brynach

Voting

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 06:48:51 GMT

I have to admit that I was pretty ambivilent about the whole election thing. I mean, yeah, we got a new black president and all, but then Proposition 8 passed in California, and I got mad as hell.

Prop 8, for the one or two people reading this who either don't pay attention or are outside of California, is a constituional ammendment to the CA State Constitution defining marriage, both civil and religious, as between a man and a woman. Same sex couples cannot have the same rights as heterosexual couples. Since the only people reading this know me, they should already know that I am a strong proponent of civil rights and equality before the law, as is the "American" way, so my reasons for being so mad should be fairly clear.

So I've been walking around for the last couple of days in a sour mood, feeling like we're taking one step forward and two steps back, and feeling not at all charitable to my fellow man.

And then I saw this news story: (http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/news/woman_votes_in_ambulance.html;jsessionid=8CBE3EC5F76363F5FC9FFDEC48CEB61C)

Determined Texas Woman, 92, Votes in Ambulance
Associated Press
2008 Nov 4
SAN ANTONIO -- Betty Owen is 92 and after a stroke four years ago, needs a feeding tube and can't walk. But she was determined not to miss Tuesday's election. She arrived at her polling place on a gurney in an ambulance, where an election judge and support worker climbed aboard with an electronic voting machine and let her cast her ballot.
"And you have voted," precinct judge Sam Green said after Owen pushed the red button finalizing her choices. "You know, you look so pretty in that red dress."
Owen grinned, the San Antonio Express-News reported in Tuesday's online edition.
Her daughter arranged for the ambulance ride at the last minute after Owen failed to get an absentee ballot.

In a time when people can barely be troubled to take ten minutes out of their schedule to vote, when people can't be bothered to read up on laws being passed, and when 52% of voters in California decide to ignore the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence and vote for hate and bigotry, we have a woman who finds a way to get to the polls and do her duty to this country.

It's things like this that really restore my faith in the world. Yes, I'm cynical, and yes, I do say that about all kinds of stupid and bad things, but really, I like to know that no matter how many morons and asses there are out there, there are still good people who care and are willing to make the effort.

So here's to you, Mrs. Owen, here's hoping you're still around next election.

A walk down memory lane

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:43:38 GMT

Considering how few people even know this account exists, I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but I figure it's worth a few words anyway.

You ever go on the internet and look through networking sites for old friends and classmates? Just for the helluvit? You ever look at old yearbooks and say, hey, I wonder what they're doing, and then go try to find out?

My advice is, don't. Not unless you want to chisel your jaw out of the floor.

Having gone for a stroll down memory lane, I find myself, not depressed, as I have been in the past, but rather, somewhat ambivilant. We've all moved on, to new people, new places, and new things. I quite honestly wonder whether or not some of these people would even recognize me anymore. I've changed, and so have they. The thing is, they really aren't my friends anymore. With a couple of the people, I went to send them a message, you know, the "hi, don't know if you remember me" thing, and then I stopped myself, took a step back, and said, "Okay, first, are they going to appreciate this, second, are they going to write back, and third, do either one of you have anything to say to each other?"

The thing was, I didn't. And that's okay.

There are two people who I am still looking for. They really were my friends, and I want to find out what happened to them. We lost touch, but I think it's time to reestablish contact and just see if the past can be the present/future as well. Other than them, however, reunions serve little or no purpose, beyond strutting and boasting about ourselves. Yeah, that sounds cynical, I know, but it's true. We aren't a part of each other's lives anymore, and that's as should be.

And then I found my little cousin's Facebook account, and discovered that she's in High School.

God, I have to start keeping up with the joneses more.

And Suddenly, It's a Lot More Personal

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 05:30:38 GMT

I just went on Myspace, which I haven't done in a while, and found out that a friend of mine from high school is in Iraq with the Army.

And suddenly, this war just got a whole lot more personal.

Not much else I can say.

Back in the Saddle Again

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 03:51:55 GMT

I am certifiably insane.

I am taking eighteen units at HSU, plus five at College of the Redwoods (local community college). The eighteen units are all connected to either my major or to GE, so I need to pass them all as best as I can.

The five units are actually a 120 hours of POST (Peace Officer Standards Training) for Public Safety Dispatcher.

Yes, you heard that right. I've given up on getting good jobs on the street for now, and am looking at a desk job. A desk job worth $33 grand a year, plus benefits. Good money, if you can get it. Course, it doesn't help me in Nevada, as POST is only for California peace officers. But what the hell, at least it's a course that's fun.

I'll start trying to update more frequently. Maybe put some essays or writing on here. Not like I get a lot of guests, but hey, I've got the time.

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:43:09 GMT

Wow, it's been a while.

Tells you something about me, probably.

So, anyway, since the last time I wrote,I no longer work for maintnence, and I no longer play D&D. I still game occassionally, with BESM and WOD, but not as much as I used to.

So, yeah, I need to update more often.

At least once a year sounds good

Brynach

Gaming

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 04:45:14 GMT

Recently, I left (or, perhaps more accurately, was politely and, I might add, very correctly, let go from) a volunteer position that had taken up a lot of my time. The reasons for this had nothing to do with either my heart or my work ethic; they had to do with politics and my ability to physically preform my duties without difficulty.

Because of this, I now have nothing but time (or, at least, as much as a 10 hr/day, 4 day work week allows me). It also had the effect of allowing me to take up something that I've long been interested in: roleplaying.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING WILL PROBABLY ONLY MAKE SENSE (OR HAVE ANY INTEREST LEVEL) TO NERDS LIKE ME WHO ENJOY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. Everyone else might want to leave for a while.

Yesterday night was my first roleplaying experience, and it was with the old classic of D&D. It was a game in the Eberron setting, a new one since the previous game had lost one of it's major players to a junior college closer to home. There were four of us playing, plus the DM; a druid, which I can't remember the race; a shifter rouge (played by another newbie); another shifter whose exact job escaped me; and me, a dwarven monk.

Now, maybe that's just my playing style, but in both of the fights that the DM threw at us, I neither took nor gave any damage (I did try to kick, but those damn kobolds are slippery characters). The rouge was anything but a rouge; the person playing her is one of the sweetest people I know in real life, and it kind of bled into her character. Still, we pretty much got off the ground, with stolen scrolls, kobolds, an evil monastary, and a large and not very bright warforged who kept getting his head used as a springboard.

And then the daelkyr halfblood showed up. A level five telepath of some sort, who I think was some sort of daelkyr mindflayer.

If you're one of those people who doesn't get a word of what I'm talking about, daelkyr are insanely powerful and almost impossible to kill. Especially when they are at level five and you are at level three.

That would have been okay, as he wasn't really interested in killing anything, but unfortunately, there was a daelkyr and a druid in the same room, and there is no better recipe for disaster that we could have come up with. Fortunately for me, I was halfway across town, trying to find my chapterhouse at the time.

I survived, as did one of the shifters. However, the rouge was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and took 17 damage with only ten hitpoints (translation: very, very dead). The druid took similar damage, but survived long enough for the shifter (his bodyguard) to use a cursed potion on him that rendered him (the druid) petrified, invisible, and about to be life-drained. That was where we ended it, having managed to kill 50% of our party in the first session.

Only one session of D&D, and I love it. I'm a nerd.

News of the Weird

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 02:36:13 GMT

As anyone who has read my bio knows, I'm a student assistant maintnence worker at my college (that basically translates into "apprentice janitor"). It is basically my job to fix things that other people have broken; I have four days of ten hour shifts where I just put stuff back together in the dorms. It's a good gig, but sometimes you learn just a bit more than you wanted to about human nature.

Today was one such day. The actual assignment was for a desk with an unknown problem; just another one of those endless tasks that colleges carry out in the dorms after all of the students leave.

There's nothing out of the ordinary at first glance when I enter the room. The desk is at ninety degrees to the wall, with the back up against the head of the bed. I open up the desk on the left, no problems. I move over to the one on the right, start checking the drawers. Ah, hah! The computer tray has a damaged glide, and won't close all the way. This is a simple, everyday procedure that I have done so many times I can change both glides in under five minutes. Easy in, easy out. I remove the drawer itself to gain access to the glides, and sit down crosslegged on the floor just in the leg well.

And then I see the real damage.

About six to eight inches from the top of the desk, maybe two, two and a half feet off the ground, there are two round holes that look like they've been chiseled through the back of the desk. They'd be under the computer tray when it was closed; close together, maybe an inch to an inch and a half apart.

Double take.

Okay, that can't be what they're for. I lean in to prove it, and immediately realize that I'm either spot on the money, or I'm missing something. These are tailor made eyeholes, and I'm staring at the head of the bed more or less at eye level.

I call in my supervisor, who takes care of the big stuff, and show him the holes. He says we can't fix them, walks out, and then is back again in five seconds. "What is that for?" he says.

"I can only think of a couple of things," I tell him.

He looks from the bed to the desk and back again. "No."

Unfortunately, neither one of us can think of any other reason for the holes to be there, though we disagree on which direction the viewer was supposed to look through. I figure that the holes are there to give the viewer the best possible view of his roomate and a female (or male) friend in the act. My supervisor figures that they're there to give a person lying on the bed the best view possible of a female in a skirt while at the computer. Either way, someone went through a lot of time, trouble, and (in the near future) almost certainly no small amount of cash to bore two eyeholes through the back of a university desk.

Just another addition to the list of things that I did not want to think about.