Indiana Week Three

[rax]

First of all, I have a skeletal summer schedule, so here goes:

• June 24-27: Anthrocon, Pittsburgh, PA --- went last year, had fun, told Diane I'd go if she was going and she said yes, so. Anthrocon! We're going to spend at least a day costumed as pokemon trainers.
• June/July borderline: Hopefully some houseguests? Nothing set in stone but we're holding the time open.
• July sometime: My parents showing up, wheee.
• Aug 6-15: In Boston for weddings and work. Eredien and I will both be there, and if anyone has crash space, that would be awesome.
• Aug 30: Classes start. Zomg!

There may be some Eredien's family in there, and maaaaybe another visit from out of town or me saying "AAAAA I'M SURROUNDED BY NOTHING" and flying standby to San Francisco, but this might already be enough travel, really. :)

So!

Juvenile birds are awesome, there's a grackle feeding its child outside on the lawn right now. <3 Do you know what else is awesome? Four baby woodchucks. Oh. My. God. They are amazing and they travel in a little cluster of squee and they're tiny and they have black tails and and and and and. The sad part is this really means we're going to get rid of them, otherwise instead of a yard we will have Rachel's Woodchuck Sanctuary. ...which is still kind of tempting. But I don't think you can get AZA accreditation for "doesn't remove vermin from lawn." ;) Speaking of lawns, we really need to start mowing --- I don't care, the woodchucks are keeping the overall height down, but I'm sure the neighbors are grumbling about those lesbians and their ill-kempt lawns. [0] Personally I'd rather the whole thing were growing food, but it's a little late for this year, we'll figure something out next year.

The inside of the house has made the mad progress. With help from laura47  we put together scads of shelving and we're now distressingly close to "most boxes unpacked." We didn't quite finish books yesterday, but we may very well finish them tonight. That only leaves finishing up the media room (we still need to order a projector), finding a kitchen island or butcher block we like, Eredien setting up her office, and then doing some of the work on the house that we want to do before we get a housemate or two. Since some of you are curious and the rest of you have stopped reading by now, here's the list of things that we want to do or get done:

• Replace the busted sliding door (we have a coupon for this but it expires soon, we need to make that happen before July 8th)
• Remove the woodchucks ;.;
• Get ceiling lights put into the dining room, bedrooms, and office
• Get insulation blown into the attic, at least on the low half of the house, maybe some additional insulation on the high half as well depending on how much it costs and how disruptive it is
• Clean the gutters, because they are an ecosystem unto themselves
• Garage door stops
• Bird mesh around the chimney

...aaaaand probably some other minor stuff. Fun times. I also need to get Indiana residency, get a license, get insurance, register my car, de-register-and-insure it in Massachusetts, figure out why they haven't sent me a gas bill yet... The logistics, man. I can't imagine having moved here a week or two before classes started and trying to figure everything out. That would have been insane. This is much, much, much nicer; we're still on track for "be basically done moving in in four weeks, and then work on the house," which was my original plan. Oh and I need to write a letter to my realtor asking for advice on "do you have an electrician you recommend?" and that kinda thing. Eep! Added to tasklist.
We had a couple of small dinners at the house last week, both of which were quite fun, and involved a bunch of cooking and then hosting and then just conversation. In another week or two we'd be set to host a 12-person dinner party but I don't know if we have twelve people to host. :) It won't be long, though, I've got communications open with a few more people and hopefully will have time to actually meet them soon. Lately we have not been doing that many for-fun things for extended periods of time --- we bought the new Race for the Galaxy expansion but haven't even opened it! When I have a few minutes here and there, I have been playing the newish version of crawl, 0.6, which I completely missed when it came out because I was so crazy with thesis and job and moving and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. [1] It's really weird, actually, playing a game that looks like I know it so well and having everything under the hood just be completely different. I think I like it, but sometimes it is super frustrating. I wonder if this is how I will feel if NetHack 4 ever comes out?

It's weird, I think I'm going to get more done once I get a little more busy. It's so easy right now to just look out the window, nod my head slowly, and pet the cat. That is probably what I needed for a couple of weeks, because I was really raw by the time we left. The itch to do more is starting to come back, though. It's familiar. I'm looking forward to it, and my tasklist is looking forward to it, but I hope I still have a little time for the birds.

[0] I swear to you, I did not notice the horrible "joke" here until after I wrote it. *sigh* I have shared the pain with you.

[1] This page alone redeems Uncyclopedia as far as I am concerned.

Comments

[ex_lacroix268]

I had a teeny finch drop onto the ground from above on Saturday. I was going for a walk, and it just... Dropped right in front of my feet.

And watched me in a really, really feverish way, but not afraid at all. Five minutes later, it went and sat on my running shoe, then started the long and arduous climb up my leg. It eventually fell off.

The bird, not the leg.

Back at home, a really fat rooster brought a hen and a little chick (a 6" long, fat chick) into the yard. I'm not fond of that rooster - he's still got his spurs, is a foot and a half tall and he once stole my steak and ate it. But I'm happy to see the little one.

[rax]

Wow, a foot and a half tall? That's much bigger than almost anything I've seen out here, although we did see two turkeys by the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere that might have been close.

"The bird, not the leg" made me grin.

[damerell]

Sporkhack's kind of like that. Lately, I've been only skimming the changelog to improve the surprise value.

[bookofjude]

I was going to leave a comment that was all AAAAAs but that's a bit passe. On another note, last year we had a huge plague of bush turkeys that basically wandered around and ate everything, including cat food, and dug up everything, including cat poop. They eventually went away though, but wow, they managed to cover everything in turkey poop.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Hooray for you - I'm glad that things are turning out so well in your life.

[iankeith.livejournal.com]

A pair of Pokemon trainers?

Look out for houndooms.

Also, it appears I have collected something that looks very similar to the Volcanobadge...it's pretty awesome.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I actually have to brush up on my pokemon knowledge; I haven't played since red. It will be exciting! Oh my god there are so many more pokemon than there used to be.

[iankeith.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Yes there are.

[doma.livejournal.com]

See, if you'd bought a DS instead of a PSP, we could have *traded* pokemon and then you'd *know* things.

[jackbishop.livejournal.com]

All your birdwatching is giving me a desire to figure out my (probably similar) local fowl. There are definitely a fair number of varieties, but the only ones I recognize with any certainty are northern cardinals and a few species of woodpecker.