When I got to work this morning, everyone it seemed was talking about the CBS TV series of Stephen King’s Under the Dome that I gave an opinionated “review” of in my previous post. I also read a “professional” review that gave it a better shake than I did. That got me thinking… Did I “Disrespect the Dome?” Have I become so inured that I was failing to perceive something that others were enjoying?
I kind of expected it, but I must say I found the CBS TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Domevery underwhelming. While the book was okay (until the end) it was similar to, but not as good as so many other King novels which explore (at least in part) a group of ‘small town’ characters under the pressure of some mysterious threat. Such novels as ‘Salems Lot, Needful Things, The Tommyknockers, It, and much more. The only thing I found vaguely intriguing about the novel was the mystery of the dome itself, and the final reveal of that mystery I felt was disappointing. Continue reading ‘Under The Dome’ Very Underwhelming
I wish I had something profound to post on this event, but I guess I’m kind of exhausted at the moment. It all seems like just another errand I had to run and discussing it is just another thing I ought to do. I know it is much more than that and that I should write something at least; but my heart and mind don’t want to dwell on it.
What am I talking about? After work today I went by the vet’s office to pick up my dog, Buddy’s ashes.
I kind of knew what to expect and knew it would bother me. However, the thing that’s depressing me at this point isn’t so much that Buddy’s gone, but the almost everyday banality of it. Here’s the remains of my best friend and companion for 15 years and they fit in a tin box that looks like something you might get some nice holiday chocolates in or something. And I feel kind of creepy having him cremated in the first place, let alone discussing it. Continue reading Ashes and Memories
Well I decided to swear off Facebook. It’s been a long time coming. No specific event or thing that made me finally decide to do it now, but in general I got so sick of everyone’s political, religious, sport team related, or otherwise just plain annoying posts that instead of removing everyone from my friends list I decided to just remove myself.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but earlier I stopped using this personal blog site because no one visited it. Now I have decided to start using this site again specifically for that reason. Yes, I’ll be posting to a vacuum, as no one will see it unless they specifically come here or subscribe to the feed. I don’t actually expect anyone to do that, but if anyone does they must really want to follow my stupidity and they are welcome to it. Besides the rare bit of “social” posting I’ll put on this site, I plan on using Google+ a bit more. The number of people in my circles is a lot smaller there, the site is used less, and it’s a little easier to control it so I don’t get a lot of garbage I don’t want to see.
First, I hit another landmark on my goal to lose the gut and get to a healthy weight again. I’ve been using the website www.MyFItnessPal.com and their free Android App to watch what I eat and have committed myself to regular exercise (currently 30 minutes a day, 6 days a week). I have been using the site, and keeping within these food and fitness goals now for 18 days, (just under 3 weeks,) and have just crossed the 10 pound point, having last 11 pounds as of today’s weigh-in. A dynamic “ticker” showing my current weight loss and progress towards my goal should appear below.
Second, I got my new dedicated hiking backpack from Amazon today. It is a Osprey Kestrel 32. Awesome pack. I also got a Osprey 2 liter hydration reservoir, so now I won’t have to take my pack off all the time to get a drink. I’m hoping to try it out for the first time tomorrow. Got to get it all loaded up and ready to go tonight.
I have a number of photo / hiking sessions to report that I need to process and get archived & uploaded. Hopefully will be posting those soon, but for now I would rather go hike (and lose some more weight). So until then…
Last night it felt like I wasn’t in Kansas anymore… I mean, Colorado.
I’ve been house- and dog-sitting for my mom & step dad, and last night was pretty stormy, causing our psychotic dogs to go more nuts than usual because of the thunder. I eventually crated my parent’s two small dogs, and got my old-man doggy to lie down and relax enough that I too managed to fall asleep — for all of an hour.
Well, I got a lot of work done tonight / this morning. I have a new website up, but it has a long way to go. Haven’t decided what all I want to do with it, just that it is high time I got off my tookas and start doing something. So while there isn’t anything here yet, here’s what I did:
Installed IIS on my new laptop.
Backed up my old site.
Installed WordPress and began to play with it all.
Everything went fairly smoothly; even though I had a lot to learn about changes to my host, operating system (haven’t used Windows 7 much until now except for “the basics”,) and WordPress itself. I’ve never been great in PHP but I managed to alter the default WordPress theme (which I kind of like) to randomly pull from some of my own images. Pretty kludgy the way it works, but I’m using WordPress’s own code and just adding to it.
I also played with one of my photos to make my first header which you should be able to see at the top of this page as I have set it as the featured image for this post. The thumbnail below also links to this new header image:
Roxborough State Park
Well, long past time that I should hit the sack, so I will continue to experiment with this site in the days and months to come. Hopefully somewhere along the way it will actually become something worth visiting.
