weight Watchers when I hit my 10% goal, but apparently the eating habits stuck.

I finished Devil May Cry on Sunday. I don't know if I want to keep playing these adrenaline pumping type games. I suspect it is not conducive to reducing stress. I'm not sure though. I was in a wierd mood all day Sunday so I can't be sure what specific effect the game had. I'm keeping my eyes open, however, to see if I can't pin this down futher. On a related note, I haven't death-matched in Soldier of Fortune nor Quake 3 in a few weeks.

Birthday update: got N.O.L.F. 2! I've been looking forward to this game since I first heard about it. I'll get on this as soon as I finish Devil May Cry.

Yo, I turned 30 yesterday. Woo.

So far I have received a Playstation 2 and a sandwich squisher. Fantastique! I love squishing sandwiches and I love playing video games.

Oh, and my weight loss is moving again: I hit my 10% goal!

Ugh.

I got a headache coming on. My weight loss has stalled. My motivation for anything is low.

On a positive note, played Brawl today at lunch with the wife. Early verdict is we both enjoy it.

Check this out. Wow. Makes ya think. Or at least makes me think. My first reaction was like, "Man, I should get movin' if I wanna be famous!" but then I was like, "Since when do I want to be famous?" *shrug*

So I went to visit my oldest friend, Joe, this weekend. It was a good time. Good to see him and Kim (his wife) and Ari (his 6 week old bambino). It's definately a mind-fuck seeing him being a dad; I think for him as well. It was also great seeing some of the other crew as well: Dave, Marcus, Mark, & Amy. Dave's got a new squeeze. Marcus tells me the reason I don't ever see him with a squeeze is a) he's picky and b) if he had one he'd have better things to do than see me. :O

So while up there I got the chance to play a whole mess of Icehouse variants. I was really looking forward to that since a number of the games require more than 2 people and I usually only have access to my wife. *boom-chika-waaaah!* :) I got very frustrated with Homeworld, but now that I reflect on Dave and Joe's calm demeanors, I think maybe I was just missing something. I'll probably give it another chance.

Anyway, lots more happened but I want to jump ahead to the climactic ending: I'm a God-parent! Yay! Joe and Kim have bestowed the highest honor one can bestow on another person - trust to raise their kids if the unfortunate need should arise. Wow. My new hobby is cultivating paranoia that I am not worthy of this. :/

OK, I'll flesh this out later. Back to work.

Ugh! My entire account at keenspace was blown away. I will get the blog archive up in a few minutes and the comics back up tonight. Hopefully.

In other news, I tried to help my dad fly an r/c plane this weekend. But I didn't give him enough instructions and we were both eager to see him fly so all that happened was the destruction of yet another plane. However, he gave me his plane, which was still in the box so once I get that one trimmed out I'll be back in the air.

Why was I up till 1am last night? It's FMS, the flying model simulator! So now, instead of going out at night when it's too windy anyway, I can get my r/c flying fix right here on my computer. Sweet. Now I just have to get a controller I can hook up to the computer and I'm all set. 'Cause unfortunately my joystick only gives me two channels. Hmm, I wonder if my Space Orb would give me more channels? But I never got over the learning curve for this thing. What to do?

Nice weekend. My wife woke me up on Sunday kinda early with the words "there's no wind". So I got up, fixed my Firebird XL (I had the control lines hooked up backwards), and headed out to the flying field. And boy was she right; I've never seen a day so still! Flew the plane 4 times without crashing even once. Also, I got to see some Zagis and some IFOs in action.