No Studying This Weekend!

I called FCC yesterday to see if school had been cancelled on Tuesday due to the weather. It hadn't, but it had closed at noon! I wouldn't have had class even if I hadn't been at the election.

When I got to class last night, the teacher said that he was just going to give everybody 35/35's for the lab we were supposed to do (so as not to screw up his grading), and go over the lecture from Tuesday instead. I sat for most of the class just listening, since I'd already taken notes on chapter four. But as soon as he got to chapter five, I started taking notes.

Last night's class went for the full time, because people had lots of questions--some related to the material, some not. I didn't mind though; it was fun.

Our DSL modem came yesterday, finally. And this morning when I checked my e-mail, I saw that our DSL service is ready to be hooked up, four days early! That is one of the first things I am going to do when I get home after work today--set up the internet.

It's Singles Awareness Day Again

Tuesday, I spent at church (luckily, I only had to walk across the street), working as an election judge. The Board of Elections decided to keep the polls open an extra hour and a half, because the weather was so bad, so they wanted to give people a chance to get there later. Didn't make sense to me; I'd have closed the polls early, for safety's sake, not kept them open so even more people could risk their necks!

Wednesday, my nerves were pretty much shot from the long day, and the roads weren't looking very much better than they had the night before. Not to mention, Weather Bug predicted more bad weather for the day. So I stayed home from work. I managed to get about half of my new book finished (I'd finished The Chimes of Resdorn on Monday night).

The new book is Temeraire: In the Service of the King, and it's actually an omnibus for a trilogy of books: His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War. It's by Naomi Novik. I hesitate to call it fantasy, despite the presence of dragons, as there isn't really much (or any) magic involved at all so far.

It just seems to be a tale of what might have happened in the Napoleonic era if there were dragons in the world--which, I have to admit, is extremely cool. I've never been much interested in history, but this book has me wondering what actually happened during that time period, and what the author has changed with her addition of dragons to the mix.

It's that day again. I seem perpetually single on February 14, but oh well. I'll probably just read while I eat dinner tonight, go to class and do the lab, then come home and read some more (if I don't watch A Valentine Carol--I can't remember if I actually got to record it all the way through last year or not) before I go to sleep tonight.

I also have to finish studying this weekend. Since I was at the election all day Tuesday, I missed the Astronomy lecture for chapters 4 and 5. I managed to get through chapter 4 and take notes during the election, but I still have to go through chapter 5. I'll do that on Saturday.

DirecTV Update

So, I looked at the FAQ on the DirecTV website, and it looks like only DirecTV equipment can be used with the DirecTV subscription. In other words, even if our TVs, VCRs and DVD recorders are satellite compatible, they won't work with the DirecTV service. We have to get a separate receiver for each TV in the house.

Luckily, Jenn's dad has a receiver he's not using, and while DirecTV recommends that receivers from others' previous subscriptions not be used with a new service, it looks like there's a number you can call to see about installing such a device. So, if it works, that's one receiver we won't have to get.

The first receiver was free with the service subscription, but for each additional new receiver we get, we'll need to pay a $69 set-up fee, plus $4.99 per month. If we want someone to come install the new receivers for us, there will be an $80 installation fee too.

I've already ordered a new receiver for my room, and I'm going to set it up myself, so they're just going to ship me the box. I've also asked Stacie if she wants one in her room, and everybody to vote on whether or not we get one for the living room, or if we want to just use the living room to watch movies.

I had considered getting the DVR services as well, but we'd have to upgrade our subscription ($199 fee there), and we'd have to pay a monthly fee of $5.99 for the DVR service, as well as the $4.99 for the monthly DVR receiver lease. So not going to happen.

I miss my cable TV . . .

We got our DSL startup kit on Thursday, but Verizon had forgotten to order a modem/wireless router for us, so we got the whole kit minus that. The modem is supposed to come today sometime, but we won't be able to hook it up until Verizon e-mails me to say that the service is set up and ready to be used.

I returned the cable modem to Comcast on Friday evening. Except for finding a way to get to the place in all the one-way traffic of downtown Frederick, it was a piece of cake. I had disconnected it on Thursday evening when I got home from work, so I didn't get to record Smallville, since the modem was what gave us our cable TV.

I spent practically the whole weekend at Mom & Dad's house. At 1:00pm on Saturday, Kayla and I went to the stake center to watch Jason's basketball game. We saw Anna there, and decided to meet her at her house after the game, since she had to go to the pet store and we had some more of Kayla's stuff in the car to take to the house.

We got to the house and met Anna's new puppy, Mandy, then I watched Psych with Dad. She's a beagle and fox hound mix, and she's so cute! If Bambi were a dog with beagle coloring, he'd look like Mandy. Seriously, her legs are so long, and her neck is too, but she's got a beagle's coloring and soft, floppy ears.

Anyway, Anna got back a little later with Jason, and all of us (minus Jason and Dad) decided to watch Buffy and Angel for a while. Around 10 or 11pm, Anna asks, "You guys want to stay over?" and since I was already thinking about it, we decided we were going to do just that. So Anna dragged out the air mattresses (Jason's twin-sized one and Kimba's full-sized one) and some blankets and pillows. She lent me a pair of pajama pants too.

Sometime during the late night hours, my dad decided that he was going to get rid of some of the books on the shelves in his den--including his entire Star Trek novel collection. He got rid of a few others (most of which I took--not the Star Trek) and rearranged what he had left to his liking.

Once we were all settled, we watched some more Buffy and Angel until about 2:30, when we decided to go to sleep. That's the first time I've slept in that house since I moved a little more than a year ago. The somewhat-strange part is, Anna's new room is my old room.

We woke up between 9 and 11 yesterday morning and had some breakfast all around. After the beds were put away (or at least stood up against a couple walls so they wouldn't get in the way of rambunctious dogs) we watched Smallville, and then some more Buffy and Angel. (Are you seeing a theme here?)

Around 3, I went home to take a shower and pick up Jenn after I set up the phones that Kayla had given us. We now have a phone in the kitchen, one in Jenn and Amit's room, one in the 2nd-floor common room, and one in my room. Turns out, I didn't need a phone jack in my room, because I can use the extension of the one in the common room.

The DirecTV guy came to the house last Friday morning. I wasn't there, but Jenn and Amit were. Apparently, the guy asked if there was a main TV, and Jenn and Amit weren't sure what to tell them, since Kayla is going to be moving soon and the main TV is going with her. So the guy installed the DirecTV receiver in Jenn and Amit's room. The dish is on the roof (back left corner), and it looks like the cable for it goes over the roof and down the front right side (tucked into the corner our building makes with the one next door), into the ground somewhere.

Since the receiver is hooked up to Jenn and Amit's TV, the rest of us still don't have any cable at the moment. I asked Dad if a splitter and amplifier after the receiver would work, but apparently it wouldn't. Everyone would be forced to watch whatever Jenn and Amit were watching, since the receiver only has one tuner. We've been trying to figure out where the cable comes into the house from the dish, so that we can split and amplify it to the rest of our TVs if we need to. If we can just plug into the jacks with satellite-ready TV's and VCR/DVD players, that would be great though (especially if we actually have satellite-ready equipment).

I'll have to look a little closer this evening when I get home from my allergy shots (and before I go across the street for the preliminary voting machine setup). I think there might be some sort of splitter in Stacie's room, or somewhere near where the cable looks like it ends.

Heck, I might even be looking at the wrong cable--it might just go through the roof into the attic crawlspace, and then I'd have to look up there to see anything at all.

Verizon and New Roommate Update and a Little Common Sense

Unfortunately, Verizon does not offer FiOS service in my neighborhood, so we're getting DSL instead. Not too shabby. I've signed up for the e-mail update when they do offer it. Also, since we can't get FiOS, we're not getting the new TV--it was part of the FiOS triple-play bundle. Bummer. Guess I'll just have to fork out a couple hundred in the next month or two so we can get a new TV for the living room (the one there now is Kayla's, and is leaving with her).

The phone line is officially working. We just need to get phones set up around the house. Kayla's leaving the few phones she has for us, since she won't have a line in her room at my parents' house. I might pick up a couple more at Wal-Mart after my next pay check comes in. I looked for phone jacks in my bedroom, but the dresser, the bed, and the nightstand were in the way and too heavy to move, so I couldn't see certain parts of the walls. I'm hoping that there is a phone jack in there somewhere, but if not, it's no big deal.

Monday night, I set up our voicemail, plus a sub-mailbox for each of us who are staying. I also typed out instructions for each of them to set up their sub-mailboxes, and on how to check the voicemail.

The DirecTV people are supposed to set up our house for service on Friday, if I remember correctly. But the DSL service won't get setup until the 19th at the latest. They've shipped the equipment necessary for it, but we're not supposed to install the equipment until they e-mail me and tell me that the service is ready, which hopefully won't actually take until the 19th.

We haven't found a new roommate yet, but there's a girl coming tonight to see the house, and we've had a different girl come to see it with her social worker who liked it, but I haven't heard back from her yet and I wanted to meet her before deciding whether or not she should move in. I'm hoping either the girl with the social worker or the girl coming to look tonight will be able to move in.

Somewhat-funny story:

Friday or Saturday night, I was sleeping, right? Well, Kayla was bored, so she decided--at four o'clock in the morning--that she was going to try and take her bed apart so that she could move it out of the house. She sleeps on the couch most of the time anyway, so she won't be needing the bed until she moves into my parents' house.

She woke me out of a sound sleep, and I couldn't get back to sleep either. You'd think she'd realize that since taking a bed apart makes noise, you shouldn't do it at four o'clock in the morning.

So, I decided I wanted to read, but in case I started getting sleepy again, I didn't want to turn on the main light in the bedroom.

Then I remembered the book light I'd bought a few years ago. I thought it was either in my desk, in the storage tub in my closet, or in the storage container on the floor at the foot of my bed--no dice. So, I just grabbed my flash light out of the desk and read with that.

I got half-way through my grandma's book (The Chimes of Resdorn by DonnaLee Wheeler) by about 6:30. Considering I was probably less than a quarter of the way through when I started, that's saying something.

I guess I'll just have to buy another book light.

Comcast Sucks, Verizon Rocks!

So, my roommates and I have all been rather unhappy with the service we've been getting from our cable company since Comcast took over Adelphia. I'd be on the phone (my CELL phone, which I only get 300 minutes for every month) for at least 20 minutes, usually more, whenever I needed to make a service call. Plus, our internet pretty much sucks.

Then I looked into getting a different service.

Verizon was offering a bundle with FiOS (pretty much the fastest internet service you can get right now), a land-line phone (yay!), and cable TV (with DirecTV CHOICE), all for less than we've been paying Comcast for just the TV and internet. Plus, a free 19" television to go with it.

You'd better believe I signed us up for that! Then, we cancelled our Comcast services, effective sometime later today. The Verizon people are supposed to be there sometime tomorrow to hook everything up, and the DirecTV people should be there on Wednesday to do their thing.

I told my dad about it last night, and he was all like, "You're lucky. Out here, I have the choice of Comcast or nothing."

Yay for Verizon!

I'll let specific peeps (you know who you are) know what the home phone number is when I have that information. I forgot to write it down while I was setting up the account.

Taxes Suck When You're Out on Your Own

Seriously.

I filed my taxes online yesterday, hoping to get at least half the returns I got last year (about $1,100 for federal, and about $200 for state). No dice. It seems that moving out of my parents' house is bad for my tax return.

I have to pay the IRS $8 this year, and the Comptroller of Maryland gets $88 of my hard-earned paycheck this coming weekend. Add to that the $7.77 I had to pay CitizenTax to e-File the Federal return, and that comes to $103.77 total tax costs for me this year.

I was so hoping I could split my returns two or three ways and take a substantial chunk out of my various debts (especially my car payment), but alas, 'tis not to be.

This totally sucks.

Written Works Posted!

Since I only got one vote (thanks, Heather!), and that one vote was a positive one, I decided to post all of my written works here on the blog. You can see the different categories listed in the menu on the right. If you click on a category, you will be taken to a single entry, listing all of my writing from that category, with links. Click on the links in the entry, and you'll be taken to the individual entries for that story, poem, or whatever.

All of the previously-written works are back-dated to January 1, 2007, since that was before I started this blog. I did that so that my regular posts would stay at the top of the blog. Any updates and new writings will keep their original posting dates, and I will simply add links to those entries in the appropriate categories.

If you want to review, please leave a comment on the individual story. I'll appreciate any and all constructive criticism as well, even on the stuff I never plan to look at again.

Another Strange Dream (or three)--Plus a Question

I had another strange dream last night (and the night before, but I couldn't remember it well enough to recount it). I don't know what's made me have such strange dreams so frequently lately. I mean, I've been getting more sleep in the last three nights than usual. Could that be it? I actually went to bed at eleven the last three nights! That never happens, since I consider my bed time between midnight and one in the morning.

Anyway, last night's dream:

I think I was a teacher or something (Yikes! I don't have any desire to be a teacher!) because I was chaperoning a bunch of kids on a field trip. And where, pray tell, was this field trip? Oh, only Jurassic Park. *rolls eyes at subconscious* I have no idea why my brain came up with that.

The first part I remember about the dream is that there were these little four-wheeler things that could hold four kids (or three kids plus me). We were being attacked by the T-Rex, but we got away and decided to get out of the little vehicles for a rest and some lunch.

Then, this Pterodactyl-thing (it didn't have feet, only wings and a body--and yes, I spelled that without looking it up!) came up, walking on its bottom wing-tips, and started to peck at everybody. So, we all scrambled back into the vehicles, and I told the kids to get to the main building as fast as they could.

We got there, then the next part of the "field trip" was this maze which was accessed through the main building. I think they were supposed to be hunting some of the dinosaurs or something, but (and this part is a bit disturbing) the kids ended up turning on each other! I managed to get all of my group out, but by the time the parents had come to pick everybody up, there were body parts strewn all through that maze. Why in the heck would my subconscious come up with something like that?!?

At this point, the dream changed. I dreamed that I was caught up in a storm. Or maybe, I was controlling the storm, because once the storm was over, I just walked around, then I walked back to the place that I'd started walking and I knew exactly which roads to take to get home from there--only I asked for a ride the rest of the way. During my travels though, I visited a lot of people, sometimes just in their yards, but sometimes I walked right into their houses unannounced. I even came upon a toddler's birthday party in a kitchen once.

The dream changed again, and this time, I knew exactly why I'd dreamed what I dreamed--because I was reading Lois & Clark fanfic and posting on the L&C Fanfic Message Boards before I went to sleep.

Clark Kent was missing Lois Lane for some reason. I was sitting there watching them as they talked. They were both very sad. Lois was committing herself, and Clark was begging her to stay and talk about the problem with him, because it was the same problem he had--their daughter had died in some sort of accident, and he hadn't been there in time to save her or something.

It was around then that I woke up.

Now, the question . . .

As some of you (or all, depending on how many/few people actually read this blog) know, I write fanfiction. I have it posted in various places, some here, some there, and some just sitting on my hard drive. For years, I've been meaning to make up a website where I can keep all of it and not worry about which fandom it's for. But I can never seem to keep up with the site updates well enough, so I just let those old sites die.

Anyway, my question is, would any of you actually be interested in reading my stories if I posted them here (with tags for the different fandoms/stories, and links on the side bar) so that I could keep them all together? Or would you prefer if I found some place else (not fanfiction.net) like maybe fanficauthors.net or some other high-quality multi-fandom fanfic site to post my stories, and then put a link in the side bar here?

Where did that come from? . . . It was kinda fun!

No, this is not a post about my Christmas. I haven't really figured out what to say about that--there really isn't that much to say anyway.

What this post is about, however, is a dream I had last night.

When it started, I was in this building. I think it was a combination of all the schools I'd ever gone to or something, 'cause it looked a lot like a school, only bigger. Then, when I went outside, I found myself at this really swanky outdoor party. There was a fountain and everything.

But the weird part is, there was also this huge parking lot with lots of expensive cars in it. Now that I think on it, that was weird too--I mean, why would anyone keep such expensive cars outside, instead of in a garage?

Anyway, this kid started bugging me, then ran away, so I was looking for him. Then all of a sudden this guy starts talking to me out of nowhere. I turn around, and the guy looks like Michael Keaton for some reason. And he's got this kid with him (different from the one I'd been looking for), around late teens, early twenties.

I gasp, and say something like, "Um, uh . . . Mr. Wayne!" because, apparently I was at Wayne Manor. The kid was probably one of the Robins, and I don't know why, but he called Bruce "Dad" in my presence, which was even weirder.

So Wayne says something about my car being towed (I had apparently left it sitting in the streets of Gotham), and asks if I want to drive to get it back, handing me this ring full of keys as he gets into one of the cars on the lot, a Porsche, or that's what he said. I don't know one expensive car from the other, so the cars in my dreams probably really weren't Porsches.

Then, he points to a car that goes with the key he'd stuck up for me in the ring . . . only I'd accidentally dropped the key ring and didn't see which car he'd pointed at. I did hear him and Robin saying something about "the 100" though, which didn't make any sense at all, but I guess it had something to do with the car he'd pointed out.

Anyway, "Robin" leads me to this car. It was supposed to be green, but looked more cream-colored to me, and I try the key which is the one I think Bruce handed to me. No dice.

I try another one, and the doors unlock. So me and the Robin guy get in the car, and follow Bruce Wayne in the red "Porsche" he'd gotten into around the parking lot a few times. I remember chuckling to myself and saying to the Robin guy (either in my head or out loud, I don't remember) that it would be funner if one of the cars was the Batmobile. We finally made our way to this really messed-up alley way with bricks laying around and the manhole open in the middle of the street and such.

There's this weird-lookin' bike there, and a couple of cars, but mine isn't there. So I get on the bike thing, and thank Mr. Wayne before . . . I wake up.

I don't know where that dream came from. The last time I had anything to do with anything even remotely Batman-related was a few days ago, when I read a couple of stories from LaraMoon's Lois & Clark fanfic series called, "Clark Kent is Batman . . . NOT!" And a week or two before that, I'd dubbed the original Batman movie from a home-recorded VHS to a DVD. But anything I'd been doing the past few days had been pretty much strictly Lois & Clark.

Strange.