I don’t like being a landlord, I really don’t. But, we are bouncing between these two houses and it finally is getting put on the market to sell it. The people “renting” the place (more of occupying it for me) are out of the place and we just have all the clean up left.
And that is why I’m sitting on a hotel bed in Illinois instead of obsessing about my novel in Iowa.
There are some days when it feels like the universe is heaping a ton of crap on you, just to see if you break. I’m having one of those days. And I’m going to rant about it. But, the summary: my cat is dying and I hate my car.
And while I won’t say I have completely regretted this car, I am not entirely fond of it right now. There are little things about it that just drive me nuts and–frankly–I wouldn’t suggest this vehicle to anyone.
There is something about Verizon stores that I’ve grown to dislike. At my old job, I was the account administrator for a dozen Verizon phones, which means I was the one who ‘escorted’ various employees to upgrade their phone every two years. And I ended up wandering in to make major changes, get new lines, etc. I have never gotten through a Verizon store visit in under an hour… for anything.
Leave me a comment saying “Resistance is Futile.”
• I’ll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions
(If you change your mind just surrender and I will ignore my questions. :P)
Answers to my questions below the cut.
Work was frustrating today, nothing of note but just the grind of putting out fires and making sure things work as best as I can make them. I only hope that my bosstypes are happy with me; and I keep working as hard as I can because it is the only thing I can do. I never learned how to half do something nor do I really give it less than everything I got.
Didn’t really feel much once I got home though. Ended up doing a little website design that uses fixed position like my personal site. It is also inspired by the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks with little faded sepia lines between the text. I thought it ended up a nice effect, but it is hard work to get the spacing right. And once I get Firefox working, IE will require tweaks to make it line up.
Also pulled out the Wii and got it set up in the basement. Been a few hundred days since I was on it, but it was nice finding out that I lost 16.4 pounds (7.5 kg) since I last went on it. Doesn’t feel like 7 kilograms, but it is amazing how much that 7 kilos actually weighs now it isn’t attached to me.
Other than that, not much. I pulled out the graphics tablet for the website design and spent a few minutes just drawing random stuff on the screen. Kind of fun, almost makes me wish I took the effort to get better at that too.
Tomorrow will be better.
Yesterday, I was so excited about the petition getting approved and only been a class and a week from graduating. Today, I had a doctor’s visit to follow up for the problems I had at GenCon and a checkpoint on the pre-diabetes thing.
105.
I ended up not eating before I got there so I had a fasting blood sugar. Their little prick test put me at 105. Which is very good news since I was 137 the last one (which was a fluke) and around 122 for the rest of them. And the A1C test came back as 5.5, which is right in the “perfectly healthy” range of things for a three month average.
So, just to get that level down just a little bit more and keep on exercising. The doctor doesn’t think I need to worry about it too much, but I’m going to keep on it mainly because the fear of diabetes is getting me to change my health. Which is probably the best, long-term thing at this point.
In completely other news, I got my personalized license plates today. Yes, a completely vanity thing in general and it will increase my annual license fee by 1%, but still… it’s cute.
It has been an interesting week. Beyond the usual of just getting homework done (unit 7 of 12) and the final petition out, I also got caught up in the final throes of a massive undertaking I was doing at work. I’m trying really hard to keep with my original estimates (since last year I got dinged for giving poor estimates), but this last week is going to be an absolute killer. And things outside of my control are blocking me.
But, that is life. I’m doing a bit of extra hours this weekend to make sure I can get everything done.
I also got involved with a mental puzzle with Kingdom of Loathing. Yes, it is entirely optional in my life, but the intellectual challenge of doing it is really obsessing me. I know it can be done, just trying to figure out how to do it.
Beyond that, I’m getting ready for enjoying a 4-5 day holiday with my dad up at the family cabin. Which means I have to work extra hard this week to finish a day early so I can not feel guilty about taking Friday off.
The first day of GenCon was fantastic. Amazingly, I still retain my ability to separate discomfort and pain from enjoyment, so I actually had a lot of fun. I played in a new game, Eclipse something where I got to play an uplifted octopus. I even got to use my ink blast attack. :) But, I think that storyteller will never let someone use corpses as distraction maneuvers like that again. It seemed like a fun game, basically Shadowrun in space, but they had some stupid “only 30 sold a day!” which means, I won’t touch it for the year. I don’t know why, but I really, really hate those type of promotions. Yes, they are because of printing problems and everything, but they always make them the first 30 people which means people who don’t zerg rush the dealer hall never have a chance.
My second game was with Quest Cards. Pretty fun, in a Warhammer Quest type of way. Basically, a game you don’t need a storyteller but you can keep levels and equipment between levels. Warmhammer Quest might be more fun if I can make the boards out of LEGO, but still fun. The DM running it had no pre-regs for the next session, so I got four hours out of a two hour ticket.
My final game was a HERO system based on Sky High. Half the players were regulars with each other, but I still had fun. Not as much as I could, since it was a mostly roleplying game and I didn’t have the rapport the others did. Still, I love HERO.
Speaking of HERO, 6th edition came out at GenCon. I couldn’t find it for three days (they weren’t on the map), but I ordered the books and got a CD of the game. Oh, and got a chance to thank Steve Long for doing a wonderful job. I’ve been waiting for this for quite a while now, mainly because I’m going to develop my steampunk world in HERO 6 as I write in it. HERO Games also had printing problems, but they made some CD’s to get around it which is a far better way of handling it and why I happily handed over $75 when I wouldn’t even try with Eclipse.
I also got a chance to chat with authors, but they deserve their own post.
GenCon was a lot of fun, but this year it was also very, very stressful. After Fluffy picked me up, we had our initial argument while packing up to leave and then got out on the road. Everything was normal. We dropped Inigo off at fightertype’s for the week, chatted for a few hours, and then went to our hotel.
That was the first major problem. I won’t got into details but I managed to hurt myself by not taking care of myself and it pretty much put my entire trip in pain (well, walking, sitting, standing, or changing between those positions hurt). I was also hobbling until end of Saturday. It also took out half my Saturday and is the reason I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. No… not going into details, 99.999% of you don’t want to know specifics. But, it made moving around very painful for most of the trip.
The next morning, JL picked me up to help me cut down a tree at our house. We were both surprised to see it was still alive, so we just cut off some excess dead branches, cleaned it up, and moved on. I was very happy to see that my tenants are taking VERY good care of the yard.
A stop by my mother’s, move a 100 kg television around and some cabinets, and we also picked up Ranger Tom, our con-mate for the trip. Then we were off. Just under four hours to get from Illinois to Indy.
Just over three hours into the trip, I realized I accidentally left my suitcase in the back of JL’s van. With all my clothes, bathroom supplies, and my blanket (hotels never give enough so normally I give Fluffy all mine and sleep with the one I always sleep with). Because JL picked me up and I really wasn’t moving comfortably, I just took my bag with me for the tree-cutting. And then promptly forgot it. So, a hunk of my entertainment budget went into buying clothes for the trip and critical bathroom supplies. Thankfully, there is Walmart and while I’m at the very top of their size charts, we found a few pairs of shorts and a few bags of shirts and underwear to get me through the trip.
Just a little stress spike. :) All while it hurt to bend over and move.
Once we got to the hotel, we got settled in. Ranger Tom and Fluffy went out to get the swag bags and program booklets. The swag sucked, pure and simple. For something you have to prove your badge and they mark your badge so you don’t get more than one, five cards, a dice, and a 5-pack of common Magic cards isn’t worth it. The program was very pretty this year.
I was miserable but decided to do as much as I could. I don’t like ruining Fluffy’s trips, so we crashed around 23:00 and got ready for our first day of GenCon.