Something Swift this way comes…

234 days later, the wandering minstrel has returned.
5616 hours…336960 minutes….20217600 seconds later…and I’m back.

My life has been by turns exceedingly busy, and one dull day after another. Sometimes it’s all I can do to sit at the keyboard anymore, and the thought of actually coming up with material to write? Pishposh. So, now that I’ve wandered the land, letting boredom be my guiding hand, and now that school is almost back in for the year (for me at least) I’ve returned. I don’t promise that I’ll write every day, or hell, even every week. I’m still a stodgy, curmudgeonish bandersnatch full of snarl and snap – that much has not changed. But I come to the fore with more thought now, a slowing of my consideration, a deepening of my contemplation. I find that if I think on a matter for long enough, dig at its intricacies, I either understand it more fully, or I go insane with the realization that I’ll never understand it. Alas, not every ending is happy, eh?

So, here’s what’s new in my life:

I’m now running Linux (slackware 10.1, kernel 2.6.12.2 #1) instead of the dreaded winblows…have been for some months now and find it more to my liking.
The OS itself is infinitely more frustrating in its intricacies and power, but I like that in an OS. Who would’ve thought? I dig intelligence and looks, not just
T&A and a glitzy GUI.

I’ve been out of school from june till the end of september, trying to take a break and failing miserably. I find myself as tired as when I was carrying a full load of classes and working at the same time. I guess that means I’m getting old. Well, it’s true. I am getting old. I’ll be 29 this year and that’s almost 30. So…I’m getting old/er/ at least. But I still refuse to grow up. Screw that. I don’t need that kinda heat. Nope, I’m gonna be a kid – in mind and heart at least – until they put me in a box and bury me.

My wife and I are trying to adopt a little girl. Well, we’re trying to /foster/ her first (one metric ass load of hoops to jump through) and then if/when the parents rights are terminated, we will then try to adopt her. We don’t have her in the home yet, but we have done everything we can just now to try and convince them that we’re not psycho killers on the market for a kid to raise in our image. It’s a good things we’re really not. Psycho killers I mean. It will probably be the christmas season before we actually hear anything on whether we’re going to get the right to foster the kid – DFCS moves damnably slow, at least down here they do – So, until then, you know as much about it as I do. Well, okay, no I know more, but I like it that way. Builds my self esteem. Besides, there’s not enough hours left in the night for me to go into the nitty gritty of the situation. I’ll probably fill you in on that later.

My family is doing well…mom got moved from the place where she work(s/ed) in Quitman to their bigger store over here in Valdosta. Plus they’ve given her the loan of a vehicle to drive back and forth from the one place to the other. I guess they’ll eventually bite the bullet and move over here, but I don’t know when, if ever. I’ve tried to tell them that Quitman is a run-down little shit hole with no prospects of doing anything but getting more run down and shittier as the days go by. The people who run the city and the county (mainly the guys who run the city) like to run the city as far into the ground as they can. I don’t know why, but if you’d ever been through Quitman, you’d know what I mean.

I’ve found a neat little program that does 3d graphics, and I’ve gotten to where I can make recognizeable objects with it (which is saying a lot since I’m as artistic as a kitchen sponge…okay, you got me, the sponge has more talent). The program is called Blender and is /free/. Free as in speech, and free as in beer. It’s a hellaciously powerful program – professional grade results, and I highly recommend anyone that needs a good 3d graphics/animation suite to check it out. Hell, even if you just want to play with one, check it out. It’s at http://blender3d.org even if you don’t want to work with it, you might want to go and check it out – especially the gallery. Some of the things there will blow your mind, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The guys over at http://www.elysiun.com/forum/ do some fantastic work as well. You’ll be amazed by the sheer proliferation of artists who use blender on the internet, I swear. Okay, okay, I know I’m sounding like an infomercial, so I’ll shut it.

As for the rest of my life, eh, I’ve been reading a lot, watching TV, going to work, and enjoying being with my wife as much as possible. Which, since school started back for her at the beginning of August, hasn’t been nearly enough for me, but beggars can’t be choosers I suppose. Actually, that’s a stupid cliche. Beggars /can/ be choosers. They can choose to dig in one garbage can or another. It’s all a matter of perspective I suppose. Anyways, I’m rambling. So, with that, this is my hello and welcome back post, any of you who actually manage to make it back by here in the next millenia to check the website (I doubt anyone actually still does come by here), I’m alive, and I am well, and as always, thank you for stopping by.

S