Well, letsee here.
It's been a while since I updated this puppy, so let's get up to speed, shall we?
Diana and I attended my company Holiday Party on Saturday. That was a lot of fun. It was a "Masquerade Ball". The HR department provided plain red or black masks that they encouraged people to decorate. Diana did a little feather and sequin number, and I draw black markings on the red mask that I thought looked pretty cool. Iwan and Sara came over on Friday evening to hang out, and thanks to them for their creative input on the masks.
When we arrived at the place, we quickly noticed that out of the maybe 700 people at the party, only about 30 people were wearing masks. Pretty weak showing, but it was fun. We were there early, and cashed in on some hors d'oeuvres and drinks before the crowd showed up. Like cheerios in a bowl of milk, we quickly clumped together with the other computer geeks and had good conversation and a pretty decent dinner.
At these parties, they give away prizes. Each person gets 3 raffle tickets to place as they choose into drawings for about 15 pretty good prizes (iPod, golf/spa package, gift certificates... typically about $350 prizes). We didn’t win any of those. Then everyone gets a single entry into the grand prize raffle, where they give away things like $2000 gift certificate to Best Buy, $1500 towards airline tickets, etc. We didn’t win any of those, either. A couple years ago, however, I *did* win $2000 in gift certificates to Westfield shopping malls, and I still get a hard time at these parties about how I can't win again.
After the dinner they had a Casino Night set up, with blackjack, roulette, craps, and some Hold'em tables. Diana and I left dinner a little early and reserved a spot at a poker table. Along with raffle tickets, each couple got a certificate that could be redeemed for $500 in chips. So, we turned that in, and Diana and I played with our $250 for a while, winning some and losing some. The quality of the dealer and game left something to be desired, but it was pretty fun. At some point, a friend slipped another certificate for another $500 in chips in my pocket, and when I found out that it was pretty common practice to redeem multiples of these, turned that in as well. We left the table and fooled around on the blackjack tables a little bit, when I decided to figure out exactly how the casino raffle worked. You could redeem $750 in chips for a raffle ticket towards a $15 dollar gift certificate to Starbucks. Or, you could turn in $1000 in chips towards a raffle for a $50 gift certificate to Westfield shopping centers. We got ourselves to exactly $1000, and entered the raffle. At that time, since most of the people were still gambling, there were only about 10 tickets in the thing, and they were drawing every 15 minutes. So, 15 minutes later we won $50, and headed out the door. A pretty fun party, all in all.
Sunday evening, we went to a little White Elephant gift exchange thing with some teachers that Diana knows. This was a really casual and fun event. It looks like it's been happening for some number of years (there were lots of references to gifts that people at brought before), and I felt somewhat honored that we'd cracked the inner circle.
It was eerie to be at a party full of teachers. I relate more to the "student" mentality than a "teacher" mentality, for some reason. But everyone was really nice, and we had a good time. Most people brought really junky gifts, but we walked away with a nice little glass ornament/decoration thing, as well as some pictures frames, one with a nice little matted Escher print in it. Pretty sweet.
Last night, Diana's sister and her boyfriend came over to visit, and it was fun to see them. I particularly like David, who is from Sweden and in this country for the first time. He's a really nice and funny guy. We played a customized version of "Guess Who", which defies description here, but was a lot of fun, and then a rousing game of Cranium. David had a hard time with some of it, but did surprisingly well given the (slight) language/cultural barrier.
My eyes our on our upcoming week. We leave Christmas morning for Montana with my parents, Dave and Elaine and Ben and my aunt Jocelyn. That's going to be a lot of fun. Our flight is at 6:40am on Christmas morning, which is going to suck, but we've flown on Christmas before, and it's actually a pretty good day for traveling. We're there all week, and then return on the evening of the 31st, hopefully in time to meet up with whatever New Years Party celebration people have planned while we were gone. :)
And that's about it. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and I have the day off from work. I think we're going to pack in the morning, then head to Diana's family's house for a late lunch, and then to some other family friends house for dinner?desert? and games and stuff. And then, off to Montana. Good times.
2004/12/23
2004/12/15
So.
I like Christmas, and the whole holiday season. I really do. But there's one thing that just drives me nuts. I don't like to be a complainer, but part of the reason for this blog is for my readers to get a little insight into the mind of Adman, for better or for worse.
That said, I absolutely can't stand commercials that have taken Christmas carols and substituted they're own lyrics. It's not that I think that Christmas carols are sacred things that can't be touched. But the modification of lyrics just strikes me as so lame and non-fresh. Old f'ing Navy can kiss my ass.
There. That's all I have to say about that. :)
Diana cute last night. She was tired, grading papers, and ready for sleep. I said "Why don't you do the dishes and get in bed?" As the dishes are my job, my tricksiness didn't work. I asked what she had left to do. "I've got to grade these papers, and then do some sorting." "Sorting!" I exclaimed, with playful enthusiasm. "That's your favorite!" "I know!" she responded, I think somewhat seriously. "That's why I'm saving it for last!" I laughed and laughed.
And finally, we are the proud owners of a new water heater.
[warning: what follows is a really long, boring account of plumbing stuff. There's nothing exciting down there. Read at your own risk.]
A few days ago, Diana went into the garage and noticed that the drywall box that the water heater and big furnace thing sit on was totally waterlogged. The drywall was all mushy to the touch. A cursory check of the water heater showed that both the cold-water-in and hot-water-out pipe connections were leaking. Water was dribbling down the thing, and while there wasn't any flowing water on the ground, it was pretty dank and moldy. The heater was starting to lean, as well, since the drywall was getting all gooey beneath it.
So, since the heater was on unstable ground, I thought it might be a good idea to empty it. I figured out how to turn off the gas and water and stuff, and we hooked up a hose and emptied that puppy. No big deal. When I turned the water back on, the tank started filling up again from the hot water (house) side, rather than the cold water (city) side. This made absolutely NO sense to me. Where was it coming from?
I called my pop. He reminded me of the kitchen faucet, which is a mixing-type faucet. That was the crossover junction between hot and cold. So, shutting off a valve there stopped all flowing water to the water heater, yet left us with (cold) water in the rest of the house (for flushing and whatnot).
Since the tank was filled partially, it needed to be emptied again. In the course of doing this, I broke off the drain spout (with hose attached), and water just started flowing out the side of the thing. I had a small bucket, and yelled for help. Diana scrambled around collecting more water-catching devices, and soon we had the thing under control. A little panic, but no harm done. (Did I mention this was all going on during the Survivor Finale? :) We had cold water and a disconnected, empty water heater. Nice. At least if it fell through the platform it was on, there wouldn't be water everywhere or a gas explosion. And we still had cold water to boot. (Poor Diana decided to suffer through a cold shower that morning. I don't think I could do that).
Longtime readers will remember my mistrust of plumbers, and I wasn't relishing the fact of dealing with another one, but there wasn't much choice here. We called a company recommended by Diana's mom, and they set up an appointment to come out replace the water heater.
We're used to making choices. Reading about water heaters, finding a good one for the right price. The company took down the make and model of our broken heater, and showed up with one made by the same company (which actually wasn't bad, as the old company had gotten some favorable reviews, and our particular heater was manufactured in 1988!)
The plumber was nice, and when I told him I didn't really know what was going on, he laid out the prices of the parts he was going to use, and how much labor was going to be. Everything made logical sense (contrasted with the last plumber who wanted to rip up our wall to replace a simple shower valve!), and the prices seemed ballpark with my own findings.
He went to work, and we chatted a bit. He was a nice guy, clearly been a plumber all his professional life, and seemed to know his way around tools. I have no doubt that my dad and I could have installed the heater ourselves, but it would have been a pretty tough job with somewhat substantial risk of really screwing something up.
Anyhoo, the heater was installed and worked like a champ. Rather than sitting on three legs like our old one, it sat flat in a pan, which was good as it distributed the weight. The pan had a little pipe out of it, so if there was a leak, the pan would fill up, and then water would come out the pipe and not into the drywall. Pretty clever.
The guy said that between 1988 and now, water heaters have gone through multiple iterations of improvement in terms of efficiency and stuff. So, good on that front as well.
The next morning, I went out to the garage, and the pan was filled up to the point of the drain pipe. The pipe was dripping water onto the garage floor, where it had run over to a big stack of mostly empty cardboard boxes. It wasn't too much water... a cup or two, and was soaked up into the boxes nicely. However, there was clearly a leak somewhere that had been leaking all night.
The plumber came back that morning, and we investigated a little, and found the leak in the drain valve (the corresponding piece that I'd broken off our old water heater) at it's connection to the tank. Not the plumbers fault. He replaced it with a new one, and that leaked, so he replaced it with a little piece of pipe with a lot of Teflon tape. That did the trick. I siphoned out the sitting water in the pan, used a lot of paper towels to get everything bone dry, and headed to work.
When I came back at lunch, I checked again, and noticed the *tiniest* little ooze of water. It would form a drop every 30 seconds (I counted). I called the plumber to let them know, saying I'd keep an eye on it. Little drips like that fix themselves pretty frequently, so I've been told, and I think it's going to.
So, that's the story.
I like Christmas, and the whole holiday season. I really do. But there's one thing that just drives me nuts. I don't like to be a complainer, but part of the reason for this blog is for my readers to get a little insight into the mind of Adman, for better or for worse.
That said, I absolutely can't stand commercials that have taken Christmas carols and substituted they're own lyrics. It's not that I think that Christmas carols are sacred things that can't be touched. But the modification of lyrics just strikes me as so lame and non-fresh. Old f'ing Navy can kiss my ass.
There. That's all I have to say about that. :)
Diana cute last night. She was tired, grading papers, and ready for sleep. I said "Why don't you do the dishes and get in bed?" As the dishes are my job, my tricksiness didn't work. I asked what she had left to do. "I've got to grade these papers, and then do some sorting." "Sorting!" I exclaimed, with playful enthusiasm. "That's your favorite!" "I know!" she responded, I think somewhat seriously. "That's why I'm saving it for last!" I laughed and laughed.
And finally, we are the proud owners of a new water heater.
[warning: what follows is a really long, boring account of plumbing stuff. There's nothing exciting down there. Read at your own risk.]
A few days ago, Diana went into the garage and noticed that the drywall box that the water heater and big furnace thing sit on was totally waterlogged. The drywall was all mushy to the touch. A cursory check of the water heater showed that both the cold-water-in and hot-water-out pipe connections were leaking. Water was dribbling down the thing, and while there wasn't any flowing water on the ground, it was pretty dank and moldy. The heater was starting to lean, as well, since the drywall was getting all gooey beneath it.
So, since the heater was on unstable ground, I thought it might be a good idea to empty it. I figured out how to turn off the gas and water and stuff, and we hooked up a hose and emptied that puppy. No big deal. When I turned the water back on, the tank started filling up again from the hot water (house) side, rather than the cold water (city) side. This made absolutely NO sense to me. Where was it coming from?
I called my pop. He reminded me of the kitchen faucet, which is a mixing-type faucet. That was the crossover junction between hot and cold. So, shutting off a valve there stopped all flowing water to the water heater, yet left us with (cold) water in the rest of the house (for flushing and whatnot).
Since the tank was filled partially, it needed to be emptied again. In the course of doing this, I broke off the drain spout (with hose attached), and water just started flowing out the side of the thing. I had a small bucket, and yelled for help. Diana scrambled around collecting more water-catching devices, and soon we had the thing under control. A little panic, but no harm done. (Did I mention this was all going on during the Survivor Finale? :) We had cold water and a disconnected, empty water heater. Nice. At least if it fell through the platform it was on, there wouldn't be water everywhere or a gas explosion. And we still had cold water to boot. (Poor Diana decided to suffer through a cold shower that morning. I don't think I could do that).
Longtime readers will remember my mistrust of plumbers, and I wasn't relishing the fact of dealing with another one, but there wasn't much choice here. We called a company recommended by Diana's mom, and they set up an appointment to come out replace the water heater.
We're used to making choices. Reading about water heaters, finding a good one for the right price. The company took down the make and model of our broken heater, and showed up with one made by the same company (which actually wasn't bad, as the old company had gotten some favorable reviews, and our particular heater was manufactured in 1988!)
The plumber was nice, and when I told him I didn't really know what was going on, he laid out the prices of the parts he was going to use, and how much labor was going to be. Everything made logical sense (contrasted with the last plumber who wanted to rip up our wall to replace a simple shower valve!), and the prices seemed ballpark with my own findings.
He went to work, and we chatted a bit. He was a nice guy, clearly been a plumber all his professional life, and seemed to know his way around tools. I have no doubt that my dad and I could have installed the heater ourselves, but it would have been a pretty tough job with somewhat substantial risk of really screwing something up.
Anyhoo, the heater was installed and worked like a champ. Rather than sitting on three legs like our old one, it sat flat in a pan, which was good as it distributed the weight. The pan had a little pipe out of it, so if there was a leak, the pan would fill up, and then water would come out the pipe and not into the drywall. Pretty clever.
The guy said that between 1988 and now, water heaters have gone through multiple iterations of improvement in terms of efficiency and stuff. So, good on that front as well.
The next morning, I went out to the garage, and the pan was filled up to the point of the drain pipe. The pipe was dripping water onto the garage floor, where it had run over to a big stack of mostly empty cardboard boxes. It wasn't too much water... a cup or two, and was soaked up into the boxes nicely. However, there was clearly a leak somewhere that had been leaking all night.
The plumber came back that morning, and we investigated a little, and found the leak in the drain valve (the corresponding piece that I'd broken off our old water heater) at it's connection to the tank. Not the plumbers fault. He replaced it with a new one, and that leaked, so he replaced it with a little piece of pipe with a lot of Teflon tape. That did the trick. I siphoned out the sitting water in the pan, used a lot of paper towels to get everything bone dry, and headed to work.
When I came back at lunch, I checked again, and noticed the *tiniest* little ooze of water. It would form a drop every 30 seconds (I counted). I called the plumber to let them know, saying I'd keep an eye on it. Little drips like that fix themselves pretty frequently, so I've been told, and I think it's going to.
So, that's the story.
2004/12/09
Diana's parents got us a six month subscription to Netflix, which I've been looking at for a while. It will be interesting to see how it works out, and how much movie-watching our schedules allow. We got started by rating a bunch of stuff we'd already seen, and then choosing more stuff. Our first shipment arrived two days after signing up, which is sort of incredible. We watched a "Cadfael" episode, which is a PBS Mystery series, which was a lot of fun. I look forward to more of those. We also got the first season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", which is pretty good. It's kind of stressful to watch, though. We also got "Elf", which we haven't seen. It might be dumb, but we always laugh at the commercials, so we'll see. I look forward more choices, especially things like Mystery series and independent films and stuff like that, not easily rentable.
I played a fun game of chess last night. It was a timed game, and in spite of being at a serious disadvantage by losing my queen early on, I ended up winning the game when the other guys time expired. At that point, I only had 4 seconds left, so it really came down to the wire. Good stuff. Best part was halfway through the game, special guest star Discostup showed up. Apparently, if I'm playing Yahoo chess, I show up as "online" and playing chess in peoples Yahoo IM clients. He had some easy option to join the room I was in, and there he was. Pretty fun.
I uploaded that chess game here.
I had more to write about, but I've been interrupted, and now I don’t know what it was. Oh well. I've got Ashlee Simpson in my head, and to be honest, I'm not too unhappy about it. "You make we want to la-la…"
Cue making fun of Adman...... now!
I played a fun game of chess last night. It was a timed game, and in spite of being at a serious disadvantage by losing my queen early on, I ended up winning the game when the other guys time expired. At that point, I only had 4 seconds left, so it really came down to the wire. Good stuff. Best part was halfway through the game, special guest star Discostup showed up. Apparently, if I'm playing Yahoo chess, I show up as "online" and playing chess in peoples Yahoo IM clients. He had some easy option to join the room I was in, and there he was. Pretty fun.
I uploaded that chess game here.
I had more to write about, but I've been interrupted, and now I don’t know what it was. Oh well. I've got Ashlee Simpson in my head, and to be honest, I'm not too unhappy about it. "You make we want to la-la…"
Cue making fun of Adman...... now!
2004/12/06
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday dear Adman.
Happy Birthday to me.
Huzzah. Welcome to The Thirties. Population: me.
I went out with a few peeps on Friday evening. Had some grub, a couple margs. Norm gave me the 90's Edition of Trivial Pursuit, so we headed back to our pad and gave that a try. Pretty good game. Gabe and I gave it a run for our money, but Diana and Iwan were able to hold us off and claim victory. Eryn, on his own team, was no slouch either. Good times all around.
Yesterday, I got up and headed over to my parents house, picked up my pops, and we went to see the Chargers play Denver. It was raining and cold, and there was a certain allure of sitting in a warm house by a fire, watching the game on TV, but we forged on. We parked at a nearby park-and-ride, and took the bus to the stadium, which, as far as I'm concerned, is maybe the best way to do it (unless you're interested in tailgating beforehand, which has it's own pros and cons). Buses get their own special route into and out of the stadium, so we passed up a huge line of cars on the freeway, waiting to get in and find parking, and were dropped off straight away. After the game, we went back to the bus, and with a clean escape route out of the packed stadium, we were home and sitting by said warm fire in about 40 minutes.
At the stadium, we met up with Iwan and Gabe and Eryn, and together braved the elements. Diana assisted in my packing for the game, and at the time, I grudgingly accepted the hat and gloves she suggested, figuring I wouldn't need them. Turns out they were pretty crucial, and I was really glad to have 'em. So, big props to Diana for that. The game itself was awesome. The Chargers started off early in the lead, then the Broncos came back, and we held 'em off in the last minutes by a miraculous interception in the end zone. A real nail-biter. We all had a blast.
After the game, Diana came over to my parents house and we had a little family birthday celebration, opened some pressies, etc. One present was the DVD of Ghostbusters, and when my dad revealed he hadn't seen it, we decided to watch it after dinner. Good stuff.
And now, back to work. I've gotten about as many happy birthday wishes I can stand for a year, which is nice. Some work peeps took me out to lunch, which was thoughtful. Round that out with a misty, loving call from a proud mom, and you've got yourself one heck of a birthday.
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday dear Adman.
Happy Birthday to me.
Huzzah. Welcome to The Thirties. Population: me.
I went out with a few peeps on Friday evening. Had some grub, a couple margs. Norm gave me the 90's Edition of Trivial Pursuit, so we headed back to our pad and gave that a try. Pretty good game. Gabe and I gave it a run for our money, but Diana and Iwan were able to hold us off and claim victory. Eryn, on his own team, was no slouch either. Good times all around.
Yesterday, I got up and headed over to my parents house, picked up my pops, and we went to see the Chargers play Denver. It was raining and cold, and there was a certain allure of sitting in a warm house by a fire, watching the game on TV, but we forged on. We parked at a nearby park-and-ride, and took the bus to the stadium, which, as far as I'm concerned, is maybe the best way to do it (unless you're interested in tailgating beforehand, which has it's own pros and cons). Buses get their own special route into and out of the stadium, so we passed up a huge line of cars on the freeway, waiting to get in and find parking, and were dropped off straight away. After the game, we went back to the bus, and with a clean escape route out of the packed stadium, we were home and sitting by said warm fire in about 40 minutes.
At the stadium, we met up with Iwan and Gabe and Eryn, and together braved the elements. Diana assisted in my packing for the game, and at the time, I grudgingly accepted the hat and gloves she suggested, figuring I wouldn't need them. Turns out they were pretty crucial, and I was really glad to have 'em. So, big props to Diana for that. The game itself was awesome. The Chargers started off early in the lead, then the Broncos came back, and we held 'em off in the last minutes by a miraculous interception in the end zone. A real nail-biter. We all had a blast.
After the game, Diana came over to my parents house and we had a little family birthday celebration, opened some pressies, etc. One present was the DVD of Ghostbusters, and when my dad revealed he hadn't seen it, we decided to watch it after dinner. Good stuff.
And now, back to work. I've gotten about as many happy birthday wishes I can stand for a year, which is nice. Some work peeps took me out to lunch, which was thoughtful. Round that out with a misty, loving call from a proud mom, and you've got yourself one heck of a birthday.
2004/12/04
One: I will never, ever, EVER see a movie that features animals whose mouths move via CGI effects and have human voices. Or, if I do, it will certainly be under the most strenuous of circumstances.
Two: Diana and I just got back from seeing "Finding Neverland". Wonderful, beautiful movie, we both thought. Well worth the money spent.
That is all.
Two: Diana and I just got back from seeing "Finding Neverland". Wonderful, beautiful movie, we both thought. Well worth the money spent.
That is all.
2004/12/01
Simple Pleasure #458:
Picture driving on a two-lane road that curves to the right. You're in the right-hand lane, but want to change to the left hand lane. So, you still turn the wheel to the right to follow the curve, but not as much right ("Still favorite, but not as MUCH favorite!"), so as to drift over to the left lane. You're turning right, but going left. I love that!
Not so much is new. I've got some minor projects at work that are keeping me busy. Not busy enough that I can't enjoy some lunchtime chess, though.
I just played two games over lunch, and I'm surprised at how personally invested I get in the games. That is, I really enjoy winning, and really get kind of grumpy when I lose. Norm and I discussed it a little bit, that chess feels like an intellectual game, and on the surface appears to have some relationship with intelligence and brainpower. I highly qualify those remarks because I'm not convinced it's true. However, losing can tend to make one feel "dumb", while winning tends to make one feel "smart". As I suggested to Norm (and maybe here, I don't remember), perhaps it's because, in chess, when you make a mistake, it is typically made immediately clear to you with negative consequences. Nothing to do but accept them, try to learn, and move on.
Diana and I watched the first half'ish of "The Great Escape" last night. Very cool movie. I was pleasantly surprised that they used the Hogan's Heroes theme as their main theme! (Ha!) I'm looking forward to watching the rest soon.
I had to ditch out of the movie to join my workboys on World of Warcraft (et al). Tuesday night is when we try to make a special effort to get on at the same time and chum around together. Good times. I think our extended group is about 25 people. Pretty incredible. I'd love to get a big screenshot of all of us gathered together. That would rock.
That's about it. My birthday is coming up on Monday. There's been some talk about getting together on Friday night and "doing something" for it. People have asked what I want to do, and my heart isn't really in it. I'm not depressed over my birthday or anything, but I just don't know what I want to do to celebrate. A nice dinner with friends is a good start, and something fun after that. What I really want is someone else to take care of it all, 'cause I have no goddamn idea.
The big three-oh. Who'd have thunk it. I really haven't invested anytime thinking about the implications (are they any?) of turning 30. Gwen asked how I felt about it, during our Seattle visit, and I honestly said that I really didn't care. As I told her, I usually try to pick my fights, and there's NO getting around this one, so I might as well face it with dignity. Actually, that really makes it sound like I put some conscious effort into it. More accurately, I guess I knew all that deep down, and so it never really came to the surface.
Anyhoo, now I'm just rambling…
Picture driving on a two-lane road that curves to the right. You're in the right-hand lane, but want to change to the left hand lane. So, you still turn the wheel to the right to follow the curve, but not as much right ("Still favorite, but not as MUCH favorite!"), so as to drift over to the left lane. You're turning right, but going left. I love that!
Not so much is new. I've got some minor projects at work that are keeping me busy. Not busy enough that I can't enjoy some lunchtime chess, though.
I just played two games over lunch, and I'm surprised at how personally invested I get in the games. That is, I really enjoy winning, and really get kind of grumpy when I lose. Norm and I discussed it a little bit, that chess feels like an intellectual game, and on the surface appears to have some relationship with intelligence and brainpower. I highly qualify those remarks because I'm not convinced it's true. However, losing can tend to make one feel "dumb", while winning tends to make one feel "smart". As I suggested to Norm (and maybe here, I don't remember), perhaps it's because, in chess, when you make a mistake, it is typically made immediately clear to you with negative consequences. Nothing to do but accept them, try to learn, and move on.
Diana and I watched the first half'ish of "The Great Escape" last night. Very cool movie. I was pleasantly surprised that they used the Hogan's Heroes theme as their main theme! (Ha!) I'm looking forward to watching the rest soon.
I had to ditch out of the movie to join my workboys on World of Warcraft (et al). Tuesday night is when we try to make a special effort to get on at the same time and chum around together. Good times. I think our extended group is about 25 people. Pretty incredible. I'd love to get a big screenshot of all of us gathered together. That would rock.
That's about it. My birthday is coming up on Monday. There's been some talk about getting together on Friday night and "doing something" for it. People have asked what I want to do, and my heart isn't really in it. I'm not depressed over my birthday or anything, but I just don't know what I want to do to celebrate. A nice dinner with friends is a good start, and something fun after that. What I really want is someone else to take care of it all, 'cause I have no goddamn idea.
The big three-oh. Who'd have thunk it. I really haven't invested anytime thinking about the implications (are they any?) of turning 30. Gwen asked how I felt about it, during our Seattle visit, and I honestly said that I really didn't care. As I told her, I usually try to pick my fights, and there's NO getting around this one, so I might as well face it with dignity. Actually, that really makes it sound like I put some conscious effort into it. More accurately, I guess I knew all that deep down, and so it never really came to the surface.
Anyhoo, now I'm just rambling…
2004/11/29
Thanksgiving.
This was the first year, I think, that I haven't spent Thanksgiving with my parents being involved. And coincidentally (not as a result of), it was actually pretty ok.
Mike's mom has a cousin near Seattle, so Diana, Mike, Gwen and I drove out and met up with them at their house. That cousin is about my parents age, and lives there with her husband. Also joining us were their three children (more or less my age), a couple of associated spouses and friends, and a few other random relatives. In spite of them not knowing us (except Mike) very well, they were extremely hospitable and friendly and welcomed us with open arms.
The husband was retired, and quite interested in woodworking and home-fixer-upping. They'd done some really incredible things to their house, including digging out and replacing the foundation, basically adding a basement with a bedroom and woodshop and stuff. He offered to show Diana, Gwen and I around the woodshop, which we accepted. He went into some pretty substantial detail about all his tools and machines and stuff, and I knew about 5 minutes into it that there was no way of cutting off what looked to be a 45 minute tour. Mick came into the room at some point, and it was funny to watch his _expression go from a vague concern ("Hrm, are they in here?") to a big smile and eye-roll of "Oh no… I've seen this before." It was pretty funny.
We spent a lot of time hanging out with the "kids". Heidi was an attractive, blonde, cute little thing who looked fashionable and like she knew her way around a mall. She was there with her husband Marcus, who was a hulking big football player looking guy. Both were extrememly nice. I joined them both in a rousing game of Yahtzee with a distant 11 year old cousin. Good times.
Justin was her brother, who I didn't talk to or spend much time with. Looked like a pretty tough guy, but was uniformly nice and friendly.
Heath was the third sibling, and was an absolute crack-up. Somewhere in his life he must have visualized the persona he wanted to have, and has since fully adopted it. That persona was sort of a neo-Victorian, Great Gatsby'ish thing with a smattering of Goth/Vampire flavor thrown in. He spoke with a little bit of an accent, and used phrases like "Oh, quite good form, old boy!" and "I'm completely parched. I think I shall go exercise the ladle some." He wore a tailored, Victorian-looking formal outfit. He was really fun to be around (either in spite of this, or because of this, I'm still not sure). He loved to tell stories, and had good ones to share, and generally kept the party fun and flowing. And he made a great punch-bowl of mojito's (a sugary rum drink I'd never had) which kept things lively.
The dinner was fabulous. Very familiar to what my own family would have had, and we ate our fill and departed after many thank you's and goodbyes, satisfied in both body and spirit.
Friday, as I said, we got up and out early.
Saturday was mostly errands and cleaning up around the house. I picked up a copy of my beloved World of Warcraft, and was able to put in a few hours that night. We also hung out with Iwan and Sara and Eryn at Iwans house, which was lots of fun. I played some GTA:SA over there, and it really sucked me in, even though I was sort of blowing over the cutscenes and stuff. The progression and constant questing actually reminded me of WoW in many regards.
Sunday, Diana and I watched the Charger game together. What a great game that was. Diana actually sat and watched most of it with me, and was into it in spite of not really being a football fan. I enjoyed that. We took a nice walk, and watched the Survivor we'd missed, thanks to Iwan and Sara for taping it!
And now, back to work. Things seem to be about the same as I left. Problems are being fixed nearly as quickly as they come up, which is good. I've been booted off the chess ladder due to my extended absence, but should be reinstated soon. I've compared notes with my WoW boys about stuff. Good times.
Oh, I played a great chess game this weekend on Yahoo, too. So good that I thought I should save it. Check it out! (I'm white, and won via forfeit)
This was the first year, I think, that I haven't spent Thanksgiving with my parents being involved. And coincidentally (not as a result of), it was actually pretty ok.
Mike's mom has a cousin near Seattle, so Diana, Mike, Gwen and I drove out and met up with them at their house. That cousin is about my parents age, and lives there with her husband. Also joining us were their three children (more or less my age), a couple of associated spouses and friends, and a few other random relatives. In spite of them not knowing us (except Mike) very well, they were extremely hospitable and friendly and welcomed us with open arms.
The husband was retired, and quite interested in woodworking and home-fixer-upping. They'd done some really incredible things to their house, including digging out and replacing the foundation, basically adding a basement with a bedroom and woodshop and stuff. He offered to show Diana, Gwen and I around the woodshop, which we accepted. He went into some pretty substantial detail about all his tools and machines and stuff, and I knew about 5 minutes into it that there was no way of cutting off what looked to be a 45 minute tour. Mick came into the room at some point, and it was funny to watch his _expression go from a vague concern ("Hrm, are they in here?") to a big smile and eye-roll of "Oh no… I've seen this before." It was pretty funny.
We spent a lot of time hanging out with the "kids". Heidi was an attractive, blonde, cute little thing who looked fashionable and like she knew her way around a mall. She was there with her husband Marcus, who was a hulking big football player looking guy. Both were extrememly nice. I joined them both in a rousing game of Yahtzee with a distant 11 year old cousin. Good times.
Justin was her brother, who I didn't talk to or spend much time with. Looked like a pretty tough guy, but was uniformly nice and friendly.
Heath was the third sibling, and was an absolute crack-up. Somewhere in his life he must have visualized the persona he wanted to have, and has since fully adopted it. That persona was sort of a neo-Victorian, Great Gatsby'ish thing with a smattering of Goth/Vampire flavor thrown in. He spoke with a little bit of an accent, and used phrases like "Oh, quite good form, old boy!" and "I'm completely parched. I think I shall go exercise the ladle some." He wore a tailored, Victorian-looking formal outfit. He was really fun to be around (either in spite of this, or because of this, I'm still not sure). He loved to tell stories, and had good ones to share, and generally kept the party fun and flowing. And he made a great punch-bowl of mojito's (a sugary rum drink I'd never had) which kept things lively.
The dinner was fabulous. Very familiar to what my own family would have had, and we ate our fill and departed after many thank you's and goodbyes, satisfied in both body and spirit.
Friday, as I said, we got up and out early.
Saturday was mostly errands and cleaning up around the house. I picked up a copy of my beloved World of Warcraft, and was able to put in a few hours that night. We also hung out with Iwan and Sara and Eryn at Iwans house, which was lots of fun. I played some GTA:SA over there, and it really sucked me in, even though I was sort of blowing over the cutscenes and stuff. The progression and constant questing actually reminded me of WoW in many regards.
Sunday, Diana and I watched the Charger game together. What a great game that was. Diana actually sat and watched most of it with me, and was into it in spite of not really being a football fan. I enjoyed that. We took a nice walk, and watched the Survivor we'd missed, thanks to Iwan and Sara for taping it!
And now, back to work. Things seem to be about the same as I left. Problems are being fixed nearly as quickly as they come up, which is good. I've been booted off the chess ladder due to my extended absence, but should be reinstated soon. I've compared notes with my WoW boys about stuff. Good times.
Oh, I played a great chess game this weekend on Yahoo, too. So good that I thought I should save it. Check it out! (I'm white, and won via forfeit)
2004/11/28
Ok. Diana and I are back from our trip, and I've got a full week's worth of news to write about. So let's get cracking!
Friday evening, we had a party at a nearby hotel to celebrate the launch of our big back office project. It wasn't company wide, but most of the Systems department was there, as well as a lot of key business users. It was all about celebration and congratulations, and was a really nice thank you for the hard work we put in. We had a nice dinner, and were entertained by the comedy stylings of a stand up comedian whose name eludes me. It was a good time. Not to mention, we got a very nice thank you letter from the CEO, thanking us for our hard work, and also thanking our families for their patience through our times of stress and long hours. A little bonus check didn't hurt matters either. But always a nice feeling to be appreciated.
Saturday morning, we got up at the crack of snot (the legacy of Bethany still live on in some colorful phrases) and headed down to the airport. We flew to Portland uneventfully, got in our rental car, and found our hotel. We soon met up with Diana's sister Alicia and her boyfriend David for a really good lunch, and some walking and shopping around a cute little area of some Portland suburb.
The short version of the story is that Alicia met her boyfriend David while on a trip to New Zealand. They kept in touch, and subsequently got together when Alicia was in Norway (I think). He has since moved out to the US, but as a tourist can only stay for three months (which ends in January). There is some talk about Alicia moving to Norway permanently with him, but it still seems a little up in the air.
David was great. I was very curious to meet him. He seems a little shell-shocked by being in the US for the first time, coping with English as a second language, not to mention living with three women and not really knowing anyone else. In spite of that, I found him very nice, fun to talk to, extrememly polite and really like hanging out with him.
That evening, we parted ways and met up at my cousin Mike's house, with his wife and two young children (what, 3 and 1.5?), my other cousin Jen, and my aunt and uncle.
I always love hanging out with their family. They are always so much fun. Most of the evening was spent watching the kids run around entertaining us with sumersaults and songs, and there may have even been some hokey-pokey'ing going on. Very, very cute kids.
At some point during the evening, my cousin Jen confided in me, with a somewhat guilty expression and red face, that she read my blog. I assured her that it was ok, and promised to give her a shout-out. So, everyone point and laugh at my nosy cousin! (Kidding!) In all seriousness, it was great to see her, especially, as I was told she wasn't going to be around. I've always felt like we are pretty similiar in personality and sense of humor, and I've always enjoyed being around her. So, yay.
We bugged out a little early, after the early morning and long travel day, and got some much needed sleep.
Sunday, we slept in, which was glorious. We watched a little football on TV, and headed out for a walk in a park with Alicia and David. That afternoon, as arranged the evening previously, we met up with Jen, and my aunt and uncle for an afternoon showing of "Sideways". It was pretty decent. I felt a little clobbered over the head with the wine/personality metaphor, and not insignificantly uncomfortable watching some sex scenes sitting next to my aunt, but overall, glad I saw it. We went out to a really nice dinner following that, and said our goodbyes. Great to see that side of the family, as usual. I think Jen suggested a little Montana reunion-type trip, and I think that would be a blast.
Monday, we cruised downtown a little bit, and met up with my old high school buddy Jon and his wife Lainie and their little sprout Ella (a couple months old). I hadn't talked to Jon in a number of years, and it was really great to see him again. It's always refreshingly great when old friends meet up and just click right back like they used to. We had a great time. Hopefully we can keep in better touch in the future.
That evening, we bought some food and had dinner at Alicia and Davids, which was a good time.
Tuesday, we drove out to the Columbia River gorge, and hiked around some really beautiful waterfalls in that area. The weather during the entire trip was low to mid 40's, and pretty cloudy and overcast. In spite of that, it was beautiful to hike around lush forests and very impressive falls.
That night, we went out for a nice dinner and drinks with Alica and David and their roomate Angela. I got to talk a little more to David that evening, which confirmed my opinions above (nice, polite, good guy).
Wednesday, we got up early, checked out, and journeyed up to Seattle. I've never been to Seattle, and was looking forward to it. I was also looking forward to seeing my boy Discostup and his metro-sexual city livin'. We got there and found his apartment soon enough, and there we were. It was great to see Mick, as always. His apartment was cozy and well located in the city, and we braved the cold to walk around downtown a little. I really liked Seattle. I liked the layout of the city on the hill, and just the look and feel of the place.
That evening, we waited for Gwen to get off work, and went out to a really nice dinner.
Gwen. Mike and Gwen apparently have a long and tumultous history (bits of which you can piece together from his blog), but in spite of that, they seemed really happy together. In fact, in spite of his often depressing blog posts, Mick really seemed to be in good spirits about almost everything.
A while back, I encouraged Mike to play Nethack a while back, and he opted out, but passed it on to Gwen, and as it's a hard game to learn, I emailed and offered to help with any questions that she had. We emailed back and forth off and on since then, the conversation naturally turning from Nethack to books and movies and whatever else geeky people talk about. She's definitely the kind of geek I can relate to and appreciate. So by the time she opened the door to Mike's apartment, I was really curious to actually meet her in person (as with every other person I've met in person after meeting them initially online). She was a lot of fun to be around during the entire weekend, very nice and funny and fun to be around, but at the same time, I had the feeling there was a lot more to her underneath. In any case, I'm glad she and Mike are together, from what I observed. I think she compliments him well, as does he her. They also tickled each other a lot. :)
The four of us headed out to a very nice dinner, and had a great time catching up and hanging out. Afterwards, we got some drinks and went back to Mick's apartment for some Euchre. Good times.
Thursday was Thanksgiving. We hung around in the morning (did we actually watch a dog show on TV?) and spent Thanksgiving proper with some of Mick's extended family. That is a whole 'nother post which I'll write about later.
Friday, Diana and I got up and out, thankful to have spent the time with family, and old friends and new, and thankful to be on our way home again. Got into good ol' San Diego late at night, and finally made it to our pad.
My fingers are tired, so I'll finish up the final bits later.
Friday evening, we had a party at a nearby hotel to celebrate the launch of our big back office project. It wasn't company wide, but most of the Systems department was there, as well as a lot of key business users. It was all about celebration and congratulations, and was a really nice thank you for the hard work we put in. We had a nice dinner, and were entertained by the comedy stylings of a stand up comedian whose name eludes me. It was a good time. Not to mention, we got a very nice thank you letter from the CEO, thanking us for our hard work, and also thanking our families for their patience through our times of stress and long hours. A little bonus check didn't hurt matters either. But always a nice feeling to be appreciated.
Saturday morning, we got up at the crack of snot (the legacy of Bethany still live on in some colorful phrases) and headed down to the airport. We flew to Portland uneventfully, got in our rental car, and found our hotel. We soon met up with Diana's sister Alicia and her boyfriend David for a really good lunch, and some walking and shopping around a cute little area of some Portland suburb.
The short version of the story is that Alicia met her boyfriend David while on a trip to New Zealand. They kept in touch, and subsequently got together when Alicia was in Norway (I think). He has since moved out to the US, but as a tourist can only stay for three months (which ends in January). There is some talk about Alicia moving to Norway permanently with him, but it still seems a little up in the air.
David was great. I was very curious to meet him. He seems a little shell-shocked by being in the US for the first time, coping with English as a second language, not to mention living with three women and not really knowing anyone else. In spite of that, I found him very nice, fun to talk to, extrememly polite and really like hanging out with him.
That evening, we parted ways and met up at my cousin Mike's house, with his wife and two young children (what, 3 and 1.5?), my other cousin Jen, and my aunt and uncle.
I always love hanging out with their family. They are always so much fun. Most of the evening was spent watching the kids run around entertaining us with sumersaults and songs, and there may have even been some hokey-pokey'ing going on. Very, very cute kids.
At some point during the evening, my cousin Jen confided in me, with a somewhat guilty expression and red face, that she read my blog. I assured her that it was ok, and promised to give her a shout-out. So, everyone point and laugh at my nosy cousin! (Kidding!) In all seriousness, it was great to see her, especially, as I was told she wasn't going to be around. I've always felt like we are pretty similiar in personality and sense of humor, and I've always enjoyed being around her. So, yay.
We bugged out a little early, after the early morning and long travel day, and got some much needed sleep.
Sunday, we slept in, which was glorious. We watched a little football on TV, and headed out for a walk in a park with Alicia and David. That afternoon, as arranged the evening previously, we met up with Jen, and my aunt and uncle for an afternoon showing of "Sideways". It was pretty decent. I felt a little clobbered over the head with the wine/personality metaphor, and not insignificantly uncomfortable watching some sex scenes sitting next to my aunt, but overall, glad I saw it. We went out to a really nice dinner following that, and said our goodbyes. Great to see that side of the family, as usual. I think Jen suggested a little Montana reunion-type trip, and I think that would be a blast.
Monday, we cruised downtown a little bit, and met up with my old high school buddy Jon and his wife Lainie and their little sprout Ella (a couple months old). I hadn't talked to Jon in a number of years, and it was really great to see him again. It's always refreshingly great when old friends meet up and just click right back like they used to. We had a great time. Hopefully we can keep in better touch in the future.
That evening, we bought some food and had dinner at Alicia and Davids, which was a good time.
Tuesday, we drove out to the Columbia River gorge, and hiked around some really beautiful waterfalls in that area. The weather during the entire trip was low to mid 40's, and pretty cloudy and overcast. In spite of that, it was beautiful to hike around lush forests and very impressive falls.
That night, we went out for a nice dinner and drinks with Alica and David and their roomate Angela. I got to talk a little more to David that evening, which confirmed my opinions above (nice, polite, good guy).
Wednesday, we got up early, checked out, and journeyed up to Seattle. I've never been to Seattle, and was looking forward to it. I was also looking forward to seeing my boy Discostup and his metro-sexual city livin'. We got there and found his apartment soon enough, and there we were. It was great to see Mick, as always. His apartment was cozy and well located in the city, and we braved the cold to walk around downtown a little. I really liked Seattle. I liked the layout of the city on the hill, and just the look and feel of the place.
That evening, we waited for Gwen to get off work, and went out to a really nice dinner.
Gwen. Mike and Gwen apparently have a long and tumultous history (bits of which you can piece together from his blog), but in spite of that, they seemed really happy together. In fact, in spite of his often depressing blog posts, Mick really seemed to be in good spirits about almost everything.
A while back, I encouraged Mike to play Nethack a while back, and he opted out, but passed it on to Gwen, and as it's a hard game to learn, I emailed and offered to help with any questions that she had. We emailed back and forth off and on since then, the conversation naturally turning from Nethack to books and movies and whatever else geeky people talk about. She's definitely the kind of geek I can relate to and appreciate. So by the time she opened the door to Mike's apartment, I was really curious to actually meet her in person (as with every other person I've met in person after meeting them initially online). She was a lot of fun to be around during the entire weekend, very nice and funny and fun to be around, but at the same time, I had the feeling there was a lot more to her underneath. In any case, I'm glad she and Mike are together, from what I observed. I think she compliments him well, as does he her. They also tickled each other a lot. :)
The four of us headed out to a very nice dinner, and had a great time catching up and hanging out. Afterwards, we got some drinks and went back to Mick's apartment for some Euchre. Good times.
Thursday was Thanksgiving. We hung around in the morning (did we actually watch a dog show on TV?) and spent Thanksgiving proper with some of Mick's extended family. That is a whole 'nother post which I'll write about later.
Friday, Diana and I got up and out, thankful to have spent the time with family, and old friends and new, and thankful to be on our way home again. Got into good ol' San Diego late at night, and finally made it to our pad.
My fingers are tired, so I'll finish up the final bits later.
2004/11/18
Randomness.
We're heading out of town for Thanksgiving week, which I'm looking forward to. We're going up to Portland and Seattle to visit some friends and family. It's always nice to take a break and get away for a while. Especially for Diana, who's really been super busy recently. We're going to be up in Discostup's neck of the woods on Thanksgiving day, which will be fun. I hope he doesn't think he's responsible for entertaining us or anything. We don't have any big plans or expectations!
This week at work has been pretty quiet for me. We had our big Go-Live weekend last weekend, and it went really well. I've reserved a lot of free time this week to fix issues as they come up, but so far, I've been pretty free. It's nice to have some breathing room.
My brother and I played a little chess via Yahoo yesterday evening. I still get warm fuzzy feelings when the Internet just works, and allows me to do things like play a game of chess with my brother thousands of miles away. Good stuff. I won the game, but he wasn't a pushover. I anticipate some good games in our future.
I sat Diana down in front of Half Life 2 last night to see what would happen. Didn’t really seem to stick. My occasional forays into coaxing Diana into the world of computer games have rarely been successful. It interesting to me to observe a non-gamer play a game. Standard tasks, like traversing my through a level, or moving a box and jumping on it to jump to a higher place are so second nature to me that I forget how tricky (and frustrating) they can be for someone new. She managed her way ok, but I doubt I'll come home to find her playing this evening.
The World of Warcraft beta is ending today, and the game comes out in a week. It's going to be a huge release, I'm sure. I'm definitely looking forward to it coming out and playing more. Good stuff. I have about a dozen friends and friends-of-friends playing, which is fun.
And that's about the size of things for now.
We're heading out of town for Thanksgiving week, which I'm looking forward to. We're going up to Portland and Seattle to visit some friends and family. It's always nice to take a break and get away for a while. Especially for Diana, who's really been super busy recently. We're going to be up in Discostup's neck of the woods on Thanksgiving day, which will be fun. I hope he doesn't think he's responsible for entertaining us or anything. We don't have any big plans or expectations!
This week at work has been pretty quiet for me. We had our big Go-Live weekend last weekend, and it went really well. I've reserved a lot of free time this week to fix issues as they come up, but so far, I've been pretty free. It's nice to have some breathing room.
My brother and I played a little chess via Yahoo yesterday evening. I still get warm fuzzy feelings when the Internet just works, and allows me to do things like play a game of chess with my brother thousands of miles away. Good stuff. I won the game, but he wasn't a pushover. I anticipate some good games in our future.
I sat Diana down in front of Half Life 2 last night to see what would happen. Didn’t really seem to stick. My occasional forays into coaxing Diana into the world of computer games have rarely been successful. It interesting to me to observe a non-gamer play a game. Standard tasks, like traversing my through a level, or moving a box and jumping on it to jump to a higher place are so second nature to me that I forget how tricky (and frustrating) they can be for someone new. She managed her way ok, but I doubt I'll come home to find her playing this evening.
The World of Warcraft beta is ending today, and the game comes out in a week. It's going to be a huge release, I'm sure. I'm definitely looking forward to it coming out and playing more. Good stuff. I have about a dozen friends and friends-of-friends playing, which is fun.
And that's about the size of things for now.
2004/11/15
This weekend was our big "Go Live" weekend at work. It was scheduled for each of the previous two weekends, but got pushed off twice, but now it's here. I had to come in for the morning on Saturday
So, it's Monday morning, and things are actually really quiet! This is a good thing. We're all anticipating that there will be some bumps in the road, but at least we haven't hit bumps too early on. Everyone is using the phrase "knock on wood", so, we'll see.
I had some recent chess triumphs at work at the end of last week. I was ranked #3 on our chess ladder, and played and beat the #2 and then #1 guy. So I'm up at the top, where I certainly don't deserve to be, but there I am. Actually, it's a little skewed, because if you defend your top position 5 times in a row, you go to the bottom (with a star after your name), and we've had one guy do that. In any case, as with lots of other stuff I enjoy, I like observing my own progress. I think others think that I'm really competitive, but I'm really only competitive with myself. I don't mind losing if I feel I've met my own expectations, but I definitely would be unhappy if I played a lot and didn't see any improvement. There's a certain amount of trash talking, as well, so being able to say "Scoreboard" is pretty fun.
And in even other fun news, Teri threw a party for Norm's 30th birthday on Saturday. Teri rented a bunch of those inflatable-party-toy things, and had them all set up at a park. They were a big hit. There was a huge slide, which was awesome, as well as some fun fighting things (inflatable boxing with HUGE oversized gloves, inflatable American Gladiator-style joust pit (with big pugel sticks)), an obstacle course, and sumo suits. Good times.
Sunday afternoon, Diana's mom came over and we went out for Tea. I don't think I've been to an official Tea before. I felt very sophistocated.
World of Warcraft is keeping me busy. I'm having a really great time with it, as are lots of my workboys and Norm. Addiction is your friend.
Diana and I even managed to take a nice walk and talk, as well as get our Portland/Seattle plans in order. We made hotel reservations and car rental stuff for surprisingly cheap! I'm looking forward to the trip.
Last night we watched "Mystic River". Good movie. Pretty intense, and I thought the ending was a little weird, but throroughly enjoyable.
That's about the news from my little world.
So, it's Monday morning, and things are actually really quiet! This is a good thing. We're all anticipating that there will be some bumps in the road, but at least we haven't hit bumps too early on. Everyone is using the phrase "knock on wood", so, we'll see.
I had some recent chess triumphs at work at the end of last week. I was ranked #3 on our chess ladder, and played and beat the #2 and then #1 guy. So I'm up at the top, where I certainly don't deserve to be, but there I am. Actually, it's a little skewed, because if you defend your top position 5 times in a row, you go to the bottom (with a star after your name), and we've had one guy do that. In any case, as with lots of other stuff I enjoy, I like observing my own progress. I think others think that I'm really competitive, but I'm really only competitive with myself. I don't mind losing if I feel I've met my own expectations, but I definitely would be unhappy if I played a lot and didn't see any improvement. There's a certain amount of trash talking, as well, so being able to say "Scoreboard" is pretty fun.
And in even other fun news, Teri threw a party for Norm's 30th birthday on Saturday. Teri rented a bunch of those inflatable-party-toy things, and had them all set up at a park. They were a big hit. There was a huge slide, which was awesome, as well as some fun fighting things (inflatable boxing with HUGE oversized gloves, inflatable American Gladiator-style joust pit (with big pugel sticks)), an obstacle course, and sumo suits. Good times.
Sunday afternoon, Diana's mom came over and we went out for Tea. I don't think I've been to an official Tea before. I felt very sophistocated.
World of Warcraft is keeping me busy. I'm having a really great time with it, as are lots of my workboys and Norm. Addiction is your friend.
Diana and I even managed to take a nice walk and talk, as well as get our Portland/Seattle plans in order. We made hotel reservations and car rental stuff for surprisingly cheap! I'm looking forward to the trip.
Last night we watched "Mystic River". Good movie. Pretty intense, and I thought the ending was a little weird, but throroughly enjoyable.
That's about the news from my little world.
2004/11/11
Norm and I were talking about dreams, and it reminded me of my reocurring dreams. I don't have 'em very often, but these are the only types of dreams that I've had multiple instances of the same theme.
1) Typical sports anxiety dream. I'll be playing goalie in soccer, or a football wide receiver or something, and I can't stop a shot or catch a ball or do anything right.
2) Animal-like running. I'll be in a hurry to get somewhere, and I can run super fast. But in spite of knowing that I'm running really fast, everything is in SUPER slow motion. While running, I'm leaning so far forward that I actually use my hands and arms to reach out and pull at the ground, using every single muscle in arms and legs to pull myself forward. A very satisfying feeling.
3) Flying. I sometime have dreams that I have the ability to fly. The only thing is that it takes a certain amount of faith. In order to fly, I have to run and dive headfirst. If I don't absolutely believe I'm going to succeed, I crash to the ground. Even if I do succeed, it's a wobbly, low-to-the-ground, Wright-brothers kind of flight, but still very exciting. My latest flying dream, though, I was riding a toilet-plunger and zooming around all over the place. It was awesome.
1) Typical sports anxiety dream. I'll be playing goalie in soccer, or a football wide receiver or something, and I can't stop a shot or catch a ball or do anything right.
2) Animal-like running. I'll be in a hurry to get somewhere, and I can run super fast. But in spite of knowing that I'm running really fast, everything is in SUPER slow motion. While running, I'm leaning so far forward that I actually use my hands and arms to reach out and pull at the ground, using every single muscle in arms and legs to pull myself forward. A very satisfying feeling.
3) Flying. I sometime have dreams that I have the ability to fly. The only thing is that it takes a certain amount of faith. In order to fly, I have to run and dive headfirst. If I don't absolutely believe I'm going to succeed, I crash to the ground. Even if I do succeed, it's a wobbly, low-to-the-ground, Wright-brothers kind of flight, but still very exciting. My latest flying dream, though, I was riding a toilet-plunger and zooming around all over the place. It was awesome.
2004/11/09
Not a lot of updates from the Adman lately? Why? Because every free moment has been spent playing the new bane of my existence, World of Warcraft.
For those not in the know, WoW is the newest (just about to be released, still in beta testing) massively multiplayer online game. Players log into central servers which provide huge worlds of questing and adventures and fun. And it's a damn fun game.
The open beta just started, so if you're so inspired, you can check it out now at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.
Otherwise, things are just cruising along. My big work project "going live" was pushed back again to this upcoming weekend, but this time they *really* mean it.
Diana continues to work hard, but she seems to be getting more and more accustomed to her job. My favorite time of the day is still when she walks in the door.
Saturday afternoon, Diana and I headed out and saw "The Incredibles" with Diana's parents. Really good movie. I had substantially high expectations which were met, but not exceeded.
Saturday evening there was some hanging out, with special guest stars Little Buhr and little Landon, who is definitely the second cutest baby in the world. He showed us his new trick, crawling across the floor and pulling himself up to stand next to a coffee table, all by himself. Pretty impressive. He really is a good looking kid, but already has the Buhr glare down, which has me only slighly intimidated. His parents are in for some fun times, I'll bet. :)
The Fightin' Birdmen win again in Fantasy Football, which was great. My team is pretty solid, and I'm propelled in basically a tie for first in my league, which is really a first for me. And the Chargers just keep on winning, which is always nice. I have tickets with my pops and some friends to the game against Denver, which should be a really good (and important!) game.
That's about it from my end. How are you?
For those not in the know, WoW is the newest (just about to be released, still in beta testing) massively multiplayer online game. Players log into central servers which provide huge worlds of questing and adventures and fun. And it's a damn fun game.
The open beta just started, so if you're so inspired, you can check it out now at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com.
Otherwise, things are just cruising along. My big work project "going live" was pushed back again to this upcoming weekend, but this time they *really* mean it.
Diana continues to work hard, but she seems to be getting more and more accustomed to her job. My favorite time of the day is still when she walks in the door.
Saturday afternoon, Diana and I headed out and saw "The Incredibles" with Diana's parents. Really good movie. I had substantially high expectations which were met, but not exceeded.
Saturday evening there was some hanging out, with special guest stars Little Buhr and little Landon, who is definitely the second cutest baby in the world. He showed us his new trick, crawling across the floor and pulling himself up to stand next to a coffee table, all by himself. Pretty impressive. He really is a good looking kid, but already has the Buhr glare down, which has me only slighly intimidated. His parents are in for some fun times, I'll bet. :)
The Fightin' Birdmen win again in Fantasy Football, which was great. My team is pretty solid, and I'm propelled in basically a tie for first in my league, which is really a first for me. And the Chargers just keep on winning, which is always nice. I have tickets with my pops and some friends to the game against Denver, which should be a really good (and important!) game.
That's about it from my end. How are you?
2004/11/01
Hello dear readers.
I don't know if I mentioned it last time, but some time ago we played a softball game against an undefeated team that was clearly better than everyone else in the league. I bitched and moaned about how good they were, and how they didn't belong in our league, etc. Well, we just beat 'em in a great game (won by one point by holding them off in the last inning). Good stuff, and teaches me a little lesson.
The weekend was pretty slow and easy. The Chargers whooped up on the Raiders, and therefore the Birdmen whooped up on Mick in Fantasy Football. I don't think I really have any solid rivalries on FF, but Mick might be as close to one as I might have. He loves reminding me how poor a coach I am, so it's nice to win some games.
Speaking of winning games, I played a lot of Yahoo chess this weekend, and won some games and got my rating out of the toilet. I was so pleased with one game, which I won by sacrificing my queen, I had Yahoo email me the output of the game. With a little more research, I found a handy tool that will make a webpage out of your games. So how about a little test? Here's me whooping up on some guy. (I'm black). In reviewing the game, I had a GREAT move on turn 9, but I didn't see it. Anyone see it? (Use arrow keys to scroll through moves)
That's about it for now. I kind of pulled a muscle at the game, so I'm going to hit the ol' jacuzzi.
I don't know if I mentioned it last time, but some time ago we played a softball game against an undefeated team that was clearly better than everyone else in the league. I bitched and moaned about how good they were, and how they didn't belong in our league, etc. Well, we just beat 'em in a great game (won by one point by holding them off in the last inning). Good stuff, and teaches me a little lesson.
The weekend was pretty slow and easy. The Chargers whooped up on the Raiders, and therefore the Birdmen whooped up on Mick in Fantasy Football. I don't think I really have any solid rivalries on FF, but Mick might be as close to one as I might have. He loves reminding me how poor a coach I am, so it's nice to win some games.
Speaking of winning games, I played a lot of Yahoo chess this weekend, and won some games and got my rating out of the toilet. I was so pleased with one game, which I won by sacrificing my queen, I had Yahoo email me the output of the game. With a little more research, I found a handy tool that will make a webpage out of your games. So how about a little test? Here's me whooping up on some guy. (I'm black). In reviewing the game, I had a GREAT move on turn 9, but I didn't see it. Anyone see it? (Use arrow keys to scroll through moves)
That's about it for now. I kind of pulled a muscle at the game, so I'm going to hit the ol' jacuzzi.
2004/10/25
How about a li'l update from Adman?
Not a whole lot of news to report. Work for me is a little busier these days as a huge project is coming to a close. I popped into work on both Saturday and Sunday for a few hours total, which thankfully is rare. I got some good work done, though, which was good.
Friday night, we were invited to hang out with Norm and Teri, but I'm finding that by the time Friday night rolls around, especially after last week, I'm usually pretty wiped out (and I think Diana definitely is). I feel bad turning down the invitation (sorry Norm), but a night of vegitation and early bedtimes was just what the doctor ordered.
Saturday, I headed to work in the morning, and to my parents house for lunch, and back to work while Diana got her hairs cut. That evening we tried to reestablish contact with Norm and Teri, but as they were busy, called up Old Faithful Iwan for a trip up to Oceans 11 for some poker. That was really fun. We sat at a table with generally nice people, a couple maniacs who were giving away money, and no real jackasses. Sometimes you can find yourself next to someone who really is annoying or rude and it can be a not-fun experience, but everyone was pretty well behaved.
My biggest hand of the night was a K-high flush (made on the turn) against one of the maniacs. Won a nice big pot on that one. I like making flushes on the turn. Makes the river so much more pleasant, usually.
My favorite hand was my K-3 suited. I was in late position, and limped in (which was a mistake, but sometimes after winning a few pots I'll see almost anything). The flop totally missed me. I think A, Q, x. The first guy to act threw in his cards. The dealer reminded him he could check, so he took them back. The second guy (a real yard-sale) did the same thing… mucked his cards, but then grabbed them back and checked. I quick but $1, just on principle. The next guy called, and the first two folded (so it's now heads up). The turn came a J, I think. I have no flush draw and no pair with an ace on the board. But I was sort of mentally committed to my bluff, so I bet $2, and was slowly called. River came a blank, and I bet again. The guy looked at me while I stared into the middle. He thought for a long time, and showed me his pocket 6s (which was a terrible hand, given all the overcards on the board!) and folded. I told him he made a good fold with all the high cards out there, but neglected to tell him that he had me beat the whole way. Good stuff.
Anyhoo, we played until 11:45pm or so. I ended up +$26. Diana was +$34, and Iwan was down a little bit. Good times all around.
Sunday, I watched the Chargers win (woo hoo!) and watched my Fantasy Football team lose by just a few points. Stupid Mike Vick. He might not be on the Birdmen for very much longer. Headed back into work for a few more hours while Diana hung out with her parents. That evening, we watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or whatever the damn hell it's called. It was a pretty decent movie, but I don't think I liked it as much as some. But I'm glad I saw it.
And that's about that.
Not a whole lot of news to report. Work for me is a little busier these days as a huge project is coming to a close. I popped into work on both Saturday and Sunday for a few hours total, which thankfully is rare. I got some good work done, though, which was good.
Friday night, we were invited to hang out with Norm and Teri, but I'm finding that by the time Friday night rolls around, especially after last week, I'm usually pretty wiped out (and I think Diana definitely is). I feel bad turning down the invitation (sorry Norm), but a night of vegitation and early bedtimes was just what the doctor ordered.
Saturday, I headed to work in the morning, and to my parents house for lunch, and back to work while Diana got her hairs cut. That evening we tried to reestablish contact with Norm and Teri, but as they were busy, called up Old Faithful Iwan for a trip up to Oceans 11 for some poker. That was really fun. We sat at a table with generally nice people, a couple maniacs who were giving away money, and no real jackasses. Sometimes you can find yourself next to someone who really is annoying or rude and it can be a not-fun experience, but everyone was pretty well behaved.
My biggest hand of the night was a K-high flush (made on the turn) against one of the maniacs. Won a nice big pot on that one. I like making flushes on the turn. Makes the river so much more pleasant, usually.
My favorite hand was my K-3 suited. I was in late position, and limped in (which was a mistake, but sometimes after winning a few pots I'll see almost anything). The flop totally missed me. I think A, Q, x. The first guy to act threw in his cards. The dealer reminded him he could check, so he took them back. The second guy (a real yard-sale) did the same thing… mucked his cards, but then grabbed them back and checked. I quick but $1, just on principle. The next guy called, and the first two folded (so it's now heads up). The turn came a J, I think. I have no flush draw and no pair with an ace on the board. But I was sort of mentally committed to my bluff, so I bet $2, and was slowly called. River came a blank, and I bet again. The guy looked at me while I stared into the middle. He thought for a long time, and showed me his pocket 6s (which was a terrible hand, given all the overcards on the board!) and folded. I told him he made a good fold with all the high cards out there, but neglected to tell him that he had me beat the whole way. Good stuff.
Anyhoo, we played until 11:45pm or so. I ended up +$26. Diana was +$34, and Iwan was down a little bit. Good times all around.
Sunday, I watched the Chargers win (woo hoo!) and watched my Fantasy Football team lose by just a few points. Stupid Mike Vick. He might not be on the Birdmen for very much longer. Headed back into work for a few more hours while Diana hung out with her parents. That evening, we watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or whatever the damn hell it's called. It was a pretty decent movie, but I don't think I liked it as much as some. But I'm glad I saw it.
And that's about that.
2004/10/18
So.
I have a secondary computer set up, which is about 10 feet away from my network hub. I have a couple of 7 foot network cables, so when needed, I can move the hub and computer a little closer and get it connected, but it's sort of messy. I figured They must sell some sort of female-female coupler that one could use to attach two network cables together to create a single, long cable.
We stopped into CompUSA, and I told the guy what I needed. He walked me over to the right spot, found the little doohickey, and handed it to me. I saw the price just as he said it out loud: "They're eight bucks." He even sounded a little surprised by it.
Eight bucks?! I know that's not a lot in the general scope of computer parts, but the thing is just a tiny piece of plastic with basically a phone-jack on either end. Probably costs less than a cent to produce. And they charge $8. So, we checked out the cables to see if just buying a longer cable was cheaper. $24 for a 15' cable. Unbe-freaking-lievable.
Came home, got online, and bought the coupler off eBay for $1 + $1.50 shipping. Even that is highway robbery, but still. Checked network cable prices on newegg.com, and found 14' of cable for $3 or $4. 50' was $7. 100' for $13.
I'm simply NOT going to CompUSA again. Maybe for games, but those are generally pretty standard priced. But enough is enough.
I have a secondary computer set up, which is about 10 feet away from my network hub. I have a couple of 7 foot network cables, so when needed, I can move the hub and computer a little closer and get it connected, but it's sort of messy. I figured They must sell some sort of female-female coupler that one could use to attach two network cables together to create a single, long cable.
We stopped into CompUSA, and I told the guy what I needed. He walked me over to the right spot, found the little doohickey, and handed it to me. I saw the price just as he said it out loud: "They're eight bucks." He even sounded a little surprised by it.
Eight bucks?! I know that's not a lot in the general scope of computer parts, but the thing is just a tiny piece of plastic with basically a phone-jack on either end. Probably costs less than a cent to produce. And they charge $8. So, we checked out the cables to see if just buying a longer cable was cheaper. $24 for a 15' cable. Unbe-freaking-lievable.
Came home, got online, and bought the coupler off eBay for $1 + $1.50 shipping. Even that is highway robbery, but still. Checked network cable prices on newegg.com, and found 14' of cable for $3 or $4. 50' was $7. 100' for $13.
I'm simply NOT going to CompUSA again. Maybe for games, but those are generally pretty standard priced. But enough is enough.
2004/10/13
So, what's the news?
Friday night, Diana and I went out to dinner with Iwan and Sara at a new'ish sushi place near our pad, and I had some of THE BEST sushi rolls I've ever had. Seriously very delicious. I was fired up, and I don't usually get fired up over good food.
Over the weekend, we were able to get a good bit of work down around the house, including cleaning up the garage a bit, so that we can fit a car in there again. Good stuff.
My fantasy football boys whooped up, which is nice, since I'm sort of a perennial "underdog" and "bad coach". Hopefully my luck will continue. The Chargers also won, which was great. I don't have high expectations, but maybe they can keep up the good work. The do seem to be firing on all cylinders, which is great.
Work has been busy with a lot of stuff that's too hard to explain here. It's not too bad, but there's just a bit of a press which there usually isn't. Nothing to complain about, though, relatively speaking.
I bought Half Life 2 and Counterstrike:Source (CS using the new HL2 engine). The latter I can start playing right away, and the former I'll be able to play as soon as it comes out. CS:S is pretty sweet. It's more of the same, but the same is good stuff, so no complaints.
We've been on a little bit of a Star Wars kick at our house. I watched Episode II over the past two nights, and we started Episode IV last night. What a great movie that is. I really can't wait to see Episode III, as I'm really hoping it fills in the gaps and begins to look more like the Star Wars we're all used to. I really can't help but wonder exactly how much of Eps I, II, and III Lucas had in mind when he worked on IV, V, and VI.
Anyhoo, not much to report, but there you have it.
Friday night, Diana and I went out to dinner with Iwan and Sara at a new'ish sushi place near our pad, and I had some of THE BEST sushi rolls I've ever had. Seriously very delicious. I was fired up, and I don't usually get fired up over good food.
Over the weekend, we were able to get a good bit of work down around the house, including cleaning up the garage a bit, so that we can fit a car in there again. Good stuff.
My fantasy football boys whooped up, which is nice, since I'm sort of a perennial "underdog" and "bad coach". Hopefully my luck will continue. The Chargers also won, which was great. I don't have high expectations, but maybe they can keep up the good work. The do seem to be firing on all cylinders, which is great.
Work has been busy with a lot of stuff that's too hard to explain here. It's not too bad, but there's just a bit of a press which there usually isn't. Nothing to complain about, though, relatively speaking.
I bought Half Life 2 and Counterstrike:Source (CS using the new HL2 engine). The latter I can start playing right away, and the former I'll be able to play as soon as it comes out. CS:S is pretty sweet. It's more of the same, but the same is good stuff, so no complaints.
We've been on a little bit of a Star Wars kick at our house. I watched Episode II over the past two nights, and we started Episode IV last night. What a great movie that is. I really can't wait to see Episode III, as I'm really hoping it fills in the gaps and begins to look more like the Star Wars we're all used to. I really can't help but wonder exactly how much of Eps I, II, and III Lucas had in mind when he worked on IV, V, and VI.
Anyhoo, not much to report, but there you have it.
2004/10/08
2004/10/06
I don't know why, but I've been in a great mood all day.
Work is going pretty well. I've been put in charge of a pretty important side-project that's going pretty well.
In addition, I was called into my boss's office today, along with my supervisor and project lead, which was really scary. My first thought was that I'd done something seriously wrong, even though I had no idea what it was. Turns out there is a contracting company that is having a really hard time with their stuff, and needed a "perl expert" to help 'em out. And they wanted me. Rawk. I met with the guy, and they needed like the easiest perl script ever. He told me about the requirements, and asked how long it would take (because he needed to report back at an official meeting). I said "unofficially, this will take about 20 minutes. Offically, give me until the end of the day." He thought this was the coolest ever. I think I really saved his butt.
I wrote the script (in 20 minutes, thank you), and handed it over, and we tested it. When it worked, he got a HUGE smile on his face and said "Yes! Now we're cookin' with GAS!" I made a mental note to remember this phrase and use it more often. Anyways, it felt really good.
I got my ass handed to me in chess again. We set up a chess ladder at work, with the worst players on top and best at the bottom, so I'm getting fading fast as the good guys below me rise up. But it's fun.
Tonight, Diana brought home my most favorite clam chowder ever, and we watched "Spellbound", which I thought would be better, but was still fun to watch.
And there was my day.
*UPDATE*
I just went in to the bedroom, and Diana was watching a show on plastic surgery on the Oxygen network (basic cable). They were showing the "after" pictures. I was expecting the typical blurred out bits, but they were showing the whole thing. Full breastal nudity, right there on my TV, and I didn't even have to pay for it. What a day. :)
Work is going pretty well. I've been put in charge of a pretty important side-project that's going pretty well.
In addition, I was called into my boss's office today, along with my supervisor and project lead, which was really scary. My first thought was that I'd done something seriously wrong, even though I had no idea what it was. Turns out there is a contracting company that is having a really hard time with their stuff, and needed a "perl expert" to help 'em out. And they wanted me. Rawk. I met with the guy, and they needed like the easiest perl script ever. He told me about the requirements, and asked how long it would take (because he needed to report back at an official meeting). I said "unofficially, this will take about 20 minutes. Offically, give me until the end of the day." He thought this was the coolest ever. I think I really saved his butt.
I wrote the script (in 20 minutes, thank you), and handed it over, and we tested it. When it worked, he got a HUGE smile on his face and said "Yes! Now we're cookin' with GAS!" I made a mental note to remember this phrase and use it more often. Anyways, it felt really good.
I got my ass handed to me in chess again. We set up a chess ladder at work, with the worst players on top and best at the bottom, so I'm getting fading fast as the good guys below me rise up. But it's fun.
Tonight, Diana brought home my most favorite clam chowder ever, and we watched "Spellbound", which I thought would be better, but was still fun to watch.
And there was my day.
*UPDATE*
I just went in to the bedroom, and Diana was watching a show on plastic surgery on the Oxygen network (basic cable). They were showing the "after" pictures. I was expecting the typical blurred out bits, but they were showing the whole thing. Full breastal nudity, right there on my TV, and I didn't even have to pay for it. What a day. :)
2004/10/05
Friday was the first day of the big Breast Cancer 3-day walk here in San Diego. I had a couple co-workers walking in it, and the walk when right by our building, so a big group of us went down to cheer them on as they passed. We ended up heading down there about half an hour before our walkers showed up, but we cheered for all the walkers as they came by. It was a really neat thing. It was a tiny thing to clap for people as they walked by, but everyone was so geniunely happy and thankful that we were there. So that was really nice. I'm pretty sure that we, the spectators, were the real heros that day.
Friday night, Diana and I headed over to the ol' high school football game. It was a lot of fun. I loved going to football games when I was in high school, but I barely remember actually watching any of the games themselves. Diana gave her students a point of extra credit on their homework (which is basically nothing) if they came up and said hi to her at the game. A few did, and we even saw one or two literally walking around, scanning the crowd looking for her. It was only after a couple students came running up excitedly that I realized what a clever plan it was. Some seed of an idea of "seeing their teacher is a positive experience that you should look forward to" is now planted in their heads, and I don't think the importance of that could be overestimated. Clever girl.
Saturday, we took my parents to the airport, and then did a little shopping. I'm dismayed at how few stores interest me at UTC. EBGames barely has any PC games anymore. No bookstores. No Gamekeeper/WotC. Not even a Radio Shack. That place is pretty much cut, as far as I'm concerned.
We finished watching Eryn's "Freaks and Geeks" DVDs this weekend. What a great show. I throroughly enjoyed every episode, and am pretty bummed it was cancelled. We also rented "Spellbound", and "Searching for Bobby Fischer", the latter of which we watched with Diana's parents Sunday evening (haven't watched "Spellbound" yet). SfBF was a really good movie. Kinda cheeseball, but I liked it a lot. The main kid (character, not actor) in the movie, Josh Waitzkin, is the guy who teaches via Chessmaster 10 (he does substantial dictated, animated, annotated lessons in the game), so it was neat to see it from that perspective as well.
My Fantasy Football boys won over the undefeated Brown Trout. I was down by just a couple points going into the Monday Night Football game, and had Baltimore defense. No problem, I figured, but then KC started scoring tons of points, and I was getting no defensive points at all. I was completely saved by a punt return for a touchdown, which I didn't realize at the time counted for my defense (it's a non-standard setting, I believe). So, it was a squeeker.
Last night, I had a workboy softball game, where we played a team that has been undefeated for the past two seasons. They beat some other team in our league something like 40-4. They are a bunch of 30+ folks, all of whom, you can tell, were ex-highschool or college baseball and softball players. The women on the team were better than our boys, and their boys were really good. Basically, one of those teams that just has no business playing in a B-league, for-fun softball league.
Which leads me to this. I like to think that I'm not a quitter. But I also believe in choosing your battles, which implies quitting. In spite of what others might think, I really don't mind losing. I really don't. But I've got better things to do then run after softballs while watching the other round the bases at will. That's just not fun. So, our team struggled through it, and really the game ended when the other team decided to stop playing seriously. It really left me kind of bummed. I left a nice warm house and cozy wife on the sofa for this?! Bleah. I'm interested in your comments on situations like this…
Friday night, Diana and I headed over to the ol' high school football game. It was a lot of fun. I loved going to football games when I was in high school, but I barely remember actually watching any of the games themselves. Diana gave her students a point of extra credit on their homework (which is basically nothing) if they came up and said hi to her at the game. A few did, and we even saw one or two literally walking around, scanning the crowd looking for her. It was only after a couple students came running up excitedly that I realized what a clever plan it was. Some seed of an idea of "seeing their teacher is a positive experience that you should look forward to" is now planted in their heads, and I don't think the importance of that could be overestimated. Clever girl.
Saturday, we took my parents to the airport, and then did a little shopping. I'm dismayed at how few stores interest me at UTC. EBGames barely has any PC games anymore. No bookstores. No Gamekeeper/WotC. Not even a Radio Shack. That place is pretty much cut, as far as I'm concerned.
We finished watching Eryn's "Freaks and Geeks" DVDs this weekend. What a great show. I throroughly enjoyed every episode, and am pretty bummed it was cancelled. We also rented "Spellbound", and "Searching for Bobby Fischer", the latter of which we watched with Diana's parents Sunday evening (haven't watched "Spellbound" yet). SfBF was a really good movie. Kinda cheeseball, but I liked it a lot. The main kid (character, not actor) in the movie, Josh Waitzkin, is the guy who teaches via Chessmaster 10 (he does substantial dictated, animated, annotated lessons in the game), so it was neat to see it from that perspective as well.
My Fantasy Football boys won over the undefeated Brown Trout. I was down by just a couple points going into the Monday Night Football game, and had Baltimore defense. No problem, I figured, but then KC started scoring tons of points, and I was getting no defensive points at all. I was completely saved by a punt return for a touchdown, which I didn't realize at the time counted for my defense (it's a non-standard setting, I believe). So, it was a squeeker.
Last night, I had a workboy softball game, where we played a team that has been undefeated for the past two seasons. They beat some other team in our league something like 40-4. They are a bunch of 30+ folks, all of whom, you can tell, were ex-highschool or college baseball and softball players. The women on the team were better than our boys, and their boys were really good. Basically, one of those teams that just has no business playing in a B-league, for-fun softball league.
Which leads me to this. I like to think that I'm not a quitter. But I also believe in choosing your battles, which implies quitting. In spite of what others might think, I really don't mind losing. I really don't. But I've got better things to do then run after softballs while watching the other round the bases at will. That's just not fun. So, our team struggled through it, and really the game ended when the other team decided to stop playing seriously. It really left me kind of bummed. I left a nice warm house and cozy wife on the sofa for this?! Bleah. I'm interested in your comments on situations like this…
2004/09/27
Friday night we celebrated my boy Iwan's birthday. We met up at the beach shortly after work, and had some margs and chips and dip and hung out. Then we headed out for a nice li'l mexican dinner, and back to our pad for more sitting around and yapping.
At some point, the game Risk came up in conversation, and there was a groundswell movement to play. I can only assume coincidentally, the ladies decided it was a good time to crash out, and retreated to various bedrooms and guestrooms while the boys gleefully set up the board.
Risk is a funny game. I certainly like playing it, even through there are distinct, significant parts of the game that I don't like. Specifically, I don't like the progression of sets, and how quickly a team can turn in a set, get a whole buttload of armies, blurp 'em out all on one country, and basically decimate a continent. The end-game of Risk is always the same.
In spite of that, it was good fun. We played until 2:30am. Iwan ended up winning, I think mostly by being patient while Gabe, Eryn and I all mucked around uselessly with each other.
Saturday, Diana and I were going to do a little shopping and head out for a hike. We made it as far as shopping and had a nice little lunch, but ended up just sitting by a fountain at the stores and hanging out. It was nice.
That evening, we headed over to my parents house, to celebrate my pops' birthday. We had dinner, opened some pressies, and went downtown to see Shakespeare's "As You Like It", which I really enjoyed. It was done in a "traditional" fashion (that is, they didn't change the setting to 1940's Berlin or something silly), and it didn't take itself too seriously (which I don't think Shakespeare comedies should. It was a good time.
We've been playing a lot of chess at work, during breaks and stuff, and I knew that my parents had a chess set that belonged to my great-great-grandfather. I didn't know if this was earmarked to be handed down to me or not, but I figured I'd ask if I could have it. And now I do. I'd forgotten how beautiful a set it is. It's absolutely gorgeous, I love it! My grandmother wrote a note explaining it's origins. She says that her grandfather either bought it or received it as a gift, probably around 1885. Her grandfather also taught a woodworking class, and made a box for them about 100 years ago exactly. Really neat. I'm very happy to have it.
Sunday, Diana spent most of the day working on school stuff and started to get sick. I spent most of the day working around the house (emptying, cleaning, and refilling the jacuzzi and trimming back some bushes), and watched the Charger game. The damn Chargers are so frustrating to watch. If they got blown out of every game, it would be one thing, but they always seem to be just out of reach, tantalizingly close to winning, but yet never able to finish. Argh.
And that was about that.
At some point, the game Risk came up in conversation, and there was a groundswell movement to play. I can only assume coincidentally, the ladies decided it was a good time to crash out, and retreated to various bedrooms and guestrooms while the boys gleefully set up the board.
Risk is a funny game. I certainly like playing it, even through there are distinct, significant parts of the game that I don't like. Specifically, I don't like the progression of sets, and how quickly a team can turn in a set, get a whole buttload of armies, blurp 'em out all on one country, and basically decimate a continent. The end-game of Risk is always the same.
In spite of that, it was good fun. We played until 2:30am. Iwan ended up winning, I think mostly by being patient while Gabe, Eryn and I all mucked around uselessly with each other.
Saturday, Diana and I were going to do a little shopping and head out for a hike. We made it as far as shopping and had a nice little lunch, but ended up just sitting by a fountain at the stores and hanging out. It was nice.
That evening, we headed over to my parents house, to celebrate my pops' birthday. We had dinner, opened some pressies, and went downtown to see Shakespeare's "As You Like It", which I really enjoyed. It was done in a "traditional" fashion (that is, they didn't change the setting to 1940's Berlin or something silly), and it didn't take itself too seriously (which I don't think Shakespeare comedies should. It was a good time.
We've been playing a lot of chess at work, during breaks and stuff, and I knew that my parents had a chess set that belonged to my great-great-grandfather. I didn't know if this was earmarked to be handed down to me or not, but I figured I'd ask if I could have it. And now I do. I'd forgotten how beautiful a set it is. It's absolutely gorgeous, I love it! My grandmother wrote a note explaining it's origins. She says that her grandfather either bought it or received it as a gift, probably around 1885. Her grandfather also taught a woodworking class, and made a box for them about 100 years ago exactly. Really neat. I'm very happy to have it.
Sunday, Diana spent most of the day working on school stuff and started to get sick. I spent most of the day working around the house (emptying, cleaning, and refilling the jacuzzi and trimming back some bushes), and watched the Charger game. The damn Chargers are so frustrating to watch. If they got blown out of every game, it would be one thing, but they always seem to be just out of reach, tantalizingly close to winning, but yet never able to finish. Argh.
And that was about that.
2004/09/23
Something I wrote for a friend here at work (totally bitten off the Lord of the Rings story written in similiar style). Thought I'd post it up.
--------------
Surv5v0r R3c4p
*** TheHost has joined the game.
*** TheHost is now known as J3ph
*** Mode change "+admin J3ph"
*** J3ph changes map to game/Survivor.pak
*** Loading map..... Complete!
J3ph: I r r00t.
J3ph: Ph34r my d1mples!
All players join the channel.
Natives surround them and shake spears at everyone but Rory.
Natives: Ooga shaka, ooga ooga ooga shaka!
Players: Lolz! OMG rl n00bz!
R0ry: I got h4x!
J3ph: Boyz on 1 team, gurlz on the other.
Boyz: RAWK!
Girlz: ffs teams!
Natives bring in a pig:
Girlz: OMG gross!
Dolly: I r lvl 10 butcher ..oO(yawn)
Native swings his hatchet.
Native scores a critical hit against the wild boar!
The wild boar dies!
Native gains 14 experience.
Native goes up a level!
Native: DING! ^_^
Natives: Wewt! Gratz!
Native puts a rock on a greased pole.
J3ph: That rock is phat lewt.
Br00k: LOL!! "greased pole" 8=====D ~~``
*** Brady climbs pole.
Brady : me >>> pole
Boys: W00t!
Eliza: OMFG, TEAMS!!!!1!!
Lisa: Haxor!!
Mia: a/s/l? wanna cyber? ^_^
Girls head to camp.
Boys head to camp.
Guy shows off fake leg.
John: woah!
*** Chad is now known as TheG1mp
*** J3ph creates channel #Challenge
Brady: boys r00l, gurlz DRooL!
Girls: STFU tards!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Chr1s: LAG!!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Brady: dude!!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
R0ry: LOLOLO n00b!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Boys: OMFG!!@! U R SO GHEY!!
Chr1s: I r teh suq. :(
Girls: pwnd
*** J3ph creates channel #TribalCouncil
*** J3ph sets mode "+moderated"
*** Brady has joined the channel.
*** Br00k has joined the channel.
*** Chad has joined the channel.
*** Chr1s has joined the channel.
*** JohnK. has joined the channel.
*** JohnP. has joined the channel.
*** Lea has joined the channel.
*** Rory has joined the channel.
*** Travis has joined the channel.
J3ph: OMG u n00bs sux0rs. I should kick/ban j00 all!
Br00k is voted off.
Br00k: OMFG TK'd!1!!
*** Br00k has been kicked/banned from the server.
--------------
Surv5v0r R3c4p
*** TheHost has joined the game.
*** TheHost is now known as J3ph
*** Mode change "+admin J3ph"
*** J3ph changes map to game/Survivor.pak
*** Loading map..... Complete!
J3ph: I r r00t.
J3ph: Ph34r my d1mples!
All players join the channel.
Natives surround them and shake spears at everyone but Rory.
Natives: Ooga shaka, ooga ooga ooga shaka!
Players: Lolz! OMG rl n00bz!
R0ry: I got h4x!
J3ph: Boyz on 1 team, gurlz on the other.
Boyz: RAWK!
Girlz: ffs teams!
Natives bring in a pig:
Girlz: OMG gross!
Dolly: I r lvl 10 butcher ..oO(yawn)
Native swings his hatchet.
Native scores a critical hit against the wild boar!
The wild boar dies!
Native gains 14 experience.
Native goes up a level!
Native: DING! ^_^
Natives: Wewt! Gratz!
Native puts a rock on a greased pole.
J3ph: That rock is phat lewt.
Br00k: LOL!! "greased pole" 8=====D ~~``
*** Brady climbs pole.
Brady : me >>> pole
Boys: W00t!
Eliza: OMFG, TEAMS!!!!1!!
Lisa: Haxor!!
Mia: a/s/l? wanna cyber? ^_^
Girls head to camp.
Boys head to camp.
Guy shows off fake leg.
John: woah!
*** Chad is now known as TheG1mp
*** J3ph creates channel #Challenge
Brady: boys r00l, gurlz DRooL!
Girls: STFU tards!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Chr1s: LAG!!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Brady: dude!!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
R0ry: LOLOLO n00b!
Chr1s fails saving throw against Gravity!
Boys: OMFG!!@! U R SO GHEY!!
Chr1s: I r teh suq. :(
Girls: pwnd
*** J3ph creates channel #TribalCouncil
*** J3ph sets mode "+moderated"
*** Brady has joined the channel.
*** Br00k has joined the channel.
*** Chad has joined the channel.
*** Chr1s has joined the channel.
*** JohnK. has joined the channel.
*** JohnP. has joined the channel.
*** Lea has joined the channel.
*** Rory has joined the channel.
*** Travis has joined the channel.
J3ph: OMG u n00bs sux0rs. I should kick/ban j00 all!
Br00k is voted off.
Br00k: OMFG TK'd!1!!
*** Br00k has been kicked/banned from the server.
2004/09/20
I'm considering moving over my primary email to my gmail account (especially if I can come up with a cool hip email name). However, I just noticed that I posted something to a usenet newsgroup using that email address! I quickly cancelled the post (some days later), but I'm interested to see if spam harvesters get ahold of it and what will happen.
Gmail, so far, has been pretty cool. No spam at all (compared to the LOT that I get on yahoo (with my well publicized email address).
I think I did a call for votes on a gmail address for me, but I don't think I got any replies. "adman" would be my preference, but you need 6 characters! What a gyp. Oh well.
Gmail, so far, has been pretty cool. No spam at all (compared to the LOT that I get on yahoo (with my well publicized email address).
I think I did a call for votes on a gmail address for me, but I don't think I got any replies. "adman" would be my preference, but you need 6 characters! What a gyp. Oh well.
2004/09/19
Another nice weekend in the books.
Friday night, Iwan and I headed up for some poker at our local card house. I've lost the last couple times I've played (which was a while ago), so I was ready to win some back. Unfortunately, we both got our asses handed to us, though neither are quite sure how it happened. I'm definitely still in the black, but it was kind of a bummer.
Saturday, Diana and I went for a nice walk through a local nature preserve that we'd never been to before. It was hot, but not too hot, and it was great just to be outside and have the chance to talk and spend some time together. We walked up to where the map said there was a "waterfall", which was really just a little more than a rapid in an otherwise calm stream, but it was fun. There was a couple there already, so we sort of sat nearby and ate lunch. They were constantly yelling at their dogs, who were just sort of wandering around, not harming anything, but the woman really wanted them to just sit there quietly. At one point, she yelled at the top of her lungs "YOU ARE RUINING MY RELAXATION!!!!" I found this quite hilarious.
That evening we headed to the 90th birthday party of an old babysitter/nanny of Diana and her sister's. Great to meet her, and it was neat to see how happy she was to see Diana and her folks. I was impressed at how spry and on top of things she was for being 90 years old! She definitely was sharp and keen, and certainly up and about and greeting everyone at the party. Very impressive.
Perhaps the biggest news of the weekend is I ascended for the second time in my life in Nethack. A second Valkyrie. (This is going to lead to more "Diana the Valkyrie" hits on my blog. Do a webseach from that when you're not at work sometime. :) Anyways, I was very pleased with myself. I've played that damn game off an on for so long, and finally beat it just a few months ago (April 25... I just looked it up), and now a second time. Anyways, good stuff. The game started with an altar in the first room, and after a few sacrifices I got Mjollnir. At some point, I found a magic lamp, got a wish for grey dragon scale mail, and the rest just sort of wrote itself. I ascended with 3 wishes left on the only wand of wishing I found, as well as a second blessed magic lamp that could have been used. I had a little problem with Pesitilence on the Astral Plane, but ended up not being much of an issue. (I love talking Nethack to people who don't know what I'm talking about. It must sound so out-there. :)
The only other important point (relatively speaking, I know) is that I played the whole game (except Sokoban) using the hjklyubn keys for moving, rather than the arrow keys. So, j is down, k is up, h is left, l is right, etc. A really non-intuitive way to move (compared with arrow keys), but once you get used to it, a much more efficient way to play. More importantly, good training for playing on a laptop or something without a number pad.
That all, combined with a fantasy football win already locked up (with T.O. still left to play!) and things could have been a lot worse this weekend.
Friday night, Iwan and I headed up for some poker at our local card house. I've lost the last couple times I've played (which was a while ago), so I was ready to win some back. Unfortunately, we both got our asses handed to us, though neither are quite sure how it happened. I'm definitely still in the black, but it was kind of a bummer.
Saturday, Diana and I went for a nice walk through a local nature preserve that we'd never been to before. It was hot, but not too hot, and it was great just to be outside and have the chance to talk and spend some time together. We walked up to where the map said there was a "waterfall", which was really just a little more than a rapid in an otherwise calm stream, but it was fun. There was a couple there already, so we sort of sat nearby and ate lunch. They were constantly yelling at their dogs, who were just sort of wandering around, not harming anything, but the woman really wanted them to just sit there quietly. At one point, she yelled at the top of her lungs "YOU ARE RUINING MY RELAXATION!!!!" I found this quite hilarious.
That evening we headed to the 90th birthday party of an old babysitter/nanny of Diana and her sister's. Great to meet her, and it was neat to see how happy she was to see Diana and her folks. I was impressed at how spry and on top of things she was for being 90 years old! She definitely was sharp and keen, and certainly up and about and greeting everyone at the party. Very impressive.
Perhaps the biggest news of the weekend is I ascended for the second time in my life in Nethack. A second Valkyrie. (This is going to lead to more "Diana the Valkyrie" hits on my blog. Do a webseach from that when you're not at work sometime. :) Anyways, I was very pleased with myself. I've played that damn game off an on for so long, and finally beat it just a few months ago (April 25... I just looked it up), and now a second time. Anyways, good stuff. The game started with an altar in the first room, and after a few sacrifices I got Mjollnir. At some point, I found a magic lamp, got a wish for grey dragon scale mail, and the rest just sort of wrote itself. I ascended with 3 wishes left on the only wand of wishing I found, as well as a second blessed magic lamp that could have been used. I had a little problem with Pesitilence on the Astral Plane, but ended up not being much of an issue. (I love talking Nethack to people who don't know what I'm talking about. It must sound so out-there. :)
The only other important point (relatively speaking, I know) is that I played the whole game (except Sokoban) using the hjklyubn keys for moving, rather than the arrow keys. So, j is down, k is up, h is left, l is right, etc. A really non-intuitive way to move (compared with arrow keys), but once you get used to it, a much more efficient way to play. More importantly, good training for playing on a laptop or something without a number pad.
That all, combined with a fantasy football win already locked up (with T.O. still left to play!) and things could have been a lot worse this weekend.
2004/09/14
Freaks and Geeks.
I borrowed the complete "Freaks and Geeks" series on DVD from my personal library (read: Baditude (thanks, buddy!)) and Diana and I have been watching 'em in the evenings. Pretty much the best show ever. I can't believe that it was cancelled. Just goes to show that the general public has their collective head up their collective heinies when it comes to television. How's THAT for some elitism?! Ha!
Anyways, if you have the opportunity, give the shows a watch.
The best part about the show is that Little Buhr is on it. Who knew? He does, however, crack me up with every line.
I've been trying to play Nethack with the hjklyubn keys instead of the number pad. Remember how hard it was when you first learned how to touch-type (you ARE touch-typing these days, aren't you, dear reader?)? It's kind of like that. I can see the benefits, but it's going to take some work to get there. Labor of love, or something like that.
Speaking of, the World of Warcraft stress test was extended, and then ended while I was on vacation. And Normie was added to it, as well, so we could have trekked around together! Talk about the worst timing to be accepted to a beta test. Oh well.
My boys at work have a couple of chess boards set up, and there are constantly games going. I've gotten my ass handed to me twice. Since then, I discovered Yahoo Chess, and might have to hang out in the ol' "Learners Lounge" for a bit. I could see myself really getting into chess (a la poker) if I really gave myself a chance. I'm not sure I want to give myself that chance, though.
Speaking of poker. I haven't played in forever, and the last times I've played, I've lost a little money. I'm still in the black, overall (I'm keeping a very careful spreadsheet!), but I'm ready to get back on the horse!
I borrowed the complete "Freaks and Geeks" series on DVD from my personal library (read: Baditude (thanks, buddy!)) and Diana and I have been watching 'em in the evenings. Pretty much the best show ever. I can't believe that it was cancelled. Just goes to show that the general public has their collective head up their collective heinies when it comes to television. How's THAT for some elitism?! Ha!
Anyways, if you have the opportunity, give the shows a watch.
The best part about the show is that Little Buhr is on it. Who knew? He does, however, crack me up with every line.
I've been trying to play Nethack with the hjklyubn keys instead of the number pad. Remember how hard it was when you first learned how to touch-type (you ARE touch-typing these days, aren't you, dear reader?)? It's kind of like that. I can see the benefits, but it's going to take some work to get there. Labor of love, or something like that.
Speaking of, the World of Warcraft stress test was extended, and then ended while I was on vacation. And Normie was added to it, as well, so we could have trekked around together! Talk about the worst timing to be accepted to a beta test. Oh well.
My boys at work have a couple of chess boards set up, and there are constantly games going. I've gotten my ass handed to me twice. Since then, I discovered Yahoo Chess, and might have to hang out in the ol' "Learners Lounge" for a bit. I could see myself really getting into chess (a la poker) if I really gave myself a chance. I'm not sure I want to give myself that chance, though.
Speaking of poker. I haven't played in forever, and the last times I've played, I've lost a little money. I'm still in the black, overall (I'm keeping a very careful spreadsheet!), but I'm ready to get back on the horse!
2004/09/12
Ooooookay!
Back from New York. My pops had his laptop, so I did some bloggin' on the trip. Not too much excitement, but here you go. (Typos are blamed strictly on the laptop keyboard).
Day 1
Upstate New York
When I was a wee lad, my grandparents owned a cabin on a small like in
Upstate New York. My family used to come out for summers pretty frequently, and
stay for a week or so. It was during these summers that I learned to waterski,
fish, windsurf, etc. Days were spent swimming and having fun, and evenings
were spent outside, having some hors d'oevres and sitting watching the lake,
and maybe going for an evening boatride. It was all great, and I have many
happy memories of this cabin on the lake.
My grandparents had to sell the cabin when they were too old to take care of
it. It was unfortunate that we couldn't keep it in the family, but it just
wasn't practical.
When my grandfather died in the early 90's, some members of my family (I
wasn't able to attend) brought his ashes here for.... submersion (I'm having
problems with a proper verb). They sank his ashes in the middle of the lake out
in front of the cabin.
My grandmother died quite a few years later (a few years ago from now), and
her ashes have been in the posession of my aunt. But not for long.
The true reason for our little trip out here is to (verb problems again)
submerge her ashes out in the lake with my grandfathers. I haven't heard any
tell of the plans for this yet. In spite of that somber sounding motive, mostly
the trip is a reunion and nostalgia-fest. My aunt was able to rent the same
cottage that my grandparents owned so many years back, and here we all are.
It's amazing to see what's the same and what is different. The last time I
was here was about 14 years ago. The summer of 1990. I had just finished my
freshman year of high school, and my special ordered letterman's jacket had
just arrived. Since I'd been at camp all summer, my mom brought it from home
and I got to first wear it here. Very proud. I'm not sure if I knew at that
time that I wouldn't be back for 14 years, but my mom (who probably knew)
took a nice video of life at the lake.
And now we're back. It's me, my parents, Dave and Elaine and little Ben, and
my aunt. We flew yesterday from San Diego to Baltimore, and Dave and Elaine
and Ben came to visit during our stopover. We had lunch. I had a crabcake
sammich. I like crabcake sammiches.
We then flew to Buffalo, hopped in a rental car, and drove through the
leftovers of Francis for a couple hours to the lake. We met my aunt who was
already here, had some food, and headed to bed.
This morning, in the daylight, I was able to give the cabin a little closer
inspection. It's a lot smaller than I remember, but generally looks and
smells the same. Really fun to walk around and check everything out.
Dave and Elaine and Ben showed up in the midmorning after waking up at 3am
and driving out from B'more. We greeted them and hung out for a bit. Then mom
drove me and Dad to a nearby marina where we'd reserved a boat for rental.
It had been raining all the night before, but it was only overcast in the
morning. We got the boat, and while mom drove home, we boated home. It was
during this time when the rain came back, and by the time we got back to the
cabin, it was coming down pretty hard. I managed to park the boat in spite of
the wind and current (for which I was proud), and we headed in.
After lunch, the rain and wind had died down, and my brother was pretty
excited to do some skiing. The boys headed out on the boat with nervous
anticipation. My brother went first, trying in vain to get up on one ski, before
finally giving up and getting up on two. He then tried to drop one ski, and
lasted about 20 good seconds on one foot, the other flailing around before
finally bailing out. Good times.
My dad next went. He tried only once to get up on one ski before throwing in
the towel. He did, however, get up easily on two, and successfully drop one
and did quite well on one ski. I was proud.
I tried in vain (see a pattern here?) to get up on one ski. Close, but just
didn't make it. I did get up on two, and dropped one (close call), and did
ok on one. With a little more practice, I think I could do the zig-zag across
the wake thing. Good times.
It was cold, so we came back after just a short time. I took a little nap,
and now we're having some pre-dinner drinks. Not a bad day.
There's been quite a bit of Ben watching today, which is a lot of fun. He's
a really good-tempered little guy, and lots of fun to interact with.
Tonight, we may take a traditional sunset boat trip. It's still cloudy out,
but looking bright. I'm hoping the sun will come. That would make skiing a
bit more fun.
I saw a fish off the end of the dock. But there's not a pole to be seen!
Unbelievable.
No internet access (I'm typing this is Notepad). I'm not quite sure how I'm
going to manage for the next few days. Hrm.
Day 2
I got a migraine last night.
I was in bed, reading my book, and all of a sudden, I noticed that I couldn't
really see the lower left corner of the letter I was looking at. I started
looking more closely at things, and within a minute, noted that I couldn't see
the left half of the letter. I had a small blind spot that was growing to my
left.
Ugh. Bad sinking feeling.
I took my meds. 50mg of Imitrex and some other triple cocktail of caffeine
and pain reliever. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly. The blind spot
lasted around half and hour, and then went away. The headache is supposed to
start at this point, but never really came.
Just as I was feeling pretty good, I started to get a headache. A squeezing,
burning feeling all through the right side of my dome. Not too terrible,
maybe a 35 on a scale of 0 (no pain) to 100 (suicidal pain). After a little
while, I took another pain med and soon after was able to fall asleep.
Today, however, I'm in a post-migraine fog. Kind of like a hangover, I just
feel a bit out of it. Not too bad, though.
This morning, I slept in pretty late, which was nice. Dave and Elaine showed
up at some early hour, and I came out to some actual sun out on the porch,
which was great.
We sat around for a little, and then headed out for some post-breakkie,
pre-lunch skiing. Repeat of yesterday, with lots of failing to get up on one ski
but successful dropping from two to one. I, however, was able to get up on
one ski not only once but twice. Very proud.
We headed back in for a nice lunch where we opened some presents for my aunt
and some for Ben's 6 month birthday, and some assorted other gifts.
After lunch, we took my grandmothers ashes and headed out to the middle of
the lake. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but when we got out there,
without a whole lot of ceremony, we lowered the plastic container into the water.
It became immediately clear that the plastic container had air in it, and was
floating. We broke the seal and loosened the top (the ashes were in a
plastic bag inside), and that did the trick. In no time at all, they were out of
sight.
We sat out there in the middle of the lake for a few minutes. We all agree
that this was really exactly what she would have wanted, and how nice it was
for us all to be together, just having shared a nice lunch outside in such a
beautiful place. Inside, I completely agreed. At that moment, there was
really nothing I knew more than that this was the Right Thing to be Doing. It's
what we wanted, and there was no doubt it's where she wanted to be.
My mom held back a few tears. Everyone else was generally quietly
thoughtful. Little Ben was experiencing his second boat trip ever, and was very
agreeable as usual.
We took a little trip to the end of the bluff, and headed back.
This afternoon has been quiet. I convinced my dad to get the computer
online, but it was so damn slow to really do anything. I saw a message from my
love labelled "Babester", but I never got to read it. I will give her a call
tonight.
We just did a late afternoon skiing run. My father was able to get up on one
ski. I told him of my wedgie technique, and that may have been the deciding
factor. The problem I was having was that the legholes of my shorts would
catch a huge amount of water and create a lot of drag. I found that if I
pulled my shorts way up in the back, it reduced the drag a lot. Anyhoo, my dad
was able to get up, which was exciting. My brother gave it a couple of great
tries, but was never successful. He's not so much fat, but he's definitely a
big body.
And now, some hors d'ouvres and dinner. I'd like to try to get online again
tonight, write and email or two, and check my fantasy football stuff. Not
sure if I'll be able to, but we'll see.
Day 3
This morning, I slept in nice and late again, after staying up reading
"Positively 5th Street". I'm not liking it as much as I'd hoped (not enough poker,
too much murder stuff), but it's interesting enough.
This morning, as usual, we headed out for some more waterskiing. Good stuff.
Back for lunch, then a nice walk to a decent viewpoint.
It's amazing how beautiful it is here. Green, rolling hills leading down
into a lake in the valley. Lots of quaint little lakefront cottages and boats
and stuff. The blue water and green trees and blue sky are quite striking. I
really hope that we can come back here someday, and from the look of things,
I think it will probably happen.
We returned the boat this afternoon, doing a little more skiing up to the
marina. By this point our skiing muscles were a little worn out, so there were
no spectacular feats of magic.
Now we're back, enjoying the evening and having a drink on the porch.
Tonight we'll have our final dinner together, and say goodbye to Dave and Elaine
and little Ben. I continue to be impressed at what an agreeable and cute
little guy he is. He whines when he's upset, but I have yet to hear him really
cry. Amazing.
It's been nice to hang out with Jocelyn, as well. Living in Boston, I don't
get a chance to see her very often, and it's nice to see her. I know she's
eager to have Diana and me come out to visit, and I'm sure we will sometime,
but it just hasn't been a good time yet.
Tomorrow morning, we're up at 7am to drive to Buffalo for a flight. We have
one stop on our flight to San Diego, but it's unclear where that stop is,
exactly. It might be back east in Baltimore, a la the way out here, but
hopefully it's somewhere along the way. We should get into San Diego around 2pm,
which will be nice.
It's really too bad that Diana couldn't be here. Not only is it a beautiful
place and I think she'd enjoy being here, but I have so many stories and
memories associated that I believe really make me the person that I am, and I think
she'd enjoy seeing the place where a lot of my childhood happened. My mom is
already talking about the next time we're here, and making sure it's a time
she can come, so I'm sure it will happen sometime in the not-to-distant future. Here's hoping.
Back from New York. My pops had his laptop, so I did some bloggin' on the trip. Not too much excitement, but here you go. (Typos are blamed strictly on the laptop keyboard).
Day 1
Upstate New York
When I was a wee lad, my grandparents owned a cabin on a small like in
Upstate New York. My family used to come out for summers pretty frequently, and
stay for a week or so. It was during these summers that I learned to waterski,
fish, windsurf, etc. Days were spent swimming and having fun, and evenings
were spent outside, having some hors d'oevres and sitting watching the lake,
and maybe going for an evening boatride. It was all great, and I have many
happy memories of this cabin on the lake.
My grandparents had to sell the cabin when they were too old to take care of
it. It was unfortunate that we couldn't keep it in the family, but it just
wasn't practical.
When my grandfather died in the early 90's, some members of my family (I
wasn't able to attend) brought his ashes here for.... submersion (I'm having
problems with a proper verb). They sank his ashes in the middle of the lake out
in front of the cabin.
My grandmother died quite a few years later (a few years ago from now), and
her ashes have been in the posession of my aunt. But not for long.
The true reason for our little trip out here is to (verb problems again)
submerge her ashes out in the lake with my grandfathers. I haven't heard any
tell of the plans for this yet. In spite of that somber sounding motive, mostly
the trip is a reunion and nostalgia-fest. My aunt was able to rent the same
cottage that my grandparents owned so many years back, and here we all are.
It's amazing to see what's the same and what is different. The last time I
was here was about 14 years ago. The summer of 1990. I had just finished my
freshman year of high school, and my special ordered letterman's jacket had
just arrived. Since I'd been at camp all summer, my mom brought it from home
and I got to first wear it here. Very proud. I'm not sure if I knew at that
time that I wouldn't be back for 14 years, but my mom (who probably knew)
took a nice video of life at the lake.
And now we're back. It's me, my parents, Dave and Elaine and little Ben, and
my aunt. We flew yesterday from San Diego to Baltimore, and Dave and Elaine
and Ben came to visit during our stopover. We had lunch. I had a crabcake
sammich. I like crabcake sammiches.
We then flew to Buffalo, hopped in a rental car, and drove through the
leftovers of Francis for a couple hours to the lake. We met my aunt who was
already here, had some food, and headed to bed.
This morning, in the daylight, I was able to give the cabin a little closer
inspection. It's a lot smaller than I remember, but generally looks and
smells the same. Really fun to walk around and check everything out.
Dave and Elaine and Ben showed up in the midmorning after waking up at 3am
and driving out from B'more. We greeted them and hung out for a bit. Then mom
drove me and Dad to a nearby marina where we'd reserved a boat for rental.
It had been raining all the night before, but it was only overcast in the
morning. We got the boat, and while mom drove home, we boated home. It was
during this time when the rain came back, and by the time we got back to the
cabin, it was coming down pretty hard. I managed to park the boat in spite of
the wind and current (for which I was proud), and we headed in.
After lunch, the rain and wind had died down, and my brother was pretty
excited to do some skiing. The boys headed out on the boat with nervous
anticipation. My brother went first, trying in vain to get up on one ski, before
finally giving up and getting up on two. He then tried to drop one ski, and
lasted about 20 good seconds on one foot, the other flailing around before
finally bailing out. Good times.
My dad next went. He tried only once to get up on one ski before throwing in
the towel. He did, however, get up easily on two, and successfully drop one
and did quite well on one ski. I was proud.
I tried in vain (see a pattern here?) to get up on one ski. Close, but just
didn't make it. I did get up on two, and dropped one (close call), and did
ok on one. With a little more practice, I think I could do the zig-zag across
the wake thing. Good times.
It was cold, so we came back after just a short time. I took a little nap,
and now we're having some pre-dinner drinks. Not a bad day.
There's been quite a bit of Ben watching today, which is a lot of fun. He's
a really good-tempered little guy, and lots of fun to interact with.
Tonight, we may take a traditional sunset boat trip. It's still cloudy out,
but looking bright. I'm hoping the sun will come. That would make skiing a
bit more fun.
I saw a fish off the end of the dock. But there's not a pole to be seen!
Unbelievable.
No internet access (I'm typing this is Notepad). I'm not quite sure how I'm
going to manage for the next few days. Hrm.
Day 2
I got a migraine last night.
I was in bed, reading my book, and all of a sudden, I noticed that I couldn't
really see the lower left corner of the letter I was looking at. I started
looking more closely at things, and within a minute, noted that I couldn't see
the left half of the letter. I had a small blind spot that was growing to my
left.
Ugh. Bad sinking feeling.
I took my meds. 50mg of Imitrex and some other triple cocktail of caffeine
and pain reliever. It worked pretty well, but not perfectly. The blind spot
lasted around half and hour, and then went away. The headache is supposed to
start at this point, but never really came.
Just as I was feeling pretty good, I started to get a headache. A squeezing,
burning feeling all through the right side of my dome. Not too terrible,
maybe a 35 on a scale of 0 (no pain) to 100 (suicidal pain). After a little
while, I took another pain med and soon after was able to fall asleep.
Today, however, I'm in a post-migraine fog. Kind of like a hangover, I just
feel a bit out of it. Not too bad, though.
This morning, I slept in pretty late, which was nice. Dave and Elaine showed
up at some early hour, and I came out to some actual sun out on the porch,
which was great.
We sat around for a little, and then headed out for some post-breakkie,
pre-lunch skiing. Repeat of yesterday, with lots of failing to get up on one ski
but successful dropping from two to one. I, however, was able to get up on
one ski not only once but twice. Very proud.
We headed back in for a nice lunch where we opened some presents for my aunt
and some for Ben's 6 month birthday, and some assorted other gifts.
After lunch, we took my grandmothers ashes and headed out to the middle of
the lake. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but when we got out there,
without a whole lot of ceremony, we lowered the plastic container into the water.
It became immediately clear that the plastic container had air in it, and was
floating. We broke the seal and loosened the top (the ashes were in a
plastic bag inside), and that did the trick. In no time at all, they were out of
sight.
We sat out there in the middle of the lake for a few minutes. We all agree
that this was really exactly what she would have wanted, and how nice it was
for us all to be together, just having shared a nice lunch outside in such a
beautiful place. Inside, I completely agreed. At that moment, there was
really nothing I knew more than that this was the Right Thing to be Doing. It's
what we wanted, and there was no doubt it's where she wanted to be.
My mom held back a few tears. Everyone else was generally quietly
thoughtful. Little Ben was experiencing his second boat trip ever, and was very
agreeable as usual.
We took a little trip to the end of the bluff, and headed back.
This afternoon has been quiet. I convinced my dad to get the computer
online, but it was so damn slow to really do anything. I saw a message from my
love labelled "Babester", but I never got to read it. I will give her a call
tonight.
We just did a late afternoon skiing run. My father was able to get up on one
ski. I told him of my wedgie technique, and that may have been the deciding
factor. The problem I was having was that the legholes of my shorts would
catch a huge amount of water and create a lot of drag. I found that if I
pulled my shorts way up in the back, it reduced the drag a lot. Anyhoo, my dad
was able to get up, which was exciting. My brother gave it a couple of great
tries, but was never successful. He's not so much fat, but he's definitely a
big body.
And now, some hors d'ouvres and dinner. I'd like to try to get online again
tonight, write and email or two, and check my fantasy football stuff. Not
sure if I'll be able to, but we'll see.
Day 3
This morning, I slept in nice and late again, after staying up reading
"Positively 5th Street". I'm not liking it as much as I'd hoped (not enough poker,
too much murder stuff), but it's interesting enough.
This morning, as usual, we headed out for some more waterskiing. Good stuff.
Back for lunch, then a nice walk to a decent viewpoint.
It's amazing how beautiful it is here. Green, rolling hills leading down
into a lake in the valley. Lots of quaint little lakefront cottages and boats
and stuff. The blue water and green trees and blue sky are quite striking. I
really hope that we can come back here someday, and from the look of things,
I think it will probably happen.
We returned the boat this afternoon, doing a little more skiing up to the
marina. By this point our skiing muscles were a little worn out, so there were
no spectacular feats of magic.
Now we're back, enjoying the evening and having a drink on the porch.
Tonight we'll have our final dinner together, and say goodbye to Dave and Elaine
and little Ben. I continue to be impressed at what an agreeable and cute
little guy he is. He whines when he's upset, but I have yet to hear him really
cry. Amazing.
It's been nice to hang out with Jocelyn, as well. Living in Boston, I don't
get a chance to see her very often, and it's nice to see her. I know she's
eager to have Diana and me come out to visit, and I'm sure we will sometime,
but it just hasn't been a good time yet.
Tomorrow morning, we're up at 7am to drive to Buffalo for a flight. We have
one stop on our flight to San Diego, but it's unclear where that stop is,
exactly. It might be back east in Baltimore, a la the way out here, but
hopefully it's somewhere along the way. We should get into San Diego around 2pm,
which will be nice.
It's really too bad that Diana couldn't be here. Not only is it a beautiful
place and I think she'd enjoy being here, but I have so many stories and
memories associated that I believe really make me the person that I am, and I think
she'd enjoy seeing the place where a lot of my childhood happened. My mom is
already talking about the next time we're here, and making sure it's a time
she can come, so I'm sure it will happen sometime in the not-to-distant future. Here's hoping.
2004/09/07
Saw this recently... thought it was funny:
"USENET news is essentially a lot of people standing around beating a spot on the ground with sticks where an old horse died a long, long time ago."
"USENET news is essentially a lot of people standing around beating a spot on the ground with sticks where an old horse died a long, long time ago."
A great weekend. I am officially exhausted.
Friday afternoon, good ol' Mick flew into town. A little group met up at Iwan's pad, and headed out to dinner. As usual, it was a great time of chatting and hanging out. We headed back to Iwan's afterwards for some hot NHL '94 action. Good times.
Saturday was the draft day. We met in the mid-morning at TPHS for flag football, now with 100% more Fwats in effect. Football was a good, fun time. I certainly don't feel as young and spry as I used to, but we all managed to have some fun without any serious injury. I think I used to have a reputation as "the fast guy", but I'm pretty sure that both Norm and Mike could run circles around me. After football, we headed over to Papa Roston's for the draft. Without going into too much detail, the draft was a lot of fun, and Papa Roston sure knows how to make people feel comfortable and welcome. I was pretty satisfied with my drafting, mostly because I frequently picked players that were wanted by the next picker. Some names on the Fightin' Birdmen include LaDanian Tomlinson, Mike Vick, Terrell Owens, Tiki Barber, young Kellen Winslow, and old man Jerry Rice.
The draft turned morphed into a pool volleyball game. Some burgers were cooked up, and Papa Roston kept the crowd entertained into the night with poker and bad neighbor stories. After we wore out our welcome, some boys headed back to the Spraggs for more hot NHL '94 action, which lasted late into the evening. Later into the evening than I did, in fact. Mike and Eryn and Fwats were spending the night, and it was fun to have 'em as houseguests.
The next morning, Eryn and Fwats disappeared early to the airport. Fwats' trip was a white-hot flash of energy, and he was gone as quickly as he arrived. It was great to see him and I really hope he can "bust ass" down to SD more often. That morning, Diana and I made breakfast for Mike and Eryn. At some point, someone put on our "Goonies" DVD, and Iwan wandered over, and we beat the heat on the couch for a while. As it got hotter, we decided to head over to Eryn's apartment to use the pool. Mike took li'l nap, while the rest of us sort of loafed. It was a great, do-nothing day.
That night, Diana and I headed over to visit with her parents and sister who's in town. When we arrived, Alicia had put on some old home movies which were really fun to watch through. We had a nice dinner, and headed back a early, still worn out from the heat of the day. Diana crashed out early, and I headed over to Eryn's for some MORE hot NHL '94 action, then home for a little more World of Warcraft.
(NHL '94, for those not in the know, is a Super Nintendo hockey game, and is arguably the best hockey game ever created for any gaming system.)
Yesterday, Labor Day, was a little slow to start. Diana did some schoolwork and I watched Trainspotting. We headed over to Teri's parents' beachhouse for the afternoon and did more sitting around and yapping, followed by a little BBQ. I left a little early, completely worn out, and came home and crashed.
And now, back to work for a one day workweek. I'm heading out tomorrow to upstate New York for a little family get-together. We're going to my grandparents old house on a lake where I used to spend a lot of summers, and I'm really looking forward to the memories and sights and smells of the place. We've rented a ski boat, which should be a lot of fun, if the weather can hold up.
This has been probably the worst weekend ever for my World of Warcraft stress testing, but that complaint is vastly outweight by seeing friends in town and having a good time with them. Just funny how I was given a week to play in probably the most busy week of my life. Since I'm leaving tomorrow morning early, I'm handing off my account information to Norm (shhh! Don't tell!) who will help me test (ha!).
Good times. Thanks to Mike and Fwats for making the long trek down south. I hope they can both come down more often.
Friday afternoon, good ol' Mick flew into town. A little group met up at Iwan's pad, and headed out to dinner. As usual, it was a great time of chatting and hanging out. We headed back to Iwan's afterwards for some hot NHL '94 action. Good times.
Saturday was the draft day. We met in the mid-morning at TPHS for flag football, now with 100% more Fwats in effect. Football was a good, fun time. I certainly don't feel as young and spry as I used to, but we all managed to have some fun without any serious injury. I think I used to have a reputation as "the fast guy", but I'm pretty sure that both Norm and Mike could run circles around me. After football, we headed over to Papa Roston's for the draft. Without going into too much detail, the draft was a lot of fun, and Papa Roston sure knows how to make people feel comfortable and welcome. I was pretty satisfied with my drafting, mostly because I frequently picked players that were wanted by the next picker. Some names on the Fightin' Birdmen include LaDanian Tomlinson, Mike Vick, Terrell Owens, Tiki Barber, young Kellen Winslow, and old man Jerry Rice.
The draft turned morphed into a pool volleyball game. Some burgers were cooked up, and Papa Roston kept the crowd entertained into the night with poker and bad neighbor stories. After we wore out our welcome, some boys headed back to the Spraggs for more hot NHL '94 action, which lasted late into the evening. Later into the evening than I did, in fact. Mike and Eryn and Fwats were spending the night, and it was fun to have 'em as houseguests.
The next morning, Eryn and Fwats disappeared early to the airport. Fwats' trip was a white-hot flash of energy, and he was gone as quickly as he arrived. It was great to see him and I really hope he can "bust ass" down to SD more often. That morning, Diana and I made breakfast for Mike and Eryn. At some point, someone put on our "Goonies" DVD, and Iwan wandered over, and we beat the heat on the couch for a while. As it got hotter, we decided to head over to Eryn's apartment to use the pool. Mike took li'l nap, while the rest of us sort of loafed. It was a great, do-nothing day.
That night, Diana and I headed over to visit with her parents and sister who's in town. When we arrived, Alicia had put on some old home movies which were really fun to watch through. We had a nice dinner, and headed back a early, still worn out from the heat of the day. Diana crashed out early, and I headed over to Eryn's for some MORE hot NHL '94 action, then home for a little more World of Warcraft.
(NHL '94, for those not in the know, is a Super Nintendo hockey game, and is arguably the best hockey game ever created for any gaming system.)
Yesterday, Labor Day, was a little slow to start. Diana did some schoolwork and I watched Trainspotting. We headed over to Teri's parents' beachhouse for the afternoon and did more sitting around and yapping, followed by a little BBQ. I left a little early, completely worn out, and came home and crashed.
And now, back to work for a one day workweek. I'm heading out tomorrow to upstate New York for a little family get-together. We're going to my grandparents old house on a lake where I used to spend a lot of summers, and I'm really looking forward to the memories and sights and smells of the place. We've rented a ski boat, which should be a lot of fun, if the weather can hold up.
This has been probably the worst weekend ever for my World of Warcraft stress testing, but that complaint is vastly outweight by seeing friends in town and having a good time with them. Just funny how I was given a week to play in probably the most busy week of my life. Since I'm leaving tomorrow morning early, I'm handing off my account information to Norm (shhh! Don't tell!) who will help me test (ha!).
Good times. Thanks to Mike and Fwats for making the long trek down south. I hope they can both come down more often.
2004/09/03
WARNING: The following is a long review of my initial experience with beta testing a new computer game, World of Warcraft. Go ahead and skip this if you're not interested.
-=-=-=-=-=-
So. Blizzard and Fileplanet entered into some sort of scheme where if you bought a Fileplanet account for $15, you would get to be in the Stress Test (which lasts a week). In other words, pay 33% of the full price of the game (not including monthly fee) for the opportunity to play an unfinished version of the game, specifically there to test the limits of lag and capacity, for a single week. But if there's a market for it, I guess it works.
Anyhoo, they also had some spillover slots available for cheap bastards that they gave away, which I signed up for. I never got an email saying I was accepted. However, yesterday, I got an email saying that the World of Warcraft Stress test was starting at noon, and I could sign up at a certain site, and make sure I had my Auth Key. If I didn't have an Auth Key, it said, there was still time to pay $15.
I thought this was weird that I'd gotten the email telling me how to sign up, but never got a key.
After doing some searching on the forums, I found that some other people had their acceptance email eaten by Yahoo/Hotmail spam filters, and you could go online to figure out if you were accepted (using the username and password you applied with). So I did, and I was accepted and didn't even know it!
Moments later I'd set up my account and was downloading the (2.2 gig!) client. Good stuff.
Cut to the evening. Around 9:30pm or so, I had the client installed, and connected for the first time.
I logged in, and went through the character creation process. I've never really have spent a whole lot of time creating the perfect character. Choosing between thousands of combinations of facial features, hair color, skin color, etc. isn't all that important to me. I created a female character (never played a female character... thought I'd give it a shot). Human. I chose Rogue for a class, as I've always liked the assassin-type character. I gave her a name (Shamina... not quite sure where it came from) and entered the world!
I'm not familiar with the universe of Warcraft at all, but I started out next to an Abbey somewhere. There were a LOT of people running around. My first look at the graphics was very favorable. I really like the bright, cartoon-y, not-a-right-angle-in-sight look. Everything was very smooth, as well. I ran around for a little bit, every so often clicking on a little bubble that game up that gave me some tips on how to get around.
The UI was very clean and intuitive. I looked at my character, her inventory and skills and equipment. I could talk to other players, and hear them talking to each other.
I ran around a little, and headed inside the abbey. At the door was an NPC with a big yellow exclaimation point over his head. I right clicked on him, and he welcomed me to, saying they needed more good folks like me to guard. Recently the kobolds to the north had been attacking, and would I go kill 5 of them for him please? My first quest!
I also either started off with or found a note that told me to find the rogue trainer. I looked all around inside the abbey, and found lots of trainers, but no rogue trainer. I read the note again and it said he was in the stables out back. And so he was.
I headed off to find some kobolds to the north. They weren't hard to find, as there were about 50 other people trying to kill kobolds as well (seeing as this was the first night for all of us, we were all newbie characters). I chatted with some folks, and joined a group of kobold slayers, and in no time we killed 5. I returned back to the abbey-guy, and he congratulated me, and gave me some sort of reward (either some armor or money, I don't remember).
Somewhere else along the way, another guy had a bang over his head, so I chatted with him. He wanted wolf meat, so I killed some wolves for him. Then there was another lady who was driven away from her vineyards by thugs, and could I get 12 bunches of grapes for her? So I headed over there and collected some grapes. There was another "kill kobold' quest that led me into some mines further north. So I went at did that. There was another quest to kill the thugs, so I did that.
It sounds pretty dry, but the quests were really fun. They were small, incremental pieces of game that were easy to finish, had fun little rewards, and generally made me feel like I was advancing. They also would drop small items that I could either wear or sell for money. I upgraded myself to a better dagger, and then soon after got a dagger as a quest reward.
I'd read about levelling up in WoW. They described it in very Diablo-esque terms, where you'd be having so much fun playing that levelling up would come as a surprise. And they were right, at least for each of the five levels I gained last night. It was great. Every other MMORPG I've played, I played for the next level (which, of course, is dumb, because there is ALWAYS a level after that). But this game, I was playing for the actual fun of playing. Sounds simple, but might be the key to it all.
Fighting was pretty good. I had some special moves, one of which would add a "combat point" to a running count. I could then do a different move that, depending on how many combat points I had at the time, would spend them all to do whopping damage. So there's room for a little strategy there. Combat was all pretty easy. I had no close calls with death. There was also NO downtime at all. Healing both hitpoints and energy was VERY fast. So far, at least.
In any case, by the time I'd completed all those quests, I'd pretty much explored the whole enclosed area surrounding the Abbey. I'd been in at least 3 different groups, chatted with lots of friends folks, and my character had advanced to level 5. I received a quest from the main abbey guy again, thanking me for all my help, and saying that they needed help in the next city down the road, as well, so would I please deliver this letter to down there? So, I headed off to the next area.
The next area was a little grouping of buildings with an inn and other shops and things. It was getting late at this point, so I didn't explore too much. I did see my first skill trainers. I spent some money to learn the basics of fishing, and bought a fishing pole. Fishing consists of throwing your line into the water, and when you see your bobber jerk, you right click on it. It actually reminded me quite a bit of real-life fly-fishing, staring intently at the fly waiting to react. I caught some fish (which I sold for cash), and I also caught some small weapon or armor or something. I think if you get good at fishing, you can catch phat lewt instead of just fish. So, yay.
I checked the real-life time, and discovered that about 3 hours had passed in what felt like just a few minutes. I logged out at the closest Inn, and quit the game.
I am feeling VERY good about this game so far. Dark Age of Camelot was too much of a level grind. Star Wars Galaxies just wasn't fun. With World of Warcraft, I was having too much fun actually accomplishing stuff to be concerned about when my next level was coming. I think this is a very good sign.
That's about it. I would love to convince a couple friends (workboys and otherwise) to get this, and hopefully reserve maybe a night a week for getting together online and playing. I think that would be hard to manage, but a lot of fun.
-=-=-=-=-=-
So. Blizzard and Fileplanet entered into some sort of scheme where if you bought a Fileplanet account for $15, you would get to be in the Stress Test (which lasts a week). In other words, pay 33% of the full price of the game (not including monthly fee) for the opportunity to play an unfinished version of the game, specifically there to test the limits of lag and capacity, for a single week. But if there's a market for it, I guess it works.
Anyhoo, they also had some spillover slots available for cheap bastards that they gave away, which I signed up for. I never got an email saying I was accepted. However, yesterday, I got an email saying that the World of Warcraft Stress test was starting at noon, and I could sign up at a certain site, and make sure I had my Auth Key. If I didn't have an Auth Key, it said, there was still time to pay $15.
I thought this was weird that I'd gotten the email telling me how to sign up, but never got a key.
After doing some searching on the forums, I found that some other people had their acceptance email eaten by Yahoo/Hotmail spam filters, and you could go online to figure out if you were accepted (using the username and password you applied with). So I did, and I was accepted and didn't even know it!
Moments later I'd set up my account and was downloading the (2.2 gig!) client. Good stuff.
Cut to the evening. Around 9:30pm or so, I had the client installed, and connected for the first time.
I logged in, and went through the character creation process. I've never really have spent a whole lot of time creating the perfect character. Choosing between thousands of combinations of facial features, hair color, skin color, etc. isn't all that important to me. I created a female character (never played a female character... thought I'd give it a shot). Human. I chose Rogue for a class, as I've always liked the assassin-type character. I gave her a name (Shamina... not quite sure where it came from) and entered the world!
I'm not familiar with the universe of Warcraft at all, but I started out next to an Abbey somewhere. There were a LOT of people running around. My first look at the graphics was very favorable. I really like the bright, cartoon-y, not-a-right-angle-in-sight look. Everything was very smooth, as well. I ran around for a little bit, every so often clicking on a little bubble that game up that gave me some tips on how to get around.
The UI was very clean and intuitive. I looked at my character, her inventory and skills and equipment. I could talk to other players, and hear them talking to each other.
I ran around a little, and headed inside the abbey. At the door was an NPC with a big yellow exclaimation point over his head. I right clicked on him, and he welcomed me to
I also either started off with or found a note that told me to find the rogue trainer. I looked all around inside the abbey, and found lots of trainers, but no rogue trainer. I read the note again and it said he was in the stables out back. And so he was.
I headed off to find some kobolds to the north. They weren't hard to find, as there were about 50 other people trying to kill kobolds as well (seeing as this was the first night for all of us, we were all newbie characters). I chatted with some folks, and joined a group of kobold slayers, and in no time we killed 5. I returned back to the abbey-guy, and he congratulated me, and gave me some sort of reward (either some armor or money, I don't remember).
Somewhere else along the way, another guy had a bang over his head, so I chatted with him. He wanted wolf meat, so I killed some wolves for him. Then there was another lady who was driven away from her vineyards by thugs, and could I get 12 bunches of grapes for her? So I headed over there and collected some grapes. There was another "kill kobold' quest that led me into some mines further north. So I went at did that. There was another quest to kill the thugs, so I did that.
It sounds pretty dry, but the quests were really fun. They were small, incremental pieces of game that were easy to finish, had fun little rewards, and generally made me feel like I was advancing. They also would drop small items that I could either wear or sell for money. I upgraded myself to a better dagger, and then soon after got a dagger as a quest reward.
I'd read about levelling up in WoW. They described it in very Diablo-esque terms, where you'd be having so much fun playing that levelling up would come as a surprise. And they were right, at least for each of the five levels I gained last night. It was great. Every other MMORPG I've played, I played for the next level (which, of course, is dumb, because there is ALWAYS a level after that). But this game, I was playing for the actual fun of playing. Sounds simple, but might be the key to it all.
Fighting was pretty good. I had some special moves, one of which would add a "combat point" to a running count. I could then do a different move that, depending on how many combat points I had at the time, would spend them all to do whopping damage. So there's room for a little strategy there. Combat was all pretty easy. I had no close calls with death. There was also NO downtime at all. Healing both hitpoints and energy was VERY fast. So far, at least.
In any case, by the time I'd completed all those quests, I'd pretty much explored the whole enclosed area surrounding the Abbey. I'd been in at least 3 different groups, chatted with lots of friends folks, and my character had advanced to level 5. I received a quest from the main abbey guy again, thanking me for all my help, and saying that they needed help in the next city down the road, as well, so would I please deliver this letter to
The next area was a little grouping of buildings with an inn and other shops and things. It was getting late at this point, so I didn't explore too much. I did see my first skill trainers. I spent some money to learn the basics of fishing, and bought a fishing pole. Fishing consists of throwing your line into the water, and when you see your bobber jerk, you right click on it. It actually reminded me quite a bit of real-life fly-fishing, staring intently at the fly waiting to react. I caught some fish (which I sold for cash), and I also caught some small weapon or armor or something. I think if you get good at fishing, you can catch phat lewt instead of just fish. So, yay.
I checked the real-life time, and discovered that about 3 hours had passed in what felt like just a few minutes. I logged out at the closest Inn, and quit the game.
I am feeling VERY good about this game so far. Dark Age of Camelot was too much of a level grind. Star Wars Galaxies just wasn't fun. With World of Warcraft, I was having too much fun actually accomplishing stuff to be concerned about when my next level was coming. I think this is a very good sign.
That's about it. I would love to convince a couple friends (workboys and otherwise) to get this, and hopefully reserve maybe a night a week for getting together online and playing. I think that would be hard to manage, but a lot of fun.
2004/09/02
W00T!!!11!11
I was accepted to the World of Warcraft Stress test beta.
That means I have a week to help test the game. Starting today.
Too bad I'm not going to see Mike and Marc while they're in town. Oh well. :)
I was accepted to the World of Warcraft Stress test beta.
That means I have a week to help test the game. Starting today.
Too bad I'm not going to see Mike and Marc while they're in town. Oh well. :)
2004/08/30
A note to my readers.
In case you were thinking of getting a personalized license plate for your car, don't bother getting "ROAD HED". It's already taken. I saw it this morning.
Too bad. So sad.
In case you were thinking of getting a personalized license plate for your car, don't bother getting "ROAD HED". It's already taken. I saw it this morning.
Too bad. So sad.
2004/08/29
Smell ya later, wireless.
So, I ran cable through the back of one closet, out the back of the adjoining closet, and over to where the computer is set up.
Back at full speed (over 2 megabit from dslreports.com speedtests), and no more disconnections.
Until I have a laptop, wireless just isn't for me.
Diana's out school shopping. I'm not sure if I posted it, but Diana's going to be student teaching at a very local high school. She's been to some introduction days this week, and students start on Monday! She won't start teaching until a few weeks in, but it's all very exciting. I'm sure she'll do a great job.
So, I ran cable through the back of one closet, out the back of the adjoining closet, and over to where the computer is set up.
Back at full speed (over 2 megabit from dslreports.com speedtests), and no more disconnections.
Until I have a laptop, wireless just isn't for me.
Diana's out school shopping. I'm not sure if I posted it, but Diana's going to be student teaching at a very local high school. She's been to some introduction days this week, and students start on Monday! She won't start teaching until a few weeks in, but it's all very exciting. I'm sure she'll do a great job.
2004/08/26
Two little pet peeves for you all...
The "small print" in radio commercials. You know when the commercial ends, and they read off the disclaimers in a really fast voice? Is it me, or are those disclaimers getting WAY too long.
"Born in the USA" played as a patriotic anthem (namely, at the Olympics). For fucks sake, hasn't anyone in charge bothered to read or to the lyrics? It's like playing N.W.A at an LAPD police academy graduation ceremony.
That is all.
The "small print" in radio commercials. You know when the commercial ends, and they read off the disclaimers in a really fast voice? Is it me, or are those disclaimers getting WAY too long.
"Born in the USA" played as a patriotic anthem (namely, at the Olympics). For fucks sake, hasn't anyone in charge bothered to read or to the lyrics? It's like playing N.W.A at an LAPD police academy graduation ceremony.
That is all.
2004/08/25
Norm and Teri and Diana and I went and saw "Garden State" last night.
I really enjoyed it. It was not only a good surface story, with interesting, funny, sad parts, but I felt really emotionally drained afterward. There was a lot of symbols and metaphors at work, and I think my mind was still working through things, I think. I'm not big on philosophy, but I have a feeling that Nietzsche was involved somewhere in there.
One them in the movie was finding joy/truth/beauty through originality. Doing something that no one else had ever done, no matter how small or insignificant. This really jived with my recent memory of the thrill of breaking open crayons to be the first person in history to see the inside of THAT particular crayon.
The main theme, really, is about finding happiness in a generally grey, numb reality. Breaking free from bonds, coming of age, all that sort of stuff, which while I can appreciate, I can never really truly understand.
I don't want to get into a whole "my life is so great" thing here, but I've never gone through any sort of real hardship or profound sadness in my life. Nothing more than some run-of-the-mill heartache and relationship woes in the past. I don’t want to tempt fate or anything, but things have been pretty ok so far. So the whole "life is suffering / journey through the murk to find the light" stuff just doesn't really resonate with me they way I guess it's supposed to.
Anyhoo, it was a good movie. Check it out.
I had a dream last night that I was walking through some sort of obstacle course… planks of wood laid over the surface of water. There was a group of us going over the planks, and the guy in front of me was having a hard time and fell off. I went, and he was pissed that I could do it (or did I laugh at him?), so he pulled me into the water. I got pissed, and he sort of came at me like he wanted to fight. He hit my shoulder a couple times. He then went back to the course, which was made easier so he could complete it.
Dreams are weird.
I really enjoyed it. It was not only a good surface story, with interesting, funny, sad parts, but I felt really emotionally drained afterward. There was a lot of symbols and metaphors at work, and I think my mind was still working through things, I think. I'm not big on philosophy, but I have a feeling that Nietzsche was involved somewhere in there.
One them in the movie was finding joy/truth/beauty through originality. Doing something that no one else had ever done, no matter how small or insignificant. This really jived with my recent memory of the thrill of breaking open crayons to be the first person in history to see the inside of THAT particular crayon.
The main theme, really, is about finding happiness in a generally grey, numb reality. Breaking free from bonds, coming of age, all that sort of stuff, which while I can appreciate, I can never really truly understand.
I don't want to get into a whole "my life is so great" thing here, but I've never gone through any sort of real hardship or profound sadness in my life. Nothing more than some run-of-the-mill heartache and relationship woes in the past. I don’t want to tempt fate or anything, but things have been pretty ok so far. So the whole "life is suffering / journey through the murk to find the light" stuff just doesn't really resonate with me they way I guess it's supposed to.
Anyhoo, it was a good movie. Check it out.
I had a dream last night that I was walking through some sort of obstacle course… planks of wood laid over the surface of water. There was a group of us going over the planks, and the guy in front of me was having a hard time and fell off. I went, and he was pissed that I could do it (or did I laugh at him?), so he pulled me into the water. I got pissed, and he sort of came at me like he wanted to fight. He hit my shoulder a couple times. He then went back to the course, which was made easier so he could complete it.
Dreams are weird.
2004/08/23
There are some chocolates at work that have clever little sayings inside the wrapper. I just had one that say: "The farther out of reach, the stronger the temptation." Does this make sense to anyone? I'd think that the closer something is, the more tempting it is. Dumb.
I accidently referred a co-worker to baditude.net. We were talking about Hero Clix stuff, and I wondered if Eryn still had that page up. We didn’t find it, but I now realize that this page is linked from baditude's "links" section. I wouldn't necessarily mind if co-workers found this page. I've been pretty careful about keeping everything written here all public knowledge. But at the same time, I haven't really been advertising this page, either. So, we'll see.
As the last post indiciates, the wireless network is up and running. The speed this morning seemed good. I'm still a little concerned about a stable connection. For example, I played Doom III for an hour or so last night (single player… not online), and when I quit, I was no longer connected to the network, and couldn't reconnect. Looking at the router, the "wireless" indicator light was off. I power cycled it, and it came back on, but it's a little worrying.
So, we'll see.
I accidently referred a co-worker to baditude.net. We were talking about Hero Clix stuff, and I wondered if Eryn still had that page up. We didn’t find it, but I now realize that this page is linked from baditude's "links" section. I wouldn't necessarily mind if co-workers found this page. I've been pretty careful about keeping everything written here all public knowledge. But at the same time, I haven't really been advertising this page, either. So, we'll see.
As the last post indiciates, the wireless network is up and running. The speed this morning seemed good. I'm still a little concerned about a stable connection. For example, I played Doom III for an hour or so last night (single player… not online), and when I quit, I was no longer connected to the network, and couldn't reconnect. Looking at the router, the "wireless" indicator light was off. I power cycled it, and it came back on, but it's a little worrying.
So, we'll see.
2004/08/22
Hrm.
So, I'm getting my office all set up today. Got the desk up and going (nice desk!), and more importantly, got my new wireless network up and going.
I'm not so impressed.
Performance is all over the road. Best case is what my old wired network was. Worst case is... a lot worse.
My cable connection is about 1.5 megabit downstream, and I used to get that constantly. I just ran a speedtest from www.dslreports, and I got about 300 kilobit downstream.
I tried a big download from www.3dgamers.com, and where I'd normally get about 130 kbps, I was getting 35-40.
The dumb thing is that this wireless set up is supposed to be 11 megabits/sec, so it definitely shouldn't be the slowest link.
Maybe I have something set up incorrectly...? Or is that just an "up to 11 megabits"?
Not so pleased.... yet.
*UPDATE*
I downloaded the latest driver, and things seem to be a LOT better. So, there's hope yet!
So, I'm getting my office all set up today. Got the desk up and going (nice desk!), and more importantly, got my new wireless network up and going.
I'm not so impressed.
Performance is all over the road. Best case is what my old wired network was. Worst case is... a lot worse.
My cable connection is about 1.5 megabit downstream, and I used to get that constantly. I just ran a speedtest from www.dslreports, and I got about 300 kilobit downstream.
I tried a big download from www.3dgamers.com, and where I'd normally get about 130 kbps, I was getting 35-40.
The dumb thing is that this wireless set up is supposed to be 11 megabits/sec, so it definitely shouldn't be the slowest link.
Maybe I have something set up incorrectly...? Or is that just an "up to 11 megabits"?
Not so pleased.... yet.
*UPDATE*
I downloaded the latest driver, and things seem to be a LOT better. So, there's hope yet!
2004/08/20
I remember being in elementary school, and breaking open crayons. I'd look at the newly exposed part inside, and marvel at the fact that I was the ONLY person in the entire world who'd every seen what I was seeing at that moment. For some reason, that gave me sort of a thrill.
I'm happy for the weekend. We're finally done with house stuff, and can put back furniture! And, I'm going to move my office down the hall! I have a new desk (thank you Norman!) which will be big enough for two computers. I think I'm going to get a wireless network setup for 'em both since there's not a good way to run cable in here. Should be the bees knees. My computer is just on the floor in here now, and I ran some cable along the floor to get connectivity. I'm itchin to play some Doom III though!
I'm happy for the weekend. We're finally done with house stuff, and can put back furniture! And, I'm going to move my office down the hall! I have a new desk (thank you Norman!) which will be big enough for two computers. I think I'm going to get a wireless network setup for 'em both since there's not a good way to run cable in here. Should be the bees knees. My computer is just on the floor in here now, and I ran some cable along the floor to get connectivity. I'm itchin to play some Doom III though!
2004/08/16
The day that Iwan and Mike left Montana, I grabbed "Ten Little Indians" from Iwan and started reading it. Within the first 20 pages I was absolutely sucked in. I'd read it before, and seen the movie, but a long time ago.
I got about 1/3 of the way through by the time I had to return it to Iwan (who claimed he was going to read it on the flight home… I can't believe I fell for it, too!)
The next day, on the way out, we stopped by town and I went into an old coffee-house bookstore. They had a whole rack of Agatha Christies, including "Ten Little Indians" for $0.75! Done and done.
I read it on the flight home, and it was pretty much the best ever. Shoots right up to my top five list of books. I highly recommend it. The fact that Iwan said he started it, got about two murders in, and then put it down is really tantamount to a face slap. Really no other way to put it.
In other news: In Salt Lake City, we discovered that our flight to San Diego was overbooked, and they were offering $600(!!!) travel vouchers per seat if you were willing to fly out the next day at 9pm. We weren't really willing to do that, but they also said that you could fly a little later into LAX. We decided to take the bait. While in SLC, we rented a car from LA to Palomar Airport over the phone. We then flew to LA and drove home which really wasn't too bad at all.
And now we've got some money to burn on plane tickets. Vegas, anyone?!
I got about 1/3 of the way through by the time I had to return it to Iwan (who claimed he was going to read it on the flight home… I can't believe I fell for it, too!)
The next day, on the way out, we stopped by town and I went into an old coffee-house bookstore. They had a whole rack of Agatha Christies, including "Ten Little Indians" for $0.75! Done and done.
I read it on the flight home, and it was pretty much the best ever. Shoots right up to my top five list of books. I highly recommend it. The fact that Iwan said he started it, got about two murders in, and then put it down is really tantamount to a face slap. Really no other way to put it.
In other news: In Salt Lake City, we discovered that our flight to San Diego was overbooked, and they were offering $600(!!!) travel vouchers per seat if you were willing to fly out the next day at 9pm. We weren't really willing to do that, but they also said that you could fly a little later into LAX. We decided to take the bait. While in SLC, we rented a car from LA to Palomar Airport over the phone. We then flew to LA and drove home which really wasn't too bad at all.
And now we've got some money to burn on plane tickets. Vegas, anyone?!
2004/08/14
So, the Montana trip comes to a close.
We just got back from dropping off Iwan and Mike from the airport, and the house is definitely a good bit quieter with them gone. In fact, I'm not sure if there's been a reference to bear scat or Pete's taint once yet!
Let's recap. When you last read, we were heading out for an evening of dinner, drinking, and poker, and all those missions were accomplished. We had some sushi, and Mike did a pretty good job abiding by the "no sushi snobs" sign up on the wall. After dinner, we headed to a local bar and ordered up some drinks. I was standing watching the poker, and a seat opened up, so I plunked down some money and started to play. I was driving that night, so I wasn't drinking, while Diana had a few, and Iwan and Mike proceeded to get very pleasantly sauced.
The poker was an absolute experience. I eventually ended up $10, while Iwan lost a little bit. There was quite a crew sitting around the table. At first, I was between two older guys, brothers, who were substantially drunk and friendly. A guy across the table (next to Iwan, making him his boy, a'course) with an absolutely fantastic mullet was completely shitfaced, and that was BEFORE the 5 or so jager-bombs he and his boys ordered in about a half-hour timespan. Not sure what happened to him. Later, the brothers left, and a young, mildly attractive girl sat down with a very low cut top, and a new guy to my right decided we were boys and started making very suggestive comments about her, her rack, and so forth. I mostly sat with my mouth shut and just took it all in. Good stuff.
After poker, we played a little ping pong. Mike, in spite of non-trivial intoxication came back from behind to beat me, but it was a pretty close game. Diana and I took care of them in doubles, however. We made it home (after finding a lost wallet near the car!), played a final round of Euchre, and to bed.
The next morning, a few of the group nursed some hangovers, and we spent most of the day hanging around. Diana introduced a new game somewhere along the trip, Alibi, which is basically Clue on steroids. Where in Clue there are only three different variables (person, weapon, room), in Alibi, there are eight (person, time, location, specific location, weapon type, specific weapon, motive category, specific motive). It's all played with cards, and gets rid of the board and moving around nonsense. Pretty fun game, I thought. Hard to develop a good "system", but fun to joke about what system you do have.
Iwan and Diana and I headed out in the afternoon to meet the wallet-loser in town and return that (no reward! What a gyp!) and picked up some more fishing licenses. We came back, picked up Mick, and headed out to the north fork for some evening fishing. I'd been to the spot before, and thought it was pretty good. Iwan sounded a little dissapointed that we didn't see more fish, but I caught a couple, including a nice 10-12 incher and a couple little guys, and had a good number of bites as well. Mike and Diana spent a lot of time on the banks reading and chatting and taking in the sights. I felt a little bad that we were essentially dragging them along to watch us fish, but they seemed satisfied to do so.
Today, we packed a lunch and headed to the beach by the lake for a picnic and some more game playing. It was a nice relaxing afternoon there, and then back for packing and airport dropoff and goodbyes. And now, a quiet house.
The trip, speaking for myself at least, was a really great time. I think that everyone had tons of fun. The idea of a friends trip to Montana really spawned from reading Discostup's blog (a long time ago), and the thought that he sounded like he needed a vacation, and I'm really glad that he was able to go.
It was also really satisfying to watch Diana's interaction with my friends. She and Iwan see each other all the time, and I think have a pretty good relationship, and it was nice to watch her get some bonding time in with Mike. In fact, she probably had the most serious conversation-time with Mike while Iwan and I were fishing and playing poker. I'm glad that they seem to like her, and respect her. She really enjoys not only being with my friends, but watching me be boys with my friends as well.
Diana is a piece of work. She's absolutely wonderful in essentially any social situation (well, I think so anyways). When heading out for an excursion, she quietly ensured that we had enough water and food and stuff that we needed, yet not intrusively so. She certainly wasn't in charge of us by any scope, but at the same time, I think really made the logistics of the entire trip go very smoothly. I'd really be curious to know what my friends thought of her, now that it comes to mind, but probably wouldn't want to hear anything negative, so I'll retract that statement conditionally. :)
The goodbyes were casual, since I'll probably see Iwan within the a week, and Mike is coming back into town for a few days for the fantasy football draft. As I noted before, it was really great to spend more time with him, and I look forward to seeing him again. We hardly ever keep in touch lately, but in spite of that, I thought we fell back into our old friendship pretty nicely.
So that's about it. Diana and I are going to get the house straightened up a little, and we're getting picked up for the airport tomorrow at 2pm. It's going to be both good and bad to get home and get back into the swing of things. It's been a nice trip, but as I usually feel at the end of these vacations, I'm looking forward to getting home. I even look forward to heading back to work, if you can believe it, and I look even MORE forward to grabbing a copy of Doom III and giving it some singular attention.
That's about it for now.
We just got back from dropping off Iwan and Mike from the airport, and the house is definitely a good bit quieter with them gone. In fact, I'm not sure if there's been a reference to bear scat or Pete's taint once yet!
Let's recap. When you last read, we were heading out for an evening of dinner, drinking, and poker, and all those missions were accomplished. We had some sushi, and Mike did a pretty good job abiding by the "no sushi snobs" sign up on the wall. After dinner, we headed to a local bar and ordered up some drinks. I was standing watching the poker, and a seat opened up, so I plunked down some money and started to play. I was driving that night, so I wasn't drinking, while Diana had a few, and Iwan and Mike proceeded to get very pleasantly sauced.
The poker was an absolute experience. I eventually ended up $10, while Iwan lost a little bit. There was quite a crew sitting around the table. At first, I was between two older guys, brothers, who were substantially drunk and friendly. A guy across the table (next to Iwan, making him his boy, a'course) with an absolutely fantastic mullet was completely shitfaced, and that was BEFORE the 5 or so jager-bombs he and his boys ordered in about a half-hour timespan. Not sure what happened to him. Later, the brothers left, and a young, mildly attractive girl sat down with a very low cut top, and a new guy to my right decided we were boys and started making very suggestive comments about her, her rack, and so forth. I mostly sat with my mouth shut and just took it all in. Good stuff.
After poker, we played a little ping pong. Mike, in spite of non-trivial intoxication came back from behind to beat me, but it was a pretty close game. Diana and I took care of them in doubles, however. We made it home (after finding a lost wallet near the car!), played a final round of Euchre, and to bed.
The next morning, a few of the group nursed some hangovers, and we spent most of the day hanging around. Diana introduced a new game somewhere along the trip, Alibi, which is basically Clue on steroids. Where in Clue there are only three different variables (person, weapon, room), in Alibi, there are eight (person, time, location, specific location, weapon type, specific weapon, motive category, specific motive). It's all played with cards, and gets rid of the board and moving around nonsense. Pretty fun game, I thought. Hard to develop a good "system", but fun to joke about what system you do have.
Iwan and Diana and I headed out in the afternoon to meet the wallet-loser in town and return that (no reward! What a gyp!) and picked up some more fishing licenses. We came back, picked up Mick, and headed out to the north fork for some evening fishing. I'd been to the spot before, and thought it was pretty good. Iwan sounded a little dissapointed that we didn't see more fish, but I caught a couple, including a nice 10-12 incher and a couple little guys, and had a good number of bites as well. Mike and Diana spent a lot of time on the banks reading and chatting and taking in the sights. I felt a little bad that we were essentially dragging them along to watch us fish, but they seemed satisfied to do so.
Today, we packed a lunch and headed to the beach by the lake for a picnic and some more game playing. It was a nice relaxing afternoon there, and then back for packing and airport dropoff and goodbyes. And now, a quiet house.
The trip, speaking for myself at least, was a really great time. I think that everyone had tons of fun. The idea of a friends trip to Montana really spawned from reading Discostup's blog (a long time ago), and the thought that he sounded like he needed a vacation, and I'm really glad that he was able to go.
It was also really satisfying to watch Diana's interaction with my friends. She and Iwan see each other all the time, and I think have a pretty good relationship, and it was nice to watch her get some bonding time in with Mike. In fact, she probably had the most serious conversation-time with Mike while Iwan and I were fishing and playing poker. I'm glad that they seem to like her, and respect her. She really enjoys not only being with my friends, but watching me be boys with my friends as well.
Diana is a piece of work. She's absolutely wonderful in essentially any social situation (well, I think so anyways). When heading out for an excursion, she quietly ensured that we had enough water and food and stuff that we needed, yet not intrusively so. She certainly wasn't in charge of us by any scope, but at the same time, I think really made the logistics of the entire trip go very smoothly. I'd really be curious to know what my friends thought of her, now that it comes to mind, but probably wouldn't want to hear anything negative, so I'll retract that statement conditionally. :)
The goodbyes were casual, since I'll probably see Iwan within the a week, and Mike is coming back into town for a few days for the fantasy football draft. As I noted before, it was really great to spend more time with him, and I look forward to seeing him again. We hardly ever keep in touch lately, but in spite of that, I thought we fell back into our old friendship pretty nicely.
So that's about it. Diana and I are going to get the house straightened up a little, and we're getting picked up for the airport tomorrow at 2pm. It's going to be both good and bad to get home and get back into the swing of things. It's been a nice trip, but as I usually feel at the end of these vacations, I'm looking forward to getting home. I even look forward to heading back to work, if you can believe it, and I look even MORE forward to grabbing a copy of Doom III and giving it some singular attention.
That's about it for now.
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