Today, I earned the right to bitch about the president and congress for another four and two years respectively. In other words, I voted. With all the stuff going on with the flood, I decided to do an absentee ballot. I got it on Friday, got to see all the candidates, look them up online, and and send my ballot out this morning. Kind of cool, I've never tried it before but I think I like doing it this way. I was also surprised to see eight groups for the presidential list, which is six more than most people really think about and three more than I thought was on the list. I won't say who I voted for, but I'm really glad I had a chance to add my 0.000000004% contribution (estimated, I don't know how many registered voters there are) to the next four years.

It was an interesting weekend. Went back to Illinois to spend time with my honey, discuss our future, and spend six hours in a car entertaining myself. In this case, I got to thinking about a novel I've wanted to write, so I sketched out the chapter outline. It is about a retired hero of the world who's grandchild ends up following in his tracks. Just the idea of writing about a man in his seventies who used to be the most powerful warrior in the world just seems appealing to me. Just the idea of what happened after "happily ever after" appeals to me. And it has a great ending, I think.

I came home to notice that the Lovecraft Commonplace Competition started while I was enjoying time with the wife. And I have six weeks to figure out something. Which is really cool, since I'm ignoring the contest's basic rule (use a phrase from the commonplace book) and going with something I think will be fun. Not that the phrases won't be awesome, the screenshots and mockups are great. I just want to write Baby Squid God. Time will tell. I also got feedback from my old gaming group (they are old because I haven't played in six months). Good feedback on the squid I posted, ideas on how to advance, and they are starting all these fun games without me. Oh well, makes me almost wish I pushed a bit harder to do something new at the beginning of last arc. There are times when putting things up to a vote ends up not the way you expected.

Finally, Fluffy and I are switching gears on the house. Today, we are going to pull the house off the market and wait out this credit crunch. If things go well, I can juggle monies for a while I try to get things a bit more even (secret plans!). It is... painful to do, but realistically, I don't think we are going to sell for the next four months, so why spend all that time keeping the house presentation-friendly. It also interrupts some of our (secret) plans on cleaning up the finances. Okay, not that secret, but one involved my old boss and shouldn't be aired. It also means two of my kitties are going back to Illinois for human contact and interaction. Paks is staying with me at the apartment; I almost have her toilet trained.

No, I'm not going to work for her.