I Slip Into Friday

I am looking forward to the weekend.  I began this Friday with pizza and a nap.  I'm easing into the evening watching an episode of "The Vikings". Tomorrow I am planning on heading up to Fremont for breakfast, to meet Tony.  Tony has to take his car in for some repairs and I offered to pick him up afterwards.  We'll probably hang out there and catch a movie while we are waiting for them to replace some vacuum system on his C-Max.  It will be a good reason to get out of my current groove.

I've been reading a pretty good piece of fiction, the last of Joe Abercrombie's "The First Law" trilogy - "Last Argument of Kings".  I've had sort of a love/hate relationship with Abercrombie's writing - I love it enough that I am slowly working my way through his catalogue, but I get frustrated because, often, I think he falls short of his own bar. An inconsistency that can be maddening. But, I always contrast that by saying - I like his books, I like his story telling, I like his characters - he just is a hair short of greatness.  With that caveat I would recommend him as an author though.

I am excited this weekend to see a new movie that is coming out - Scarlett Johansson's "Under the Skin". I've seen several interviews and read several articles about the movie - enough to pique my interest.  As always with independent films, I hope it lives up to the hype.

So, it is with all of that in mind that I am sliding into the weekend.  TR is snugged in early tonight, sliding into sleep, which is one of my favorite visuals.  I've got a lot of work that I actually want to do over the weekend, both because I want to move forward on the project that I am working on and because I want to offset some of my vacation time with work time.  Depending on how much work I elect to do this weekend I may be able to offset at least half of the vacation, which will be nice because I am trying to build my vacation store back up having spent it down last year.

Then, finally, as I wind through the weekend I am going to continue my ongoing quest in the process of once again simplifying my life.  I have made some pretty good headway but I am aware that I have a long way to go yet ahead.

Lagertha in The Vikings

It is an outstanding season of Vikings this year.  The most recent episode, where Lagertha leaves her son behind and rides off with her shield maidens actually choked me up.  Outstanding work by Kathryn Winnick, the actress who portrays the character.  She can convey such complexity and turmoil in a single glance that it cannot help but to touch you. The character is so foreign to us and yet at the same time so connected to us.  A pretty amazing show all in all.

I slept pretty well last night.  I went to bed early to read for a while and then fell asleep.  I had a strange dream that woke me up in the middle of the night for an OCD moment.  I am not sure what all the dream was about, but I woke up and had to get out of bed and then remake the bed and then climb back in. It is also possible I was getting tangled in the sheets and had to straighten them out.  Either way, it was a strange moment.

We are supposed to have rain intermittently for the next week or so, starting today.  On my weather app it shows the little rain clouds all day, but the radar map puts most of the rainfall in the northern part of the bay for the moment. I hope we get a good rain, California can certainly use it as we slide into the spring and summer with a full blown drought underway. I'm looking forward to some more rain and a chance to open up the windows and let the scent of fresh rain fill the apartment.

My plan today is to meet Tony for breakfast at 8:30 and then meet Don and Tony at the Cupertino Square theatre to see "Noah".  Rotten Tomatoes has given it fairly high marks, so I am looking forward to it. If nothing else for the visual spectacle that comes from IMAX, since the plan is to see it on IMAX.  Other than that, I am going to continue my work around the apartment, cleaning, trashing, donating, and interweave it with watching episodes of "The Americans".  It looks like it is going to shape up to be a good weekend.

Vacation - Day Three - Wondercon

The day started on an inauspicious note.  We went to I-Hop for breakfast and were, ultimately, disappointed. The food was not up to standard, and it certainly was no Hickory Pit.  The service was mediocre. I'd eaten at this particular I-Hop before, so I expected a good experience.  We shook it off and spend some time driving around the area to get acquainted with it, then managed to get stuck in traffic on our way back to Wondercon. Proximity to Disneyland is not necessarily a good thing.

 

But, we arrived safely back at the hotel and headed over to the convention center to start the day.  We started the day in an excellent manner - with the panel for the History Channel's show "The Vikings".  It was great to see them in person and get to see some clips from past and future episodes.  I am a big fan of the show.  The only time I miss it is when I have something else that I must do - and then I promptly watch it on DVR as soon as I can.

 

Once out of the panel, we wandered the floor a bit, then circled back to the same room for a  panel that I was looking forward to nearly as much. This time, it was "Falling Skies".  It was also an excellent panel, again, a chance to see several of the cast members (the young ones) and then watch a few clips of future episodes to come.

Once that panel was finished, we walked back to the Marriott for lunch, those excellent spring rolls and a quesadilla, chased by a small piece of s seven layer chocolate cake.  After that, it was back over the convention center, where we'd hoped to see the Sony presentation over in the arena, but, alas, the arena was mostly full.  There were scattered seats down in the crowds, but I really didn't feel like searching for them, so ultimately we popped over the Capcom panel, where they were presenting one of their new video games - "Remember Me".

Then, a bit more time on the floor and finally I headed back to the hotel to make a couple of family related phone calls, while Tony went off to play Resident Evil: Evolution at the Capcom booth.  Dinner was room service and that brings me right here, right now.  All in all it was an excellent day here at Wondercon.

A Semblance of Something Ordinary

I think if I have an overall feeling right now it would be - mostly tired.  Mainly tired from the aftermath of the food poisoning.  Though I am much better, I feel like I am catching up on my sleep.  I am generally trying to push nine or ten hours of sleep a night.  I deliberately kept this weekend as low key as I could in order to get the maximum amount of rest and relaxation out of it.

On Saturday I saw the new Dwayne Johnson movie over at Cupertino Square and followed it with dinner at TGIF.

On Sunday, it was breakfast with the guys and then we spent most of the day getting Tony's large things moved out of his apartment and up into the new shared apartment in Fremont that he is moving into.  It went fairly well for a move, all in all.  There was me, Tony, Bob and Pierre and his new roommate Dan and his wife.  There was enough hands to spread the work around, though Tony still has a lot of stuff to move, the bulk stuff is over to the new place.

From there, I came home, tried to take a nap that kept getting interrupted, then watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead (excellent as usual).  There is a new show coming on the History Channel that starts tonight that I am going to watch - "The Vikings".  It looks like it might be pretty interesting. Then, an early bed and a good night sleep, probably with a call to my step-dad mixed in there somewhere.

 My plan is to keep things very low key this week and do my best to catch up on my rest and my sleep and get my life hammered back around into a semblance of something ordinary.