It's my Friday and I'll post if I want to, post if I want to

You would post too, if it happened to you!

...

Yes, I grew up with my grandparents. I had to listen to "It's My Party" pretty often in car rides anywhere with my grandma, as well as a lot of other songs from the same era. They've become ingrained to the point where I've referenced them, like now. With my three days off, possibly (hopefully) more depending on the new schedule, I wanted to let you know of a few things I'm working on 'behind the scenes'.

The first is Harbor Humanism, a secular activism group that I've been contemplating for a while now. I've bought the domain, but haven't started any site or blog for it yet. Before I do that, I'm trying to figure out a few things locally, such as places to meet. I'm going to be asking around tomorrow at some of the places that should be willing to help with something like this, on the provision that anyone can come.

Secondly, I'm also setting up a "landing space" for my writing, which I'll let you know more about as it happens. Essentially, it's going to be a one-stop-shop for how to contact me, where to find my writing online, and a place for me to add writing jobs to my "Writer's Resume" as I acquire them.

Finally, I'm meeting up with local photographer Tom Hyde, to talk about stuff. It was prompted by the Olympia Views review of my blog, so there'll probably be mention of that. I might try and video tape it, if he's cool with that -- we'll see!

For now, time to work. Blargh. Murphy's, here I come!

I HAVE INTERNET AGAIN! ... sort of.

"Reunited, and it feels so goooood!"

Sure, it means that I have to set up my laptop in the kitchen, plug it in behind the microwave, and deal with the occasional drop-offs that come with only having one bar of signal, but I HAVE HOME WIFI AGAIN! ... sort of.

After picking up a connection and being amazed that I was online, I started walking around with my laptop, checking for where the signal could be coming from. Turns out that one of my neighbors has unsecured wifi (and is okay with me leeching it every so often), and the signal drops off the least in this corner of the kitchen. Look forward to more frequent blogging, because I am BACK... until my neighbor objects, or until I get internet of my own and then am MORE BACK!

In other news, Random Ramblings TV is coming soon! I've got introductory clips from some of the people contributing, and I'm editing them together, to be up (on a different site) on Friday. There will be vlogs, and videos, and hopefully some fun times to be had. For more on that, you can ask me on Twitter (@justinbarlow), or check out the fledgling RRTV account (@Ramblings_TV). The intro video goes up on Friday (the 19th)!

Now, I'm going to go listen to Textures and finish doing some necessary shit around the house.

Nerdery is hereditary; Parents (and guardians) get it from their children

If you read my main site, you probably saw my post on Thursday morning talking about the new Earth-like (and likely inhabited) planet, Gliese 581g. In it, I go for some humor by proclaiming it to be Krypton, and declaring that “the Superman” will eventually come along.

 

I decided to have a little fun with it after that, too. When I thought that someone that I knew offline would find it funny, I told them, with a little bit more excitement and humor in that rendition. A few of these people read my site, and were already aware of my crazy idea, but one person guessed before I got to the end of it: my grandma.

 

Keep in mind that this woman is 60 years old and is not a nerd. She raised me, and used to think my oddities were ridiculous, and has slowly gotten more reasonable with time. I didn’t realize that the reason she was getting more accepting of my nerdiness was because it was turning her into a nerd! NERD is like a set of radioactive waves, mutating those around the nerds!

 

ME: This planet is Earth-like, but bigger. It’s in a constellation visible from Earth. And since it’s very likely inhabited, the would-be aliens would call their red star a sun…

GRANDMA: Isn’t that like where Superman is from?

 

I have never been so proud of this old woman. NERDS REPRESENT! :D