This morning I was informed of another "realignment" in my day job. I will now be the "Quality Systems Manager" instead of the "Quality Assurance Manager." I don't have much of an idea about what that means yet. It doesn't mean any more money, though.

Meanwhile, Yahoo! has informed me that they'll be shutting down their long-running GeoCities free web hosting site as of October 26. Does this mean the end of the road for my old Shooting Locations Site and my Alyson Hannigan/Amber Benson Photo Site? Or do I move them somewhere else?

Ever since Marina and Leyna were born, we've been photographing them every year in this one chair at my parents' lake house. However, I think this year that tradition reached its limit.



From left to right, that's Charlotte, Marina, Leyna and Brandt.

( This way for more photos from this year's July 4 Lake House Gathering... )

You can see the entire set here. And a bit more to come!

My six-year-old computer and my parents' new wireless router weren't on speaking terms, so I've been out of touch since Saturday. It's good to have the world back - although I understand the Michael Jackson-palooza is still going on, and I'm not sorry I missed that.

Photos tomorrow, once I get home.

How the heck do you do it?

Today my brother and his family arrived. That includes my oldest niece Marina (age 4-1/2) and my youngest niece Charlotte (11 months). They're fun, but boy are they tiring.

I started out with Charlotte. I've never been very good with babies, but she took to me for some reason. After a bit of bouncing her on my knee, I held her so she was standing on my lap and then tried to see if she would want to bounce up and down herself. Little did I know that's one of her favorite games, but I found out quickly. And golly I didn't need to do my shoulder exercises after that, because my shoulders were thoroughly exercised already.

Fast forward a bit - my brother and sister-in-law go out to shop for a couple of things, leaving the girls with Grandma, Grandpa and me. I still had Charlotte, and was doing pretty well, until she suddenly got upset about something and started crying. None of us could figure out what was the matter. My parents took over, but nothing worked for very long. While they were doing that, I took over with Marina. Little did I realize that meant I'd be the designated playmate for the rest of the evening. Downstairs with the Fisher-Price castle, upstairs with my sister's old doll stuff, back downstairs with the dry-erase board that my mom salvaged from the school. Four-year-olds are an energetic bunch.

Before they got here, my mom and I went clothes shopping. She had some gift cards that she wanted to use up, and I needed some new black pants for the Integrity Eucharist I'm singing in next week at the Episcopal Church's General Convention. It was a win-win.

Tomorrow it's off to the lake, where my sister and her family will join us. This weekend is really going to be something. I hope I survive.

One thing I like about flying into Indianapolis is that one of the primary approach routes goes over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Today I was ready for it.



I was only here a few weeks ago, so things haven't changed much. My parents do seem more at ease with being retired, and that's a good thing. My dad also gave me a couple of pictures he took at the Children's Author Festival I was in during my last visit.



My brother and his family are due to fly in tomorrow afternoon, and we head up to the lake house on Saturday, where we'll meet my sister and her family.

It's not even midnight yet, and I'm already mostly packed for my trip tomorrow. It's back to Indiana for the annual July 4 family gathering at the lake house. It's going to be very interesting now that Marina and Leyna are now both four years old, and each has a younger sibling. I'm still not sure where my parents are going to put everybody.

Meanwhile, the BBC has decided to cram an entire season of Torchwood into a week and a half, and it just happens to be the week and a half that I'm traveling. The abbreviated TV season is a single five-part story, "Children of Earth," which runs Monday through Friday of next week, and before that, BBC4 is running three new audio dramas on its Afternoon Play program. The first one, "Asylum," ran today, and it's much better than the BBC's first attempt at a Torchwood audio, "Lost Souls," which ran last September. Let's hope that keeps up in the next two stories, which run tomorrow and Friday.

So will Torchwood be able to give me a break from four-year-olds? Inquiring minds want to know.

This is my 2000th LiveJournal entry. Yay me.

CONTENT ADVISORY: If you're particularly upset and/or sensitive about the recent passing of Michael Jackson, do not click on the LJ-Cut below.

( I mean it! You were warned! If you click here and get offended, don't come crying to me! )

The Conejo Valley Open Space is a large stretch of land south of the 101 Freeway and the city of Thousand Oaks, only about ten miles away from me. I've driven past it, around it and through it, but have never done any hiking there. Then last night I discovered that the Open Space Foundation has its own website, complete with maps of several different trails. It was time to check the place out.

I chose the closest trailhead, which is right in the middle of the Los Robles Trail. Several cars were already parked there when I arrived, and the Open Space Foundation even had a little tent set up, with greeters who gave me a map and recommended a trail for me. I thanked them and got on my way.



(I was wearing my Sarah Fisher Kroger hat today, which I bought in Richmond VA at the very first Sun Trust Indy Challenge race in 2001. This year's edition runs tonight.)

( Click here for more pics )

There certainly won't be hills like this when I'm in Indiana next weekend.

As the world reeled from today's one-two punch of celebrity deaths, I was dealing with something a little closer to home.

It didn't take long this morning to get a sense that something was up in the day-job world. Executives were getting paged by the Human Resources office, and people were holding meetings behind closed doors. Someone who knew more than I did said an announcement was coming, but wouldn't say what it was. Then the company grapevine got going, and the dreaded "L" word began to surface. Yes, the recession had finally brought layoffs to Raypak.

As you may recall, the Raypak management has been trying all sorts of creative ways to hold onto its permanent employees. It looked like we'd made it through the worst of times. Business was slowly starting to pick up. But our parent company, Rheem, is having to close an entire factory in its air conditioner division, and something like that doesn't happen without ripples spreading out from it. The entire corporation has been ordered to make "personnel reductions," all the way up to Corporate HQ in Atlanta. And so today we cut fourteen people loose.

Personally, I'm okay. My department already took its hit for the team a while ago, when one of my technicians started transferring over to the Engineering department in order to help keep new product development going. My other two guys and I are pretty secure in our jobs - in fact, the new General Manager actually understands what I do and wants me to do more of it, which is more than I could say about most executives I've worked for. But that doesn't mean today was easy. This economic mess keeps affecting more and more people around me. Haven't we had enough yet?

And it doesn't help that my book has hit a snag. I'd hoped to get Chapter 4 done before I left for Indiana next week, but I've been stuck for pretty much the entire week. Nothing I can't get out of, but it hasn't been the most conducive environment for getting focused.

Following up on yesterday... it turns out that by July 1, I will have accrued one more day of vacation time, so I can take five hours off that day and three hours off on the 10th, which will get me to both my choir events.

Whew!

Now I have to get ready to do this all over again when the Satellite Educators Conference comes along in August. Maybe I'll just call in sick that day...

Today's lesson is - If you're going to be dishonest, don't try to be honestly dishonest.

I've got a lot of stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Indiana for my family's annual July 4 gathering at the lake house, but I've also got two special choir performances, one on July 1 and the other on July 10. My trip to Indiana for the Carmel Library Author Festival ran down my available vacation time, so right now I have just enough for my trip. On the other hand, I've maxed out on the amount of sick time I have, because I'm rarely out sick. It seemed reasonable to me that I could use some of my sick time for the two choir performances. In fact, I've allowed the people who work for me to do similar things.

But when I asked my boss about it, he turned me down. "Sick time is sick time," he said, "not extra vacation time." So now I've got to figure out how to juggle my schedule around - come in a little early here, stay a little late there - in order to get the time I need to go sing.

Of course, I could have just waited until July 1 and then called in sick to take the day off, but noooooo... I had to be honest and up front about it. That wasn't very smart of me, now was it?

People have been asking me what I think of the various "reboots" of TV shows that have been going on - Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, an effort to make a new Buffy without Joss Whedon, and so on. When they do, I remind them that my all-time favorite TV show has been rebooting itself every few years since before I was born, and currently has several different continuities going on at the same time.

Yes, it's that wacky Doctor Who. Even though the BBC is giving the weekly series a rest this year, in the midst of wrapping up the Russell T. Davies/David Tennant era and launching the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith era, others have stepped up to keep the TARDIS running. Big Finish Productions ran a third series of audio dramas with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Sheridan Smith as companion Lucie Miller, and they decided to release it in sixteen weekly half-hour episodes. That gave them the longest week-to-week run of Doctor Who in twenty-five years, ever since the season when Peter Davison handed the role off to Colin Baker.

And it was a good season, too. Without the time constraints of a broadcast schedule keeping them disciplined, Big Finish stories have tended to get a little bloated and rambling in the past. The half-hour format keeps the show moving along at a nice clip - just like it did in the old days. The effects crew has learned how to make the most of the audio format, giving us some perspectives we wouldn't normally expect. And the actors do a great job and have a good time doing it. There's still a strong tradition of radio drama in the UK, and Doctor Who is able to draw good talent in any format.

The Doctor and Lucie may have wrapped up their season this week, but they get their very own Christmas episode later this year. Christmas in Blackpool - with aliens, I'm sure.

***

Meanwhile, Thursday was the premiere of the Twin Spica live-action drama in Japan. It's interesting to see what they've carried over from the manga and anime, and what they've left out. For one thing, it looks like "Lion-san," the ghost of an astronaut killed in an accident who befriends and mentors the main character, has been left out completely. On the other hand, it looks like the show will concentrate more on the astronaut-training part of the story. So far, I'd say they're off to a good start.

June has brought the end of another choir season. Even though we're working overtime this year with two special events in July, we still had the end-of-the-season party last night.

As archivist and webmaster for the choir, I always get a very nice thank-you gift from our director. For the past few years, it's been a gift card to Vroman's bookstore, and I was glad to see another of those last night. But then I got a surprise. My fellow choir members had conspired to get me their own present. Check this thing out. Isn't it neat?



I think what's most amazing is that they managed to organize it by email, yet kept me from finding out about it. A number of people depend on me to relay their messages to the rest of the choir, but somehow they all remembered not to do that in this case.

The party also brought me a new opportunity for Lunar Pioneers. A fellow member is one of the main organizers for the annual Satellite Educators Conference at Cal State LA, and she encouraged me to sign up as an exhibitor for the event. That will be August 13-15. I'm going to see if I can get her a spot on The Space Show, too.

Not a bad evening, if I do say so myself.

Has anyone else noticed anyone unusual friending their journals recently? It seems like I've had a handful of people adding me, and I don't recognize them. I go to their profiles to see if I can figure out how they heard of me, and the profiles are in Russian or have ads for Tamiflu or some other product on them. What's the story?

They're not hurting anything, of course, so if they want to read what I've got to say, they're more than welcome to. It's just odd.

Last night's season premiere of The Closer kicked off the summer TV season. Once upon a time, summer was a TV wasteland, where the best you could hope for was an interesting series that some network had killed during production and was trying to get at least a little of its investment back. Now summer TV is an entire season of its own, and in some ways I've preferred it to the regular season.

In addition to The Closer, I'm also interested in the final season of Monk and the third season of Torchwood, which has been shrunk down to a five-episode miniseries that will run on consecutive days in July. I think the SciFi Channel is starting the new season of Sanctuary sometime in the summer, but I haven't seen a specific date yet.

Those of you who remember me posting about the BBC's Merlin a few months ago will finally get the chance to see what I was talking about. NBC has picked the show up and will run it on Sundays, starting June 21. As I said back then, if you can ignore everything you know about Arthurian mythology and just enjoy a well-made swords-and-sorcery show, you should have a good time. Plus Anthony Stewart Head will be back on American TV for all you Buffy fans who have been missing him.

Thanks to the internet, I'm also looking forward to the live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga Futatsu no Spica (Twin Spica), which is about a group of kids at an astronaut training academy. That starts either this week or next week. There are some ongoing anime series that I've been following, and I'm sure there will be a new one or two that I'll pick up.

As for the season that just ended, I don't remember the last time a show did its finale in June, and yet both Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU did just that last week. I recorded both and watched them back-to-back on Friday. The finale of the original series was classic Law & Order, and really gave Sam Waterston a good turn in the spotlight. I knew they'd morph their recurring "not Elliot Spitzer" governor character into "not Rod Blagojevich" sooner or later, and it was fun to see. As for SVU - well, it could have been better. A lot better. The twist they pulled with that annoying Stucky guy wasn't the one I was expecting, and I always like being surprised - but that doesn't change the fact that he was annoying. Plus Olivia should have just shot him instead of doing that long, drawn-out seduction thing. Ewww...

GM has sold its Saturn brand to champion race car owner Roger Penske - a move I'm not entirely sure what I think of yet. As an IndyCar fan, I've had something of an up-and-down relationship with Penske over the years. He's had some of my all-time favorite drivers working for him, like Mark Donohue, Al Unser Jr., Sam Hornish Jr. and Helio Castroneves, but he's done a lot of things that have ticked me off, too. Plus I tend to favor underdogs and overachieving little guys, which has made Penske a little too successful for my taste much of the time.

On the other hand, I'm a long-time Saturn owner, and it was looking like the brand was about to go away, so I'm glad to see it survive. If Penske can succeed in building cars even half as well as he's succeeded at the Indy 500, you'll go on seeing Saturn around for quite a while. And I can't help wondering if this means we'll get a Saturn pacing the field at the Indy 500 someday.

I have my phone line back! Not that I talk on the phone a lot, but my DSL connection was out too, so I've had no internet since I left work yesterday. But now I'm connected again!

I got home last night to find my phone line completely dead. Of course, that meant no DSL connection either. I could get around not having a land line by using my cell phone, but the internet was a lost cause.

So this morning I got back to my office and found that the internet connection is iffy here as well! Not that I'm supposed to be on the internet in the first place, because as a manager I'm supposed to "set a good example," but this is getting ridiculous.

If you see smoke coming from the direction of Oxnard, it's not a brush fire. It's just me trying to find some way of communicating with the outside world.

In no particular order...



21-year-old Scottish actress Karen Gillan has been announced for the role of the next Doctor Who companion when the series returns next spring. She'll team up with Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith, making them by far the youngest Doctor/companion duo in the show's history. Gillan has appeared on the show before, as a Roman soothsayer in the David Tennant/Catherine Tate episode, "The Fires of Pompeii." That's not all that unusual, though - even Sixth Doctor Colin Baker appeared on Doctor Who before landing the title role.

***

Danica Patrick is having her best season in the IndyCar series yet, scoring another top-five finish at the Milwaukee Mile this afternoon. She's now fourth in the season point standings, the highest spot among anyone not driving for Roger Penske or Chip Ganassi. Oh, and she has some pretty funny commercials on the air for her new sponsor, Boost Mobile.

Naturally, all this success has got people starting up the "Will Danica jump to NASCAR?" talk again. I really hope she sticks with the Indy cars, though.

***

You may have heard about a Pasadena-area minister who announced that he's going to stop performing all weddings at his church until Proposition 8 is repealed. The announcement was made in the vicinity of All Saints Church, with All Saints priest Susan Russell attending, so some news organizations appear to have gotten mixed up and thought All Saints was going to stop performing weddings. Well, we're not - however, today at least one of the priests announced that he will stop performing the civil portion of the marriage ceremony. That is to say - whether you're gay or straight, he'll perform your religious ceremony, but he will refuse to sign the State of California's marriage certificate until he can sign it for every couple. No word yet on whether other All Saints priests will follow suit, but I imagine I'll hear about it soon.

***

Amber Benson is on a signing tour for her novel, Death's Daughter. She says the other day someone told her that she looks just like the actress who played Tara on Buffy. How soon people forget.

As for my own books, I've started researching more agents to query about Unswept Graves, and I'm now into Chapter Two on Eyes of the Enemy. Tomorrow I'll be sending copies of my three published books off to the staff teacher at the children's hospital where my sister works. Sick kids need something to read, right?