Boredom relief

4:49pm: More pictures!
And here are the pictures from the UK trip behind the cut. Managed to cut the down to only 60 some, so it's not too bad.
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4:02pm: And now, the UK novella
Yes, you read that right, this rambly bit is rather long and may aggravate those of you who dislike poor grammar. Short synopsis: I arrived in London, we did touristy things for a few days, then took a train to Cambridge where Timra got her first post-doc offer, and continued on to Edinburgh where we spent another few days being tourists and participating in The Gathering event that weekend. I "ran" in a hill race that hurt lots, then we got on more trains and busses to go to St. Andrews, followed by Dundee the next day, and spent one final day in Glasgow before returning home safely if potentially still a little ill. The (considerably) more detailed journal follows.
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6:36pm: Otakon pictures
Seeing as how there are fewer to go through, and I promised people I would post them, here are the better pictures I took while at Otakon. Be forewarned, this is a doozy of a post, with 50 pictures behind the cut.
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4:44pm: Otakon or bust?
And here I am, actually posting. Who'd a thunk it? While I promised a post detailing the England trip, it has been pointed out to me that I may want to break up the post, seeing as how I'm nearing 7 pages and still have close to a week left to babble about. And that's just words, pictures will follow when I am able to pull them all together. That said, here's the post for the week from July 12-19, mostly dealing with Otakon and the (generally fun) insanity that comes with such a convention.
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4:52pm: Huh
Officially, I am not on terminal leave until Tuesday. Unofficially, tomorrow is my last day at work (monday will be a quick outprocessing brief, and that's it) I have heard from many people that this is a good thing, something to celebrate. I'm sure I will, especially once all the chaos of moving is behind me, but for now I'm feeling rather melancholy over it all. It struck very hard this afternoon, coming out of the doors to hear the end of day national anthem for, more than likely, the last time. I should mention that I haven't been outside for the anthem for a rather long time, having made a habit of staying at least a little late (usually more than a little) and being holed up in my office where the music does not reach. It made me realize that, while I've known that this whole military life thing has been growing on me, just how deep it's reached. Don't get me wrong, I look forward to starting something new, to no longer living over a thousand miles from the woman I adore, to having the choices in life that I gave up for these last 3 years. But I will miss the camaraderie, the stability, the area, and, mostly, the people that I've been working with and for during my tenure here.

Tomorrow in particular is going to be tough. I have been slowly trying to wean the office off of coming to me for questions, guidance, and a signature (I think I only fielded a half dozen of those today) and will no longer have access to the network as of tomorrow. Because of that, I will be spending my day cleaning out my office, and saying goodbye. I have met a good number of great people in my time here, and have already been getting many suggestions to stay on, maybe come back for a bit if things don't work out, which has been nice, but worries me that I haven't done enough these last few months, that I am letting people down, that somehow everything will fall apart when I leave. Foolish thoughts, pointless complaints, and generally false statements, but they are there nonetheless. At least I have a few people routinely coming by and loudly complaining "Aren't you supposed to be gone?" and "Are you still working? Why?" which were quite amusing. But now that I will not be working, now that I will more than likely never see most of these people again...

As I have said many times, I do not regret joining. Nor am I regretting leaving. I (for the most part) had a good time here, hope to continue keeping my life full of those good times to come, and look forward to the interesting new people and places I have yet to experience. But, for now, I will miss this, these people, this area, even this uniform.

I do not know if this makes sense, and I do know that it does not capture half of the thoughts and feelings bouncing around in my head, but I felt like I needed to put something down. Maybe just as a reminder to myself, maybe because I thought that this needed to be shared. In the end, it matters not why, for it is done.

9:57pm: And so it begins
I have actually started packing as of today. I was originally going to start with my books because I don't have that many, and am unlikely to be re-reading any of them before I start heading out, but when I realized that the first box I grabbed would probably be too heavy to move if I filled it with books, I decided to start with my DVDs, instead. this has the side benefit of removing possible distractions now, as opposed to later, but has come with the price of me realizing that I have a rather large amount of the things, enough to completely fill 4 rather notably sized boxes, with a few stragglers left over. Of course, the real tragedy is that I found out that the fresh roll of packing tape I had purchased was sickeningly short, managing to only have enough tape for 3.5 boxes. This annoys me, but at least I have some more direction starting tomorrow, what with the buying a whole lot more tape and parying to the box gods that I won't need even more than I already have...

6:18pm: By request
A little late in coming, but seeing as how some people apparently enjoy my ramblings, or at least notice when my trip ramblings don't get posted, behind the cut is a (lengthy) synopsis of my journey to Baltimore last week.
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4:49pm: Car troubles
Friday I had a slight issue while driving to work. CD kept skipping. Figured it was dying, maybe my CD player was eating it and needed replaced or something. So, Chris and I are driving to work, I had swapped disks, and it was doing it again. Chris checked the disk, saw nothing wrong, but I then noticed the ABS light was on. Further examination showed that my entire console wasn't working. We decided that the car might have some more serious problems, and turned around. By that point I found out I no longer had turn signals, the wipers barely functioned, and I'm guessing the airbag light was on because that had stopped functioning, too. Needless to say, we didn't make it back to the clinic, the car completely dieing about a quarter a mile away.

Chris had decided it was probably a lack of electricity, and seeing as how the car was running, most likely a bad alternator. We pushed it to a nice little cul-de-sac, and walked back to the clinic to get his car. He had a small wrench to try and undo the bolts on the battery with, so we figured we'd use that, get the battery replaced or recharged, then drive the car to a repair shop so they can diagnose the problem. Of course, the wrench was too small, so instead we went to Q'Doba for lunch (I was starving) and grabbed a larger toolset, plus the truck since his car hates my road with a passion during good times.

Getting back to the car, I first got in, and did a "Why not?" attempt at starting the car. It did. I managed to drive about 1-2 miles before it died again, this time right outside the gate. Not thinking fully, we tried borowing some jumper cables and seeing if we could fast charge the battery, and failed. so I grabbed the battery, and we headed off. Advanced Aut Parts was able to tel me that the battery had no charge, but nothing else. They could charge it for me (take 24 hours) or sell me a new one (it was 5 years old, after all) for ~$100. we went with option 3, get a battery at Walmart for $60. Ended up being a different size and power than my old battery, but I was pretty sure it would fit in the slot, and the employees said I could swap them if it didn't (just don't connect it!) So, once we connected the battery, I was able to start and drive the car fine, got it to the dealer, gave them my keys, and left. 3 hours after we said we were going to lunch, we get back in the office.

4:31pm: What? Another post?
Sure. Why not. Primarily deals with this last weekend. No pictures this time, but plenty of rambling after the jump as usual.
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7:18pm: Trip
Right. Posting to this thing. I keep forgetting, or getting distracted. Or both. It hasn't been as long as it feels, mind, but that isn't surprising. More after the cut.
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5:25pm: Hmmm...
Yeah, I should probably update this thing again.

Inspections are over. All in all, my shop did very well, and I will be allowed to travel and such. The base... not so well, but not affecting me as of right now (and nothing I could have done about it) so no biggie. Got lots of helpful advice from the consultative inspection, which has us as not doing so well, but better than we had been in the past. Will probably spend the next couple of weeks trying to implement some of those to leave this place a little better.

My co-worker has gotten his paternity test, and is now spending more time with his daughter until he is officially given custody. He is having all sorts of other fun with his wife, as was expected, even if he frequently seems to be forgetting that. I look forward to him actually being back at work so I'm not running the shop with 3 months left in the force.

Playing more L4D, which is grand fun, especially VS with other decent players. Beat Fallout 3 with my goody-goody, started an evil character but have been side tracked with work, DVDs, L4D, and now just a general disinterest in playing games by myself. I have even more anime, now, which is still overflowing the DVD racks. Fortunately I'm managing to keep myself in check and not buying anything new until the holidays are past (anime was backorders coming in)

Cat is still warm, fuzzy, and mildly crazy. Cuteness factor remains high, however, and he appears to be learning to not gouge marks in my skin, so that's good. Still needs to lose a little of his pudge, and is started to have issues with the "one bowl of food a day" policy.

Will be in Indiana in two weeks. This is a glorious thing. I think that my lofty goals for the next few weeks may be destroyed by my brain being constantly side tracked. On the flip side, this also means I really have to get off my butt and find presents for people.

3:38pm: In Lieu
I should be cleaning the apartment, but I don't wanna. So instead, I shall post.

It's been an odd couple of weeks, I have to say. Work has been fairly chaotic, with a few 11+ hour days to get in some last minute inspection preparation. The other Lt in the office, Chris, has been having all sorts of fun with his wife and now (presumably) child, with the kid being born last week, him hoping to get the divorce finalized soon, and also hoping to get a paternity test and, if it's his, working on custody to boot. Which of course leaves more for me to do around the office. Not that I mind being busy, it helps distract me from the general unhappiness I have of being in a long distance relationship. Time is moving forward, so that will be remedied eventually, but for now distractions are good.

Speaking of which, since I was not allowed to leave for Thanksgiving, I have been spending a fair amount of time with Fallout 3. Finally beat it yesterday, playing as a goody-goody for round 1. Very good game, with a lot of replayability and general niftyness. I honestly can't think of very many complaints and have already started messing around with game #2, in which I try to be as evil as I can and in general do various things rather differently. Definitely a good game, especially for anyone who likes moderately open-ended designs and a bit of the Deus Ex feel.

Also started playing Left 4 Dead, although rather sporadically as I really only bought it to play with friends, and and mot really interested in messing around by myself. Especially with Fallout still to play more of. What I have played with others has been rather entertaining, however, and having things change up a bit every time is interesting. Looking forward to more of that as the holidays give more people spare time.

Not too much else happening. Work will be ramping up to the inspection time fun of "sit around waiting for things to happen, run your butt off when it does" for the next 3 weeks. Again, distractions are good and we're as prepared as we probably could be, given the people I have, but I don't expect to really have much fun. At least I had most of these 4 days to relax and settle.

11:40am: It has snowed
About 3 inches Thursday night. Allowed us some late reporting, which would have been better if I didn't stay 2 hours later due to annoying things happening.

Beat Fable 2 last night. The plot is not the main focus of the game, so a weak ending is kind of to be expected. But... meh.

4:57pm: I have voted
And I feel like utter crap. Stupid cold/flu/whatever. It needs to go away.

Time to do laundry, play Force Unleashed/watch anime until it's NyQuil time. (no, I have no intention of paying any additional attention to the election until tomorrow)

11:40am: I have returned
And I brought a few things back with me. Like books. And some sort of illness, although that's fairly mild so far. Regardless, a good extended weekend was had, details of which are behind the cut for length/pictures.
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9:11pm: Update
Once again, I don't bother updating when I should. Oh well. You know the routine, clicking on the cut is your choice to have lots of text.
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6:33am: Dreams and general ramblings
Another week gone by, a few more to go before my next trip. Not too much to babble about, really, but I wanted to post the rather odd (and strangely memorable) dream I had this morning, so why not get two for one? Warning, there be lots o' text behind the cut.
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12:30pm: And done
Another post where I blab about my half marathon run this last Saturday. I finished in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 22 seconds.
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11:44pm: In case you didn't know...
16 hour days? Not all that fun. They do make for a very tired me, though.

8:12pm: On the subject of follishness, idiocy, and in general having fun
I suppose I haven't updated this in a while, so I probably should. Last couple weeks have been interesting. Previous two were pretty busy, with long cold days prepping for and then dealing with a big exercise for the clinic. Learned a lot, was reminded how annoying somethings could be, and was unimpressed with the training product we were given compared to what we thought we were going to get. Regardless, it was mostly fun, and seeing where a lot of our short falls and problem areas was was important.

Of course, on top of that and the normal work stuff was the Chris soap opera, Chris being my friend/coworker/roommate who managed to marry a complete and utter psychopath a little over a year ago. He has come to that realization, finally, and as such is attempting to sever all ties with her, one step at a time (hence the roommate part now) Of course, she hasn't taken very kindly with his maneuvers, and so has caused him all sorts of trouble, which I get to deal with in all form of support, listening, giving advice, and generally trying to help him not get completely fucked by her schemes and his own good nature.

That's really been my last month, come to think of it, in a nutshell. Oh, adding on to that would be another friend whose marriage is having issues, and my generally depression on not being near the girl I adore, and things are fairly irritating at the moment. Note, that things are not bad in any way, I've just been less happy as of late. All things have deadlines, though, so it's just a matter of waiting out the low part.

All that brings me to this week and the title of this post. You see, since we had this big exercise thing, and our office has in general been busting it's ass lately, plus the fact that we're losing a fair number of people in the very near future, we decided to give ourselves a bit of a break. Everything started out fine, with Chris having to deal with more random crap from the wife, while I in general tried to keep myself focused enough to actually cover for him and accomplish some work. Took Wednesday off to get some things accomplished, in which I managed to hit the oriental foods store for the first time (pretty good, but not cheap and they only have things with long shelf-lives) and paid the registration for my car again. Then we had the Thursday BBQ. Normally, not a big issue, but the coals were giving us some problems. One of my troops was poring on the lighter fluid, and wanted someone to light it. I, having not used lighterfluid in a very long while, and thinking he knew what he was doing (and not paying any attention to the many many thoughts of "Bad idea!" going through my head) lit the charcoals when he said to. It seemed like quite the grand fireball, but I was a little too close to tell. No harm done, I just have a little less eyebrow and hair in general on my head, and the burnt ends give my head a bit of the "old + peppered" hair look. Should clean up just fine next time I bother to get a hair cut. Today brought us in to Wingman Day, which is celebrated here by a wing-wide festivity involving free food, sporting events, and a fair amount of general silliness, allowing those participating to not bother working. Being all about that, plus getting the benefit of saying that I try to lead by example, I went ahead and volunteered for the Joust (think American Gladiators on a telephone pole over a mud pit) and running the morning 5k run. Then I got it in my head that since I slacked off all week in running, I should do that this morning, too. So, silly me gets up at 5am, puts on running shorts and a t-shirt, runs on base (a little over 4 miles) takes a break in the 40-50 degree weather with 10-15 mph winds, runs the 5k, walks back to the office to change into some less expensive shoes and shave, walks to the other side of the base to con breakfast out of a food clinic-thing, back to the parade field to stand around for the opening ceremonies, sit down for a spell, realize that standing sucks when I try to again, watch events and eat, participate in the Joust (I had to coax a troop into joining since it was a team entry and he was nearby, we both were eliminated in round 1) hang around until we cadge a ride back to the office to change into dry clothes, and then go home. My legs are already making good on the promise of extreme pain. But it was fun, nonetheless.

Chris' parents are now here, so he'll be taken care of to some degree for a while, which is nice. Plus I got a free dinner, meaning I didn't have to make anything for myself all day today, which is rather nice. And now I am utterly beat, so shall leave this stupidly long post and collapse in bed. At least I can sleep in tomorrow. To those who actually read all of that, I hope it was at least mildly entertaining or informative, otherwise I only have pity on your eyes.

9:59am: recompile
Just got back from my trip to Baltimore that I started Thursday. It was rather nice and very relaxing, with plenty of time with Timra to make me happy for a bit. Let's see... Went and saw the Body Works 2 exhibit at the science museum, which was very neat, as was the rest of the museum. Had a nice hike by one of the reservoirs, during which we saw many interesting spiders and good number of deer rather closer than I would have expected. Fixed her computer and bike, so I feel accomplished, too. Traveling was uneventful and I only managed to leave a few things at her apartment unintentionally, so all in all a rather wonderful trip. Of course, now I have to get things organized here so that my apartment isn't quite the pit myself and my current short-term roommate have currently let it get to. Roshirov, at least, is happy to have me back. I do need to remember to bring more books next time, however. Thud! by Terry Pratchett was good, but I finished it while on the plane coming back with nearly 2 hours left in the seat and nothing to do...

1:10pm: Post time
Right. I really should update this more frequently, but a lot of what's been happening lately has been more of minor variations to constant issues. Friend is crashing here more frequently as his personal life works its way out, work is worky and while generally annoying, at least sometimes keeps me distracted from my own musings, and the paychecks are good, and all in all things go on.

The Fourth was entertaining, and much cheaper than normal for me. I bough a dozen artillery shells, some ground clusters, and sparklers, and was given one of those lovely 144 packs of bottle rockets to boot. Set things off out back of my apartment, which was interesting, especially with one of my neighbor's daughter rather entertained by my antics. The bottle rockets proved to be more exciting than anticipated, due to the nearly 50% rate of failing to actually fly decently. They would either barely take off, usually in unexpected directions, or just sit in the bottle and blow up there. Only a few didn't explode, which would be better if it weren't for the whole failing to get off the ground part. We also had some slight issues with the "grass" here being it's usual dry brown crap. Only had to stomp out a couple dozen embers, and only one notable attempt at a fire, which was good. Of course, my friend's failure at setting an artillery shell didn't help any. Those things really aren't supposed to fire off sideways. Again, bad for the grass.

The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, I mostly just played games, cooked, gave Chris here advice, and attempted to comb the cat for as long as he would allow. Monday morning saw me on base bright and early to attempt my physical fitness test. It went pretty well, until I was 2/3 of the way through the run and had to stop to puke. Repeatedly. Fortunately I am allowed to re-test, as long as I can get it done before the end of the month. Probably try again next week, assuming I can get myself to practice a bit more this weekend, preferably without screwing up the dental surgery I am currently recovering from.

Speaking of which, that was my fun time yesterday morning. I only had two wisdom teeth, and since they didn't do anything (no opposites to grind up food with) and were starting to get cavities, I decided to go ahead and let the dentists here remove'em. Procedure went fine, I can barely remember any it, although I don't know if I was unconscious or the drugs just messed with my memory. Regardless, they set me home two teeth less and with bottles of Vicodin, Ibuprofen, and an anti-bacterial mouthwash to see me through the recovery portion. Took two sets of each of the painkillers yesterday, felt fine, so stopped taking any more after about 4. This actually was just fine, until around 1am this morning when I decided that while it didn't hurt a lot, I was probably better off taking the meds at least to get to sleep. Still trying to ween myself off them, and I think I'll definitely skip out on the Vicodin from here on out, but the stitches in my mouth are still a bit sore. Oh well, I technically can take off tomorrow, too, but probably won't. Starting to get a little bored here.

Looking forward to more D&D Saturday, and then it's just 3 more workdays 'til I'm off on a much looked forward to vacation. Ah, the fun and excitement.

5:43pm: Vacation
So, updates. Yeah. Let's see...

Since my last post, I had another week-long work trip to San Antonio for a symposium. Generally a lot more boring with no real memories on my part of anything worthwhile happening, so moving along. Went home for an extended weekend where I saw friends, family, and in general enjoyed not being here. April...I suppose things happened. My brain is not really working so well at the moment (will get into reasons later) but I do know that I didn't get to travel anywhere, so not much to talk about. I worked, played games, and watched DVDs. Whoopee.

The reason I'm more than a little out of sorts was that I just got back from a nice 4-day weekend spent at Panama City Beach, FL, with Timra. Was a wonderful time, but kinda has me thinking of faerie land ideas, since it really feels like I was away a lot longer than that. Granted, mentally I suppose I've been gone for a good week before hand, so maybe that has something to do with it. Regardless, we had fun, and I believe I have returned with both a notable sleep deficit and quite possibly an ear infection to boot. Stupid ocean being fun to play in but not all that healthy.

Hmmm... I want to talk about movies/games I watched/played, but I really am rather tired, so I'll try to get a nice synopsis.

Lost Odyssey for 360: Good game, with interesting plot and characters. Started out hard, but quickly became rather simplistic. Game system isn't anything special, as proven by the fact that there are still a few things to do and I have no interest in doing them. Beating the game will do for me.
Iron Man: Entertaining, if so very silly.
New Indiana Jones: Cute, but nothing special. Seemed a little overly "cute" to me.
Live Free and Die Hard: Oh so very silly.
The Reaping: Not as bad as I had expected. Not good, note, just not horrible, either.

That'll do. Brain is off elsewhere again, so I shall attempt to play Hounds before going back to sleep.

6:04pm: It hasn't even been a full month!
Yeah, I really should update this more often, but I doubt it will happen anytime soon. I just don't have the interest to rant about the crap that is irritating/confusing me in a public forum as a general rule, I suppose. Prefer more one-on-one ranting. *shrug*

Anyways, it's been a fairly interesting couple of weeks. After the car had been misbehaving for a bit, decided another trip to the Auto Hobby shop on base was in order. Managed to get the wrong weight oil, which meant I didn't get that job done, although I probably could have/will eventually use it, but was tired and wanted to leave by the time my tires were balanced. The weekend proceeded to just get a bit better as time went on, with my next mistake dealing with the cat and dryer combination that I have told many of you all about. For posterity's sake (and the fact that I find these entries to be good memory deposits) I was doing laundry, and after putting a freshly washed load in the dryer, turned it on. between the rather loud *thump* sounds the dryer was making and the distinct lack of cat in my apartment (he is rarely more than a few feet from me) I decided it would be wise to stop the dryer and see what was up. Lo and behold, a rather upset cat wanders out, and proceeds to avoid the laundry room for the rest of the day. How he managed to get in there, I haven't a clue, but hopefully he has learned his lesson. Regardless, I now know that a cat in the dryer will not necessarily make distinctly cat-like sounds.

As the week began, I managed to go 0 for 3 when I locked my keys in my car at lunch. A quick trip to the dealership got me a second set in case I manage to be stupid once more. Fortunately, the rest of the week went much better, and I was able to get everything set for a symposium in Reno, NV. I left on Saturday, March 1, flying out of Cheyenne through Denver, leaving the cat by his lonesome in the apartment with Chris stopping by to feed/water him and provide attention if he had time. Arriving in Reno I had the displeasure to not only get nicely confused about which baggage terminal my luggage was supposed to come out of, but having my luggage simply not come out at all. A quick check with the service desk showed that it just never left Denver, and they said the next flight would be in at 7. I headed to the hotel/casino, got my room, told them that I had bags coming in later, and went down to get some supper. Saw a sushi bar in the hotel with all-you-can-eat, and figured I should give that a try once more. I now know that either my taste buds have changed, that was very good sushi, or the previous sushi I had was not so great, because I enjoyed that immensely, going back there again for lunch Friday. around 11:30 that night I got a call in saying my luggage had caught up with me, and thus I was ready for the symposium (which didn't begin until Monday, so I had plenty of time)

I started my first morning in Reno with a late breakfast, then took a walk down to the local Borders to stock up on books having finished one of the two I brought, namely "The Golden Compass" I had hoped to buy the second two books in the series, but all the Borders had on hand was a box set of the three. Figuring that I had gotten the first for free anyways, I went ahead and grabbed that along with a random Godsmack CD. Spent most of the rest of the day reading (and finishing) book 2. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful, going to classes during the day, hitting up free food or going out to eat at night. I did get to enjoy a nice jacuzzi that one of my friends manage to get in his hotel room, and proceeded to bullshit the night away with him, suddenly realizing that it was 10:00 and we should really get some supper and sleep. The last night had a nice little wandering the strip, and my group found some live music to enjoy, so that was nice. The plane ride out Friday was a bit less eventful, although we did have an hours delay getting out of Reno (having a couple hour layover in Denver meant I didn't care so much) and I finished off the trilogy while waiting. All in all, the books proved to be pretty good, although the strong anti-religious theme makes me doubt that they'd make all of them into movies. I also was rather bored when it finally got to the end. It felt like the book had already ended, but the author just wasn't done writing, so I pretty much skimmed the last 20 or so pages. I think the fact that the main characters were still just 12 year old kids made me just not care so much about them. Honestly, I think that that was one of the aspects of the books that annoyed me the most. Oh well, they were still pretty good reads.

Getting home was just fine, and I have spent the last couple days doing very little. Roshirov is just fine, if a little attention needy, although he has shown that the kitchen counter is no longer out of reach for him. In not so great news, my desktop computer died rather definitively when I tried to turn it on, emitting a rather definite smell of burning electrodes and now refusing to even blink any lights or whir any fans. I shall have to spend some time working on it eventually, although with the laptop still chugging along nicely, I'm in no rush. Work is once more hectic, and today especially was not fun as I did not get the sleep I would have liked last night. Hopefully things will be a bit less painful as the days go on. At least I ran a fair amount today.

Hmmmm... This is a rather busy month for me, so I may actually update this thing again next week. At the very least, I think updating the week before and the week after trips is wise. For those who aren't aware, I'll be in Indiana this coming weekend, although I shall not have a whole lot of free time. If you want to hang out, though, just give me a poke via some means and we'll see what we can do.

8:42pm: The state of the.... me
So, it's posty time again. Or at least I'm taking the time to post. Whatever. This is mostly just me babbling about the weekend, so feel free to wander off and look at something else, like zombies.

So, let's see. Had a nice long weekend, with friday off for a family day and monday off for president's day, which proved to be a good time for my friend Timra to visit. Picked her up at the airport friday, came back here, had korean, got skiing stuff and groceries, unloaded everything at my apartment, and after giving Roshirov the required attention, we headed back down to Denver for Cirque Dreams: A Jungle Fantasy. Not exactly Cirque Du Soleil, but still quite good and far more affordable. Best act in my opinion was one of the last, in which they had a couple guys balancing on a board which was held up by a polished cylinder on its side. Adding a couple tables just made it all the more interesting, but then they topped it off with several more cylinders beneath, giving a nice 180 degrees of freedom for the balancing to be controlled. I know that this isn't doing it justice, but it's really one of those things you have to see to really understand/feel it.

After the show we realized supper was needed (it being after 10) but attempted to make some headway through Denver before hitting a random restaurant off an exit. Unfortunately for us the Denver DoT had taken it upon themselves to (we would find out much later) drop a section of the road from 4 lanes to 1. The apparent stillness of the traffic and my growling stomach prompted a more random turn off and aimless wandering in a part of Denver that I knew nothing about in an attempt to both get food and, hopefully, allow the traffic clog to sort itself out. We managed to find a random mexican restaurant, which was probably about as authentic as one could hope for this far north of the border. Seemed like a family run joint in a predominantly spanish-speaking area, although I could be wrong there. Regardless, it was tasty and filling, which was all I needed at the time. Heading back onto the highway we were rudely greeted with yet more stuck traffic, which finaly died away once we got past the 1-lane bit. managed to get back to my apartment at 1:30-2:00ish and proceeded to crash most soundly.

Saturday began with me waking up stupidly early after that late of a bed-time, making breakfast, and getting ourselves out the door in some type of timely fashion so as to hit the slopes. The weather proved quite nice for skiing, although the snow on the roads more than likely caused my car to need a trip to auto hobby for a tire balancing. Nothing serious, just a rather more sideways (and unintentional) impact into a snowbank than I would have preferred. Once on the slopes I gave as much advice as I could, then proceeded down slopes that weren't open my first run. A different bunny-slope, this with it's own lift, proved very helpful for us, and after a couple runs down that we decided to try a real slope, this one a green called "warpath". Warpath was far from gentle, and provided quite the spectacular first fall for my friend, with poles going flying. Fortunately, there were no injuries, and proved my lack of experience as well by finding the most convenient was to stop at the bottom of the slope was to no longer be standing. Several hours and only a few falls later, it was starting to get dark and us tired, so we packed it up and headed on back.

Of course, what seemed like a beautiful day going there proved to be a much less pleasant one on the way back. Not only was my car shuddering oddly (I shall blame the balance being knocked out until proven otherwise) but snow started coming down rather heavily, with a bit of Wyoming wind to help add to the pain. After a little while we were traveling behind another vehicle with probably 10-20' visibility. Not 20 minutes from my apartment, though, the sky cleared, the snow stopped, and the Cheyenne weather bubble asserted it's control, allowing for a much more pleasant remaining leg of the trip. Once home, I made supper, we watched some movies, talked a bit, and enjoyed some much needed sleep.

Sunday started off once more with me getting up earlier than I would have liked, and more and more beginning to feel a creeping crud trying to take over my respiratory system. Breakfast of leftovers, throwing music on a CD, and in general trying to get Timra ready for her flight saw us out the door fairly quickly. Made a quick stop at the Coleman's Outlet store on the way, where she found some boots and a mess kit, and I grabbed some cheap glow sticks. A farewell at the airport, and then I make my last trip back along I-25 to try and get some sleep and kick what is becoming a more and more annoying cold as it lingers. The rest of Sunday and most of Monday are spent with me doing as little as possible, getting through the anime DVD stockpile I've been accumulating recently, as well as do a little gaming for simple entertainment.

Work today was unexceptional. I kinda feel like I accomplished nothing, but I suppose that's the way it goes some days. Plus feeling a little cruddy is not helping any. I did, sadly, bow out of running today, marking day #5 in a row so far. Really need to get back into gear, and at least be in decent enough shape to check if I can get an 11:30 1.5 mile run time next month. We shall see, I suppose.

That was more than enough rambling from me. Hope all of ya are doing well!