Rough week. Especially yesterday, when N and I took a very sick Bronx to the emergency vet in Seattle. He had a fever of 106; apparently I can't tell at all from his nose and ears. He was also throwing up and not eating, and wasn't anywhere near his usual rambunctious self.

Note: apparently a virus. He's recovering well, and we'll be taking him home tomorrow.

The house seems very quiet and lonely without our Bronx boy. Brooklyn and even Ticia are rambuncting as best they can, but it isn't the same. Meanwhile, apparently cats really are liquids. Or should I say that cat is a liquid?

Thursday, one of our neighbor's cows got loose in our yard. One of those things that's very funny in retrospect. We've also been having a hard time finding a caregiver for Colleen.

As I said, rough week.

Two public service announcements:

1. Breach at Equifax May Impact 143M Americans; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Security Freeze
2. If you happen to be on Whidbey Island next Sunday (the 24^th, a week from today), drop by our house for music and food. "The usual potluck bash", as we used to say of the Starport.

I'm trying to establish a schedule, so that I actually get things done, have some time for Colleen, and don't spend all my spare time online. 9-11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays are earmarked for "Unpleasant Chores" - unpacking, cleaning litter boxes, finishing up the taxes, taking out the garbage, and so on. Tag "UC:"

( Notes & links, as usual )

Hey, it's Thursday! Today I'm thankful for...

• A well-timed first paycheck, with welcome sign-on bonus. I'll have to save most of it; I'll probably need it for taxes.
• Paid vacation.
• Cats, and especially Curio-snuggles.
• Kitties and bears and goats, oh my!
• My younger daughter's new boyfriend. I love seeing her happy.
• 38 wonderful years, as of tomorrow.
• A party here on Saturday. See the Rainbow's End site for directions.

So I came out (last) Friday morning to discover that the van's driver-side side mirror was missing -- apparently somebody had driven by and scraped it off. Growf. Came out this morning to find the battery dead, but that's another blog post.

In spite of that, I discovered that my mood was unexpectedly good on Friday. No idea why. It apparently lasted for a couple of days. I also seem to be bouncing back pretty quickly from back stress; that's a good thing, too.

Saturday we had Rainbow's End's first official party, organized by Emmy. Went very well, though we could have used more people. Fun! Our chili went over pretty well, but I'm thinking that maybe we should do Stone Soup next time.

We decided to drop Orycon this year -- Colleen simply isn't ready for travel.

I started using my phone's exercise app again (CardioTrainer). I *really* need to lose weight. So far it's not working.

... and the big news -- we got the "final" version of Naomi's website (delivered on CDROM -- how 20th Century!), and I put it up: Welcome to Rainbow's End Massage. It needed a few tweaks (and still does), and I had to email her designer to get the (Adobe Illustrator) source for the images. It still doesn't show up on Google (though the designer's test site does :P); I'm hoping that a couple of blog links will help in that regard.

Links in the notes, as usual.

Our last party at the Starport is over -- it was a good one. Lots of people came out of the woodwork to wish us well. Some tears. I sang a little.

I mailed in a copy of my pension paperwork. Again.

I packed, for this week's trip to Seattle. Since one of the companies I'm interviewing at bought the tickets, I'm flying on airlines that charge for checked baggage -- heck with that! I'm taking Chami and my old, huge REI backpack/suitcase. It holds almost as much as the suitcase.

I'll be arriving late tonight, and leaving Thursday afternoon. I have interviews Monday and Tuesday afternoons; Wednesday is still open. Hint.

Some interesting links, mostly from people at the party.

A week from yesterday, on Saturday, June 9th, we're having our last party at Grand Central Starport. It's been a long run, and a good one. We've thrown at least two parties each year since we moved in 36 years ago, and four most years. Over a hundred parties.

We're moving.

Moving out, moving North, and moving on. Parties at the Starport will probably continue -- our renters are fannish. We will certainly continue to have parties, though perhaps not until we move from our apartment to a house, a year or so down the road.

But... our household, our Starport... yeah. Last chance.

We're also downsizing. A lot. So a lot of things will be up for grabs. We're giving away a lot of books, because we'd rather see them go to good homes than get a few cents for them at a used bookshop. A goodly pile of other stuff. Get it while it's hot.

There will be potluck, and soft drinks in the tub -- bring something you know you can eat, plus enough to share. There will be filking. There will be nostalgia.

The maps and directions are, as usual, on the web at the Grand Central Starport Home Page.

Bonus Song for Sunday: "So Long It's Been Good To Know Yuh" by Woody Guthrie [YouTube].

So... back to "work". Quotes, because (as it has been for the last couple of weeks) it was more about leaving than getting anything new done. I have 19 years worth of files to triage, after all. Meanwhile, Colleen is triaging her cookbooks, which is an equally gargantuan job.

The next -- and quite possibly the last -- party at the Starport will be Saturday, June 9^th. There's a move to Seattle in our near future. It's rather hard to wrap my head around.

I installed the new-to-the-house 1900x1200 monitor. Very nice, though it uses more power than its 1900x1080 predecessor, and has less contrast. On the plus side, along with the extra inch or so of vertical pixels, it stands taller so more of it is visible without having to look down.

Several links in the notes. Most of them are political :( If you prefer horror with entertainment value, try this gorgeous retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, using silhouettes.

Wednesday was a pretty good day, though I didn't take a walk. I drove home toward a gorgeous full moon rising, with wild geese flying overhead. You know, I should have been suspicious at that point.

In the evening, jilara brought over the yukata that she had taken home to hem, and I found its belt tucked away at the bottom of one sleeve. It's lovely.

Thursday morning I got in to work and was greeted by $BOSS and $CFO, and the news that I'd been laid off. Along with two other researchers in my building, and at least two three people in Menlo Park. Plus two from Japan who decided to leave the company rather than go back.

Public service announcements:

• New tag: 8.3%
• Party tomorrow at Grand Central Starport. I will have copies of my resume.
• I am currently looking for work in the San Jose and Seattle areas. Please address job-related correspondance to steve@savitzky.net or ssavitzky@gmail.com.
• I will be available to start work any time after April 1^st

Felt very restless yesterday evening. Should have taken a walk.

I've actually gotten quite a lot done, including no less than three complete run-throughs of my Consonance set (plus some discussion with Naomi about it). Well, ok -- that plus my tech reports is about all I got done. A short walk on Tuesday.

Public Service Announcement: My Consonance concert will be at 7:30pm on Friday, March 2^nd. That's, like, tomorrow night. Actually, I feel ready for this one.

Another PSA: Grand Central Starport's annual "It's Green" party will, as usual, be the Saturday after Consonance, March 10.

Quite a few links. They're pretty much all good; just look in the notes and take your pick.

Second notice: there's a party this Saturday at Grand Central Starport (maps and contact info at the link).

The usual potluck winter thingie. The household contains one person with a gluten sensitivity, three allergic to blueberries, and one allergic to mushrooms. Bring something you like to eat; we'll have chili and ham on the stove.

There will probably be filk singing. And folk singing. See you Saturday?

Good day, good party. More people than I was afraid would show up, including (former coworker) Jake. The folks at EWS are working all weekend trying to get their release out; I sang The Mushroom Song for him. He bought a CD :). I may need to package up some more of the Limited Edition; if people are going to insist on paying $20 for a $15 CD, I have to have something extra to sell them.

I made two pots of chili for dinner, since the amount of ground beef Colleen had purchased didn't fit in one pot. The larger pot was a straightforward batch of Caroll Shelby's chili kit -- ~5 lbs of meat with onions, red wine, and a little extra cumin, ancho chili, and Penzey's Chili 3000. The smaller pot had ~2.5 lbs of meat, 5 Serano peppers sliced into little circles and sauteed with the onions, the aforementioned spices in larger quantity, and cider vinegar as well as the wine (2-buck Chuck, of course). Both came out yummy. Some left over, of course; one partly-filled 1-quart ziplock bag of each.

I was out in the living room and social for a fair amount of time (including two bouts of singing), and had conversations in both the office and the kitchen. In between, I worked on configuring Nagios for monitoring the Starport's network infrastructure. Took me a while to figure out whether I wanted to do it as a separate git repo (which I could then pull from for updates), or put just the changes into a subtree of starport/Config and install with make and rsync. I eventually settled on the latter, because that's what I'm doing with all my other config files. This also lets me install things differently on different systems.

Only one link, to Irregular Webcomic! #3198, which marks the end of an era.