I think the whole family is sick of this Oregonian flu or whatever it is.  I'm certainly sick of feeling like somebody is shredding my throat with a box grater every time I swallow. 

Alex didn't fall asleep last night until like 2am this morning.  He just rolled around in bed for like 3 hours kicking and singing.  So we're all doggone tired this fine morning.  I'm at work so naiad8 has the sole job of keeping a tired, sick, and sleep-deprived 4-year awake until 8pm so he'd go back to a normal schedule.  Ugh.

AncientScripts-wise I'm working on the Kalmyk-Oirat script.  It's an offshoot of the Mongolian script.  It's actually an alphabetic script but it's written like Chinese in vertical columns.  It's quite interesting. 

Top Chef season 4 has started.  Yay!  Looks like this year they got some really good talent.  And a good geographic spread too: San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and even a New Zealander dispensing marmite in pizza!  Plus the juicy stuff.  A lesbian couple.  Fauxhawks.  And too many egos.  Should be a really cool show. 

Wow, this week went by fast.  I'm still busy at work, but it's the beginning of a release cycle so I don't feel like it's a pressure cooker.   Still it's a bit of a mad dash because next Wednesday I'll be hitting the road again.  We'll be driving up to Portland, Oregon, so that naiad8 can attend Epicon 2008.  She's nominated for her first book, and she'll also be presenting an award too. 

*feels very proud of my wife*

While there I'll be taking Alex around Portland.  Apparently there's an aerial tram that goes up a hill, and lots of trolleys.  Lots of greenery and parks to run around.  I think he's going to love it.  Anyway, I'm excited to see Portland.  I've heard it's a very pretty city. 

Anybody knows who are the native gods in southern Washington state?  I'm plan to make offerings to the Rain God, the Wind God, the Volcano God, the Car God, the Road God, OPEC, and whatever other deities so that I get to see Mount Saint Helens.  Cloud and fog is the order of the day around this time in the Pacific Northwest.  I really would like to see it.  Of course I won't top Christine who has flown into its humongous crater like 20 years ago, but that's not possible now because it's like erupting in there. 

Oh yeah, while we're on volcanoes, here's another Hawaii volcano picture (under the cut to protect cuteej4).


A coworker of mine is going to the Big Island for a week.  *jealous*  He's staying on a condo on Ali'i drive.  *more jealous* 

Music?  Not this post.  Can't think of what to share that won't kill people.  Maybe later tonight.

And I posted some simple recipes on accio_recipes.  I love cooking.  Has anybody seen Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare?  I know it's on BBC America, but it's a damn good show.  Anyway, I learned that a classic English dish is mushrooms on toast.  It's just simply sauteed mushrooms on toast, with a poached egg on top.  All the stuff that I love.  I'm going to try that this weekend. 

Boy I'm sore today. For the past four days we've been working on our bedroom because of a mold problem. Everybody was affected, including the dog. We've cleaned the walls, washed the drapery, and dusted the dressers, and the last thing was to put on a new coat of paint with fungicide. For the paint we decided that we wanted a different color. And what a difference it makes! Instead of a light green, we went darker, and now the room looks cozier and warmer. And hopefully the fungicide will keep the mold and mildew away.

The worst part of the whole endeavor is painting the ceiling. I had to keep my arms up in an angle that they're not used to. And today they're sore. Blah! At least it wasn't the whole house. Otherwise I don't think I can type this at all. We still have the closet to do, but that's another story altogether.

Work is sucking my soul through my nostrils again.  One good thing.  We all got 22-inch monitors to go with our new computers!  Yay!  Unfortunately I haven't even had the time to install it yet.  Pout #1.

With getting sick last weekend, work work and house work this whole week I haven't touched the Nabataean page at all. Pout #2. I do have the graphic done though. Here is a preview:


And for Friday music, here's some bossa nova.

Artist: Moreno Veloso
Song: Deusa do Amor (Goddess of Love)

It's raining cats and dogs here in Northern California, although it's not as bad as it is right now in Southern California where they're getting tornadoes touching down. Yeah, tornadoes all the way out here in sunny California.

And, by way of SoCal, a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Julz cuteej4.

Back up here, for a change I got a couple of nice things going for me:

#1. I got nominated and won the employee of the month in my company. I got to keep the rotating trophy for a month and $50 for a nice meal somewhere. Now I get to figure out where to take naiad8.

#2. My new work computer arrived, and although it's a lot of work to transfer all my stuff over, I feel much less vulnerable from the old (5 year old) computers that I've been using.

#3. I'm very happy that I've taken up AncientScripts again. I guess New Year resolutions do stick more than passing thoughts. I've finished the font for Nabataean, and made a graphic that shows the transition from Aramaic to Nabataean to Arabic. All is left is the writeup and then I can upload it.

#4. It's Friday music. It also happens that today MTV has posted the newest video from my favorite band Dream Theater. The song is called Forsaken and it's about vampires. Yeah, heavy metal and vampires, what a groundbreaking concept! Sarcasm aside, it's actually pretty well done, all done in an animation style that's a cross between anime, A Scanner Darkly, and the original Heavy Metal movie. Slightly cheesy, but the calories and the calcium will help you neck bones to headbang better.

Here's another meme floating around my flist.

One word to describe me ... just one single word. Leave it in my comments. Then post this message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you...

In other news, I'm finally picking up AncientScripts again. Currently I'm working on creating a font that I'd be using for a page on Nabataean. I'm putting the Tangut page on the back burner because (a) very little research material is available to me despite being a pretty well deciphered writing system, and (b) it's a gigantic logographic script like Chinese with at least 6,000 characters. Not that I'm going to learn every one of them, but I'm still going to have to understand it enough to present it without simply regurgitating the source material.

And finally, music Friday. The artist is called Ronald Roybal. He is a Native American flute and Spanish guitar player. We listened to him perform during a dinner in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was really really lovely, and we bought his CD on the spot.

Artist: Ronald Roybal
Song: Spider Woman
Album: Visions of the Fourth World
Website: http://www.roybal.bigstep.com/

Whew, it's been a tough week, both at work and on the home front.  The weekend is coming up and I'm hoping I'll get to relax some.  Just a little would be nice.  But it's probably not going to be case, since I got a ton of stuff to do, Christine is under the weather, and different relatives are  coming on both Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway, kind of excited that the FIFA Women's World Cup Soccer (Football to the rest of the world) is entering its quarter finals.  Unlike the men's team, the USA team is one of the best in the world.  Tomorrow we'll go up against England.  While by history the USA is better than England, it should be an exciting game because apparently England is really strong this year while the USA is not putting in 100% for some reason.  The only bummer is that it's 5am Pacific time, which means I'll have to record it and watch it when Alex has gone to sleep on Saturday night.  I'll just have to make sure to not see the score during the day.

Another thing on TV that both Christine and I have been following is Top Chef.  I know that harrysmom  watches it.  Anybody else likes it?

And finally, just for heck, here's the letter meme that's been floating around my flist:

*Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...

*They have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up!

*Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same
1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. (It is harder than you think.)