ravencallscrows | Little Victories and Frustrations

Just recently back from getting the bloodwork my doctor ordered drawn. I'm generally the biggest coward in the world where needles and blood are drawn, but this was quick and painless. Score one on the positive side of the ledger..

Well, the camera seems to be quite functional. Still haven't shot bunches with it, but what's come out so far has looked pretty good. Hooked it up to the laptop (since it has a permanently available, easily accessible USB port), and just shooting random stuff around the house showed nicely, even on the laptop which has a typically laptop-esque video card (in short, not the sort of card anyone would deliberately buy....). Score another one on the plus side.

Because it's a functional machine and runs nicely, despite being only a 266 MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM, i figured i'd install Photoshop on it. Unfortunately, I can't find my Photoshop 5 CD. I can find the manual, but where the CD is is beyond me. Tally one on the negative side.

For whatever reason, my FTP programmes are failing horribly under Windows XP. I usually use 3D-FTP, but it's crashing repeatedly when trying to connect to the server. I also have Dreamweaver installed for those times when i'm motivated enough to write markup but not motivated enough to do it properly by handcoding everything. The Site Manager in it either successfully connects and gets the remote directory and then disconnects without warning, or refuses to upload and returns weird FTP errors. Rebooting hasn't fixed it. I'm thinking about looking for another FTP programme, preferably a free one. Score a second one on the negative side.

In hunting for the Photoshop CD, i ran across a folder of some old writings. One of them was a freelance review of Tori's "Dew Drop Inn" tour, talking about some of the songs from Boys for Pele interspersed with bits of Tori's commentaries about them, the creative process, performing and the like. There was also a second part, specifically not for publication that touched on some of the rest of our evening (although even it was seriously toned down and didn't go into everything, just the start of things and a subtle jump-cut to the end of the evening. Somethings just live in memory and don't need to ever be captured in words). Makes me nostalgic and refreshes some very precious memories. On the reverse, it has been almost six years since i've seen her, and since then we've gone in very different directions and fallen out of contact. I hope being a wife, a mother and a parent has been good for her. It certainly seems to have changed her energy dynamically, and not necessarily for the better. I hope she's happy. I hope when Scarlet's Walk comes out in late October it'll be clear that she is. As strong as the nostalgia is, i'm sad that we've drifted apart. This sword is double-edged. Score one in each column.

Finally, i'm not feeling rotten. My stomach feels better today, and the concept of eating isn't completely reprehensible today. This is decidedly a positive.