net positive

- In a training/teambuilding class all day today.
+ It was actually extremely productive and useful.

- I was completely away from the net and email until very late this afternoon.
+ I survived it easily, and didn't even miss it much. It does mean, however, that I may or may not catch up on LJ.

- My website seems to have fallen off the net, along with my web host and probably all their other hosted sites. Grr. Nice folks, but they've seemed to have an increasing number of issues lately.
+ I found their phone number, so I can call in the morning if they've not straightened out the apparent DNS issue by then.

+ Doing somewhat better today, helped by 9 hours of sleep last night I think.
- Have had to try very hard to resist sending my friend the usual email with little random bits of information, like "hey, Mike Mullane is on The Daily Show tonight".
+ Sticking to my word, even though it's taken some concerted effort to do so.

+ LJBook support is back, so I can PDF the last year's worth of my journal.
- I was wrong about it including userpics in comment threads apparently, so I have to "save as" the icon conversation thread I think.

+ There is entirely too much really good chocolate in this house. There is also champagne.
- There is entirely too much really good chocolate in this house.

+ I had possibly the best dinner I've had in years last night at M&S Grill: a very tasty crab bisque, followed by grilled swordfish nicoise with artichoke hearts and roasted potatoes. Food coma ensued, and I didn't even save room for dessert.
+ "Anti-valentine" in the mail today from a friend. Thanks, you! =)
+ A live hydrangea (one of my favorites) rather than cut flowers. Thanks, Brian. =)
+ A lovely evening last night with Chris, just the two of us...
- ...until I passed out around 11:30 in a food coma. Heh.
+ Will probably get to meet soaring_phoenix this weekend, finally. Yay!
++ Dinner next week with one of my favorite exes, who will be in town. Yay!
+ About to crawl into bed with The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse and some melatonin.

Oooh!
+++++ Death Cab for Cutie/Franz Ferdinand presale tomorrow morning! (Note to self: also get Beth Orton tickets.)
- It's at the suckful DAR Constitution Hall.
+ But...Death Cab for Cutie!

(no subject)

Aaugh! I hit Ticketb*stard at 10:03 and found no Death Cab for Cutie tickets. I figured I'd missed out on the pre-sale after trying for five or six minutes and getting no option to buy tickets. I reloaded the page for some reason five minutes later and got the "look for tickets" option finally. Okay. *type* 2 tickets, best available, deal with password and stupid captcha..."no tickets found that match your request". Pre-sale seems to have sold out (at least of anything other than single tickets) in under five minutes. Or else as someone else reports, the Ticketb*astard site was having some "issues" that made it look that way. Either way, no pre-sale tickets for me. Oh well.

<Otto>DISAPPOINTED!</Otto>

Not surprised, mind you, but disappointed.

In much less disappointing news, I got my request in early enough this year to get a vegetable share in the Bull Run Mountain CSA farm. If you're not familiar with the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) concept, the basic idea is that you pay a membership fee in advance that helps cover farm production costs, and in return you receive a share of the harvest in the form of a weekly box of produce for some set number of weeks. Usually you receive your share by going to a designated drop-off point and collecting it there, or by going to the farm. You support local farmers and get fresh vegetables, hard to go wrong with that.

Mmm, boxes of fresh veggies (and occasionally flowers) every week for 19 weeks. Plus early greens in May if I want to go out to the farm, which isn't all that far from work. We decided to go with a single share rather than a two-person share, mostly because this is an experiment. Having a box of vegetables show up, some of which I may not have ever considered cooking with before, and having to figure out what to do with them rather than figuring out what I want to make and then buying ingredients should be an interesting challenge. It looks from last year's list like I'll be learning to like a lot of greens. If you're local and interested in buying a CSA share, there's a list of local farms accepting customers currently and their scheduled drop-off points on the Post's web site. The USDA link in the previous paragraph has links to databases to look up local CSA farms in other areas.