Stream of Conscience

I can just hear you… all 2 of you.

“Oh for cryin’ out loud, not again?!?”

Yep, I’ve decided to move back to my WordPress.com blog.

What’s behind the move this time?  Yesterday I got word that the domain name scifichicks.com is up for renewal.  Sci Fi Chicks is/was a website I’d planned to work with several other people, discussing sci fi, horror, fantasy tv shows.  When I first broached the idea with the others, the interest was enormous.  However, half of the people never ponied up.  (This does not include you, Natalie!  You contributed to the site until you had to withdraw.)  In hindsight, I probably should have just started it myself then asked those that were active on the site to join in.

Oh wait, that’s the impetus, not the reason.  The reason is readership and community.  WordPress.com looks at your post categories and tags and provides links to similar posts.  A great way to build readership.  Cripes, even though my site’s been dormant since the end of May, I’ve had up to 16 visitors (per day!) in the last month!

So, I’m off to WordPress.com.  Eventually I’ll probably come back to Stream of Conscience I or III (here), but I’ll try to remain in one place for awhile—at least until 2010.

I’ve been hankering to buy a new copy of Photoshop.  I bought  CS3 Extended a couple years ago (found a great deal on it at Software King).  But it crashed when my old computer crashed last summer.  I still have the discs.  Somewhere.  I haven’t been able to find them. I’m sure they’re around here somewhere, but I’m tired of looking for them.  Hence the desire to buy it anew.

Photoshop is now up to version CS4, but as expected, it’s crazy expensive.  (I can’t buy the upgrade because I don’t have the serial information for the version I lost.)  And apparently it’s buggy.  (They upgraded the way the graphics card works and both your computer and graphics card need a certain amount of RAM.)  Then there’s the issue of my Photoshop tutorial books.  They’re geared towards CS3, and who knows how applicable they are with CS4.

Then yesterday, I had one of those light bulb moments.   Why not see if I can still buy CS3?  And you know what?  I can! And it’s freakin’ cheap! Well, cheap by Photoshop standards.  And, I won’t have to worry about downloading a new graphics card driver or buying new tutorial books.  Whee!  I’m so excited!  The only problem is I won’t get the software until after the 4th of July holiday.  But I guess that’s for the better.  If I had it now, I’d most likely spend the entire long weekend playing with it instead of getting out and enjoying the day.

My favorite officer at work retired Tuesday.  This guy was amazing; technically smart, a leader who took care of his people, someone who spoke up against the red-tape stupidity inherent in any organization.  And he was a great friend.

When I left for work that morning, I was yakking to the cats.  As I stepped out the door, I told them we were losing one of the best that day, and proceeded on my way.  What I didn’t realize was how much it was going to affect me.  I began tearing up in the morning and knew I wouldn’t be able to hold it together at his ceremony.

Fortunately he was here yesterday.  (He’s dedicated like that.)  I apologized for missing his retirement and he said he’d noticed I wasn’t there.  But as I told him why, I began crying again.  He was flattered, although he kind of apologized for it since he saw how sad I was.

I’m not sure why it affected me so much.  I’ve said good-bye to good people before, and my reaction hasn’t been this strong.  I’m not going to try to analyze it now.  I’d just end up crying.  I’ll save that for my counseling session this evening.