Wot, Another 40th?

On the hells of Syd's birthday party last week, this week my friend Bill Humphries turns 40 (today, in fact!) and he threw a birthday party (with the help of some friends) last night. Debbi had to miss it, since she came down with a cold (as did Lucy, it turned out), but otherwise it was a lot of fun. At the lovely house of some mutual friends, with some great cake as well as chocolate fondue. Plus, I got to see the hosts' kitty as I was leaving!

I reflected that I've known Bill and the rest of the Madison SF3 crowd for about nine years now. Certainly seems a lot shorter!

So anyway, happy birthday, Bill!

Speaking of which, a pair of friends back there got married today. I'm not sure any of us believed they'd ever do it. Congrats, you too!

And, once again I learned that it's a small Valley: Not only do many of the fans who go to WisCon each year know my friend Cliff, but one of Bill's former cow-orkers apparently knows another friend of Cliff's. Plus, I know Cliff through the Kepler's SF book discussion, which he joined because he knew the former moderator, who in turn knows my friend Syd.

Now if I can just connect up the Cliff nexus to the BC nexus (whom I know through three separate connections), I'll be all set.

Set for what, though...

We had our annual homeowner's association meeting on Thursday. No real surprises, just a list of maintenance work we need to do around the complex, most of which was already known about. Our HOA is so laid-back that it's almost like not having one at all. Except that we share the burden of contacting people to come do things (by which I mean, three or four people do most of the work, and the rest of us pitch in as needed).

The City of Mountain View is switching to a new recycling system, meaning rather than each of us having two convenient buckets to throw our recycling into, instead the complex will be sharing four large carts. Sounds fine, right? Except that we don't have anywhere to put the carts, and sharing carts meaning having to coordinate who takes them to the curb every other week. It's a big, fat pain in the ass, and we're not too happy about it. (Good thing I don't have to keep a cart in my garage, as it's too big to fit in any convenient space, and I would sooner stop recycling altogether than try to squeeze one in.)

Stupid city.

Anyway, the meeting went fine. Now I need to call to have the city come inspect my new water heater. Fortunately, my next-door neighbor got hers replaced last year, and said the inspection didn't reveal any surprises.

Sometimes I wonder whether it would be better to still rent!

This weekend has just flown by. I got a number of little things done, but Debbi and I grilled steak tonight, and she headed off to her Sunday morning aerobics class this morning, leaving me to care for all the cats (they were fine, though Blackjack was a hyper-spaz all day).

I have a number of cool little things in the pipeline, which I hope to be able to write about soon. But I think that's all for tonight!