all over the map

I went up to the Bay Area over winter break, where I spent about a week with queenpam's family and friends in San Jose, then another week in San Francisco where I got to see at least some of my old friends. We threw a New Years' Eve party at the house where I used to live, and since the current residents were mostly out of town, I got to organize most of it. Bought too much food, but hey. We made mulled wine according to papersky's recipe and it was very well received, although people did drink rather more of the teetotal version (which substitutes more apple juice for the wine) — this is because a surprising number of my friends just plain don't drink. caesia put my shoes on by mistake when she was leaving, which means it must have been a good party according to the "someone can't find their clothes afterward" definition. (She brought them back the next day, and we had a good laugh.)

Also, got to tick off another country visited, sort of: queenpam and I made a day trip to Rosarito (in Baja California) mainly to buy stuff to give people at Christmas. I'm somewhat embarrassed this is the first time I've ever been to Mexico and all I did was shop; need to go back and see more. I'm tempted to rent a Jeep and drive all the way down the peninsula. Maybe in springtime. Perhaps finding some way of brushing up on my decayed Spanish first.

First week of winter quarter began this past Monday. So far, things are well. People generally seem to like my 2nd year project, although I do have to rewrite the proposal again to fix the holes Coulson and Kutas poked in it (and the big gaping hole I already knew about). Also, I signed up for a marine conservation policy seminar down at SIO (Scripps Institute of Oceanography - most of UCSD's earth sciences are under their umbrella) and the professor wishes the class to collectively write a restoration plan for a chunk of (once and future) salt marsh down in Mission Bay. Which will actually be used by the city. SO AWESOME.

Sorting through one's finances after six months of letting it slide is No Fun. Neither is repairing Ethernet cables. I know there is a reason why the green pair goes on either side of the blue pair instead of being kept together like all the others, but it's a lame historical reason having to do with telephones, and man does it make it harder to get all the wires in the right order and lined up and all exactly the same length. Also, I'm never sure I've gotten all the wires all the way to the ends of their little channels in the plug. How the heck are these things mass-produced? Are there entire factories in China full of poor schlemiels who do nothing but attach plugs to cables all day?

New Years' resolution: starting now, one post a day. It may be long and profound, or it may be short and random, but there'll be at least one post a day.

... oh cool, i can put italics tags in the music box.

... Does anyone know how to make the "disable auto-formatting" tickybox be ticked by default?