It’s amazing to me how quickly things like a blog can slip away from a person.  I mean, the last post was January??

Of course, there’s various reasons for this.  And while I originally intended for this blog to be little more than a holding place for my better reviews, I think I’d better make some posts in the tradition of the original purpose of blogging: news and such for family and friends.  If you don’t care, then don’t comment and move on.

Right after January, I took on a job re-doing a house in order to sell it.  This was inside and out, and the previous tenants (owner) did almost nothing in the way of the typical upkeep a house requires.  There was a LOT of work to do.  On top of that, all of their possessions were still there, too.  Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time cleaning up possessions until it finally became clear a month later that the house was going to be SOLD and I got some advice from a contractor about just exactly what needed to be done.  It was lots more than I had thought.  More money for me, of course, but a longer job overall.  We didn’t finish the house until early May.  This was removing, tearing out carpets (throughout), fixing, texturing, masking, spray-painting, replacing all outlets and switches, patching stucco, gardening, and replacing a swamp cooler on the roof.  I mostly came home exhausted every day, leaving me no time to write or review.  OTOH, I had no time to substitute teach in Belen Schools, which was such a relief.

Problem number two raised it’s ugly head once I secured a couple of little jobs (writing a real-estate blog and working at a tennis club).  My parents are intending to move as soon as they reasonably can, but there’s likely to be about a year’s worth of work to do on that house to shape it up for sale.  I’m relatively free until classes start this fall, so guess what?  A year’s worth of work gets compacted into one summer.  Yay.

Two bathrooms needed the tile and drywall taken out, plumbing needed replacement, re-drywall, then tile the walls and grout them.  Then the last of the godawful carpet in the house, both bedrooms, was going to come out and we were going to lay down parquet flooring.  This meant leveling the concrete slab (there’s no basement) because concrete does all kinds of weird sagging over time.  Then we simply glued the wood tiles directly to the concrete.  Yes, yes, I know about all the problems with this.  Our reasoning is; my parents are only going to be in the house for 4 more years at most.

Most of the people who have read this far already know this, but I am living at home with them.  They are getting to be in their 70’s and there’s nobody to do yardwork and these projects if it’s not me.  I get rent-free DSL-equipped housing and free meals.  It’s not so bad.  I also have a much better relationship with my parents than I used to, and better than most people do altogether.

However, this means that whenever I’m not working or sleeping, I’m busy with the house projects.  I’ve never actually looked forward to graduate school classes as a BREAK or a RESPITE from all the stress.  None of the groups I used to be involved with have given me any work for months, which while despressing, was good in that I didn’t have to say to anyone, “sorry, no.”  But this confrontation cannot be avoided for much longer.  Even if Jouhou revives, I’m not going to be a part of it anymore beyond a reviewer.  I honestly thought I’d be able to edit and do school, and maybe I can, but from where I sit today, there’s just no way.

To be sure, most of my groups are just in summer hiatus mode, so accusations of death may be premature.  But there looks like little to no movement in kotonoha or moob or any of the other groups I participate in and as for Animewaves, I continue to refuse to be a part of speedscans and shitty quality control processes.  I will not EVER participate in a group that releases a chapter that confuses “your” and “you’re”.  Especially after I corrected it.

Anyway, that’s the news from Jiji.