Random life update
Mar. 1st, 2009 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urbpanThe house sparrow chatter outside makes it sound like it's a beautiful warm spring day. In fact we're getting our traditional March First snowstorm, first of two parts. Today it's light and fluffy but sticking. Tomorrow it's supposed to pile up to nearly a foot. I guess my Texan coworker will get her chance to go sledding after all.
Life has been interesting, maybe a little too interesting. I haven't really posted about it on livejournal since my mom died; I've been going a little bonkers on facebook, where people know me as me, and not as The Urban Pantheist. There I feel a little better about posting music videos and trading funny insults with old friends.
I took a gun safety course yesterday, and fired a real gun for the first time in my life. I can see where people think that's fun. I'd like to go back to the range and try shooting with a little more distance--I shot the hell out of the target at 15 feet, but that's just outside of point blank, really. Being in a gun club in Massachusetts was interesting. The instructor and much of the club staff are clearly in the "liberals want to take my guns" camp. And they kind of have a point, but they aren't going to convince many liberals that there's anything wrong with that, with their wide-eyed tinfoil hat approach to the issue.
The zoo has an annual film festival, composed of 10 minute movies made by staff. I went last year and it was really fun, with movies ranging from painfully amateurish to charmingly amateurish. This year I was asked to emcee the event. I agreed, but I really have no idea what I'm going to do. Some people want me to be funny, but I think the organizers just want someone who doesn't think they have to put on a show. Last years' emcee changed his costume four or five times, and clearly thought this was funny.
I also agreed to be on a committee to help plan a zoo trivia night, and zoo movie night (where we show hollywood movies in the zoo for staff to enjoy). So far the increased stress of this is mild, but as the events get closer, I can tell they will take a toll.
All this stuff is happening in the next several weeks. With the spring months, peoples' calendars thaw out, and tons of events come splashing out everywhere. Also in April I'll be teaching a Pest Control Class, starting the stable fly and mosquito control programs, and going on vacation for a week. I know the vacation is the good part, but it's hard not to see it as a week that just disappears from the calendar while events fill up all around it. After that is a spring Mushroom class, and I really should rejoin the mycology society so that I can brush up on mushrooms and actually sound like I know something.
And I haven't run an urban nature walk in months, owing to family stuff and hatred of winter. Now I'd really like to bring the group to Dane Park but it would best if I could find someone who knows a lot about geology to help guide us through "terranes" and the continent of Avalon and such. Anyone know a geologist who would like to help?
Then it's summer, and I'd really like to not have anything planned for it, but I also would like to get out and enjoy what could be my last summer in New England for a while. Oh, and there's a distinct possibility that we could move to another unit in our building in the summer, and have our current unit renovated.
Time to stop volunteering to do things, I think.
(also somewhere in there Maggie will have her second surgery, we'll go to vermont, my dad and I will go overseas, and then it's fall)
Life has been interesting, maybe a little too interesting. I haven't really posted about it on livejournal since my mom died; I've been going a little bonkers on facebook, where people know me as me, and not as The Urban Pantheist. There I feel a little better about posting music videos and trading funny insults with old friends.
I took a gun safety course yesterday, and fired a real gun for the first time in my life. I can see where people think that's fun. I'd like to go back to the range and try shooting with a little more distance--I shot the hell out of the target at 15 feet, but that's just outside of point blank, really. Being in a gun club in Massachusetts was interesting. The instructor and much of the club staff are clearly in the "liberals want to take my guns" camp. And they kind of have a point, but they aren't going to convince many liberals that there's anything wrong with that, with their wide-eyed tinfoil hat approach to the issue.
The zoo has an annual film festival, composed of 10 minute movies made by staff. I went last year and it was really fun, with movies ranging from painfully amateurish to charmingly amateurish. This year I was asked to emcee the event. I agreed, but I really have no idea what I'm going to do. Some people want me to be funny, but I think the organizers just want someone who doesn't think they have to put on a show. Last years' emcee changed his costume four or five times, and clearly thought this was funny.
I also agreed to be on a committee to help plan a zoo trivia night, and zoo movie night (where we show hollywood movies in the zoo for staff to enjoy). So far the increased stress of this is mild, but as the events get closer, I can tell they will take a toll.
All this stuff is happening in the next several weeks. With the spring months, peoples' calendars thaw out, and tons of events come splashing out everywhere. Also in April I'll be teaching a Pest Control Class, starting the stable fly and mosquito control programs, and going on vacation for a week. I know the vacation is the good part, but it's hard not to see it as a week that just disappears from the calendar while events fill up all around it. After that is a spring Mushroom class, and I really should rejoin the mycology society so that I can brush up on mushrooms and actually sound like I know something.
And I haven't run an urban nature walk in months, owing to family stuff and hatred of winter. Now I'd really like to bring the group to Dane Park but it would best if I could find someone who knows a lot about geology to help guide us through "terranes" and the continent of Avalon and such. Anyone know a geologist who would like to help?
Then it's summer, and I'd really like to not have anything planned for it, but I also would like to get out and enjoy what could be my last summer in New England for a while. Oh, and there's a distinct possibility that we could move to another unit in our building in the summer, and have our current unit renovated.
Time to stop volunteering to do things, I think.
(also somewhere in there Maggie will have her second surgery, we'll go to vermont, my dad and I will go overseas, and then it's fall)
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 04:38 pm (UTC):hugs:
btw- Zoo movie night- might I suggest the superintelligent ants flick PHASE IV? Just watched it for the first time last night- pretty decent, although way Seventies and it gets a few entomological facts wrong (spiders and millipedes are called "fellow insects") and the 'Queen Ant' is clearly a rather miffed Pompilid wasp in a weeny ant suit...
no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 04:59 pm (UTC)The zoo staff has kind of depressing taste in movies, imo. I figured there'd be more sci fi and horror fans, but there is much more enthusiasm for "chick flicks." I suppose it's something of a compromise that our first planned movie night will be "Twilight."
no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 05:10 pm (UTC)I enjoyed TWILIGHT, mostly for RPattz *g*
What about THEM! EMPIRE OF THE ANTS or EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS?!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 05:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 06:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-01 11:06 pm (UTC)There are so many movies you guys could be watching with zoos in them. Off the top of my head...
Fierce Creatures
Cat People (The Nastasia Kinski one)
Madagascar
Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (The dumbing down of that title for American audiences has always bugged me)
Twelve Monkeys
I am legend
The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course
Well, okay that's seven, but there's got to be more out there.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 11:30 pm (UTC)Madagascar
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 01:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 01:18 am (UTC)The politics is ancillary. The shooting is what everyone's really there for.
Just be careful: it's addictive. And once you start buying the little lead throwers, they seem to multiply like rabbits in the safe.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 01:30 am (UTC)It seems like a pretty expensive hobby. A good gun costs as much as a good bicycle, which is a little more useful to me at the moment.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 04:12 pm (UTC)Some really great deals at Civilian Marksmanship Program, where they sell off the old stock from all the US armories. Great deals on gently-used WWII rifles, that are as enjoyable for their history as much as their shooting abilities. Also, they make great conversation pieces and actually appreciate in value. /end plug.
Hnadguns are definitely a weapon borne for final desperate defense. That said, there are plenty of contests that get away from that whole aspect of it. Knocking over bowling pins or tin cans at 50 yds is strangely satisfying.
I have a buddy who owns a wolf rescue ranch in Montana where he rehabs the hurt ones, and tries to get as many back into the wild as possible. A few never make it and become "pets". The Glock .40 strapped to his hip saved his life one night when one of them decided to get frisky. If I worked with dangerous animals, I'd wanna give myself that edge, just in case. Of course, I'm unduly suspicious of caged animals anyway and that's just one of the reasons I would maek a terrible zookeeper.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-02 03:25 am (UTC)I'm also in the "liberals ARE trying to take the guns" camp, but being a retard about anything sure doesn't convince anyone to listen to your point of view.
I just canceled my California Rifle and Pistol Association membership because every newsletter is full of pondering about conservative political issues, flag waving and complaining about liberals instead of being all about...you know...gun legislation.
Once you become a non-conservative person who is into guns, you just stop talking to anyone about the issue, because you get sickened by the absolute idiocy on both sides of the political spectrum. I don't think any other activity, issue or position has been so depressing in terms of making me realize the extent to which stupidity has completely permeated all sides of the political spectrum.