Things were looking rather dismal for a while there last week, and while our problems have far from melted completely away, at least now Apple and I have a plan and we’re executing it. We’re getting stuff done and feeling like we’re going somewhere, and while sometimes the crushing weight of all these responsibilities makes it hard to be cheerful, at least we’ve started to learn how to handle it.

Anyway, to compensate for some of the lousy news and foul emotions lately — although I haven’t spread much of that here, because it would have been just too damn negative — I thought I’d post up some Happy Stuff™ that’s also happened recently.

First of all, I never really mentioned my new computer, powered by Intel’s Core 2 Duo E6600 processor. It arrived a couple of weeks ago, encased in a piano black Antec P180 and brimming with svelteness. Utilizing some overnight hours, I completely platformed it for work in record time (less than two days) and have had next to no issues with it since.

I name all of my computers, partially for identification on the LAN, and partially for fun. My last machine was Shodan, and predating that, Xerxes. This one I’ve dubbed Exeter. Since I run a closed web server on it, with a home page providing links to my various local project directories, I designed a system logo for the page. I had previously used the Xerxes system logo from System Shock 2, and since I consider Exeter to be of similar lineage, I borrowed from that design style in the creation of this one.

What else is happy? Well, I’m down to 246 pounds now as my “get healthy” program continues. It’s no longer just an exercise regimen; it’s actually evolved into a fully revamped diet featuring all that healthy kind of stuff you see smug people eating in TV commercials. While I enjoy comfort food like nobody’s business, I honestly haven’t found this transition too difficult. I think it’s because there’s so much else going on in our lives right now, who has time to actually think about food? So I’m actually hoping this new diet manages to sneak in under the radar and become part of my new routine, which will make it like second nature. As long as you’re consciously trying to eat correctly, you’ll loathe every minute of it.

The only problem with losing this weight (down about 15 pounds at this point) is that all my clothes are practically falling off. Oh well, it’s hardly the worst problem you could have.

More happy stuff? The personalized license plate I ordered for my GTO finally arrived at the local DMV office after nine weeks of waiting. The only reason I know this is because I called the office on a whim this Friday, and lo and behold, it had arrived that day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pick it up because “it wasn’t in the system yet,” meaning that while the plate is physically available, the DMV computers aren’t ready for me to take it. I was told to expect a call on Monday, so I’m geeked. In preparation, I drove the goat a fair amount today. It was more fun than ever.

Want more? For all the lousy financial news this week, there was at least some good news mixed in: It looks like it should be reasonably affordable to insure our new home. With all the bleating in the media about the home insurance crisis in Florida (brought about by the devastating hurricane seasons of ‘04 and ‘05), I was honestly preparing to budget between $6,000 and $10,000 a year for insurance. The actual quotes I’ve gotten this week, though, have ranged from $1,300 to $3,000 for full coverage — thanks almost entirely to the fact that we’re buying a new home with current building codes. I’m not sure I’ve ever breathed a larger sigh of relief.

Also, because our homebuilder is very big on environmentally friendly “green” design and construction, we supposedly qualify for an “energy efficiency mortgage” which sounds like it may be of some financial benefit, however small. Going to ask our mortgage broker about that.

What else? I’ve put some new creative touches on my ancient journal archives, which are frontended by a website I call “Private Oddball.” That’s actually the original Oddball Update, dating back to 1994, and which also uses a Wordpress blog engine to serve up all those years of tasty content. The design had been languishing lately, but when I went to give it a bit of a refresher, I discovered that the original Photoshop comps I’d used to build it no longer existed.

Last night, though, I painstakingly recreated the design from the ground up, even “remastering” elements using better imagery or techniques I’d improved upon since the original was made several years ago. I’m quite pleased with the result, especially the masthead. It sports a golden-tinted panoramic view of a city’s lights at night, and behind the logo I display a random image of something that was important to me back during the purview of the original Oddball’s entries, from 1994 to the present.

The couple hours of work I put into this are arguably pointless, since no one but me will ever bear witness to it, but it’s immensely self-fulfilling somehow. I guess that ties into what’s happening in my life now, too. With every day consumed with work, preparation and strategy from sunup to sundown, using those wee hours last night for nothing but personal satisfaction was somehow more rewarding than anything else I’d done all day. It made a nice closing activity for the day, even if it was at three in the morning.

Finally — and perhaps most importantly — something else happy was the meal I shared with Apple this evening while watching the latest episode of 24. We ordered Chinese take-out tonight and enjoyed it immensely, just as much as we enjoyed actually spending some time chilling out together in classic style. After all the hair-pulling and hand-wringing we’ve both been doing all week, with our attitudes sometimes clashing, it was nice to be able to relax and unwind a bit, and enjoy each other’s company for a while.

Today we actually got a ton of stuff done around the house, in preparation not only for moving, but for showing our house to prospective buyers when they eventually come calling. The advice our realtor gave us was to de-clutter the house and make sure each room had a very distinct and singular purpose. We were mostly doing pretty well already, but my office room was the biggest offender — with both a bed and a full computer desk, it was having a major identity crisis.

So we attacked the place this morning, taking the bed apart, unloading the entire bookshelf and desk hutch, packing all the CDs in the house into boxes, and basically de-cluttering the living hell out of my room (and other parts of the house). There’s still more to be done in here, but roughly half the contents of the room (and the horrendously overloaded closet!) are already gone. A lot of it got packed, but I’d say a near-equal amount got trashed. Most notably, nearly all of my old VHS cassettes — who needs piles of videotapes filled with Knight Rider when I’ve got the whole series on DVD?

I also got rid of most of the snowy, crap-quality anime tapes I bought at various conventions in the ’90s, more out of practicality than anything…I mean, who watches tapes anymore? I’m keeping my entire set of Kimagure Orange Road TV and OAV videotapes from AnimEigo, though…they cost a fortune, arrived literally years after my preorder, and the DVDs of same seem to suffer from the dreaded DVD rot. Perhaps in KOR’s case, tape truly is the more dependable format. Incidentally, it was KOR that once almost spurred me into buying a Laserdisc player, of all things. Fortunately I resisted, or I truly would be the king of burned-out formats, with my Betamaxes and MiniDisc players.

That’s about it from me for now. Tomorrow might as well be Monday, because I’ll be spending it working all day, on one of my larger, more dreadful freelance gigs. I also have a couple of other tasks that need to get done tomorrow, so it’ll be a full day. I worked a full day last Sunday, too, and while I’m slowly integrating other “good for you” measures into my routine (like diet and exercise), this working extra days stuff is not as easy to swallow. Maybe the diet plan is easy to accept because it seems like cake (excuse the pun) next to packing more grueling hours into my week. But I’d better get used to it, because it looks like I’ll be relying on the benefits of both activities for some time to come.

More updates to follow, on some future occasion.