Archive, 2nd Half of 2008

12/19/2008:
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of busy and stress at work. Larry and I are still the only ones on the LAN team, and we have been getting killed every day. We are managing to keep up, somehow. We are hoping Eric will be able to return to us soon. Last we heard, he might be coming back on 12/29, which would be great. We will see what happens. Larry's last day of work this year was today; he is on vacation for the next 2 weeks. That leaves me alone in LAN again, at least for next week (a short week, thankfully), and possibly the next week as well, if Eric cannot return. Not going to stress about it now. It's the weekend; I'm going to relax and let go of some of this stress that has been plaguing me.

Joanna and I received an early Christmas present last week: new computer monitors. We now each have an Acer B193 19" flatscreen monitor, which replaced the 17" CRTs we were previously using. The CRTs have been retired to the basement for now. Both still work, and I expect they will see use again in the future. We are both loving the larger screen area, for games and everything else. The only mar is that I have a single stuck pixel, low on the right side of my screen. I named it Penelope. It is stuck in a green color, so it shows up most when there are dark images on the screen; on lighter images and white, it is invisible. I have researched ways to fix stuck pixels online, and have found several, but I have not tried any of them yet. It doesn't bother me to have it there, and I did read that it is possible for stuck pixels to "fix themselves", so we'll see what happens. If it starts to annoy me, I will see what can be done.

We got a pretty significant amount of snow here today, and it is still snowing. Had I been able to skip work, I would have, but as noted above, we've been busy, so I needed to go in. I went in at 9, and was told to leave at 3:15, due to the bad weather, which was fine with me. I accomplished a lot today, and we should be well prepared for next week. The drive home was not too bad; certainly not as bad as during the huge storm we got last winter. It took me a little under 2 hours to get home; the highway was not too bad; the plow trucks were keeping the worst of the snow off the roads. The non-highway roads near home had not been plowed, but there had been enough traffic through so they were still driveable. It was nice to get home early, and have some extra time to relax. Plus, it's the weekend! Finally! Looking forward to relaxing, playing some games, hopefully watching a movie or two at some point. Oh, and shoveling. Will need to shovel tomorrow. That's ok; it's good exercise :)


12/02/2008:
Ashes passed away last night. She was our mama rat, mother to the other 9 rats we currently have, and she will be missed. She was a real sweetie, playful and snuggly. She loved running around, exploring, and climbing. When on our shoulders, she would often groom and clean us, as a good rat mother will for all her children, even the non-rat ones.

Needless to say, it is a sad day for Joanna and I. I am feeling overtired and not much like working, but work needs me, so I am here. More than 1/2 way through my day now, and then I return home to my love. I look forward to 6:00.


11/24/2008:
A month since an update. Where to start... I guess a summary is best. Here are things in no particular order:
I now have glasses to wear. Picked them up last week. Fairly weak prescription, but they help me see much clearer, especially objects in the distance. I mostly wear them only when driving, but sometimes also while working or just when walking around. I'm still getting used to having them on my face. I got them originally just for driving, but when I started wearing them, I noticed that many things are much clearer. Things around me had been very gradually going fuzzy, apparently; I just hadn't noticed because it was so gradual.

We finally got to play some D&D a couple of weekends ago. My Baator campaign was up. We got about 4 hours of solid gametime in, which was good. I thought it would be difficult to get back into the feel and mood of the game, but it seemed to come back to everyone fairly quickly. Hopefully it won't be as long until the next session (we waited 7 months between this last session and the one before it).

Work has been crazy and hectic over the past few weeks (which definitely contributed to my lack of updates). Eric, one of the guys on my team of 3, has been out on emergency medical leave for several weeks, leaving just 2 of us. For 4 days, I was the only one on my team (Larry had vacation scheduled from several months ago; he apologized for taking it, I told him not to apologize -- had I had vacation scheduled, I would have taken it, as well). Nearing a holiday as we are, things have quieted down somewhat, but there is still a lot of work for just the 2 of us to do. Thankfully, some members of the other teams have been able to take some time away to help us out when we were in dire need. I cannot thank them enough. We are all hoping for Eric's recovery, and hopefully he will return to us soon.

Joanna's car has been fixed up a bit, and we picked up some things yesterday to help prepare for winter. On Saturday, I took it over to QuickLane in Holyoke to take advantage of their Fall maintenance package, which included an oil change, tire rotation, filter check, fluid fill (as needed), battery check, and a brake check. While the car was up on the lift, it was noted the transmission pan was leaking rather heavily, so with my permission they replaced the gasket on that. They also found the cause of the stuttering problem it was having: the starting wires were worn, and the spark plugs were filthy. I had them replace the plugs and wires as well, while I was there, and now it is running much much better. I feel much more confident about taking it out on longer trips, and also more confident about it starting and running better this winter. Yesterday, Joanna and I stopped at Advanced Auto Parts and picked up a few things: jumper cables, a gallon of washer fluid, new windshield wipers, a combination ice scraper / snow brush, and a steering wheel cover. Joanna also picked out a nice air freshener and a couple of stickers for the windows. She said it really feels like her car now. This makes me glad, because it is hers :)

My webhost changed without me knowing it. I went to change my billing information, and found that fuitadnet.com no longer exists. Through some checking, I found my site is now hosted by GreatValueHost. I'm not a big fan of the name, but they are so far living up to it. I still have my shell access, email, and FTP, and my cost is the same as before. Also, the customer service folks were very nice and very helpful in getting my billing stuff straightened out, and my account back in good standing.

Lynx was doing better for awhile after his shot, but then started not doing well again. We are now giving him liquid medicine, which appears to be helping. He had to take it every day for 7 days, and is now taking it every other day until it is gone. We are hoping the medicine can help beat back the problems he has been having, and maybe once it is gone, he can be off it for awhile. If not, and he needs to keep taking it every other day, so be it. We will do whatever we need to in order to help him stay comfortable and healthy.

Our little rat Ashes isn't doing so well. She had that seizure awhile back, but then seemed fine for awhile. Now, we think she has a tumor in her belly. It is not showing on the outside, but her belly is pretty big, while her back is getting bony. She also won't eat the lab blocks anymore; we think they are too hard for her. We will be feeding her softer fare -- bread, block powder mush, and oatmeal. We are also going to set up a little cage for her to be by herself. She will sleep in our room from now on, but will be allowed some supervised time with her daughters. We don't want to leave her with them without keeping an eye on them; if something happened to Ashes, we don't know what they'd do. I wish we could allow her to get out with us at night, like Flower used to, but she is too small. If she got off the bed, she'd be able to get all sorts of places, including out of the room, and we don't want that. She will be ok in the little cage herself, and she can snuggle with us while we are awake.


10/28/2008:
Joanna and I had a very productive weekend. We spent our time at home this weekend, working on the house. On Saturday, Joanna stripped and recaulked the shower while I worked on insulating. To be clear, she stripped the old caulking from the shower. She did not, herself, strip. I found out why our dining room was so cold last winter: some of the insulation had fallen down on the underside, and there were just bare boards showing. I spent quite awhile in the crawlspace, getting dirty, breathing fiberglass-laced dust (through a breathing mask, thankfully), and sticking the insulation back up against the boards, using some useful little insulation hangers I picked up at Home Depot. It took me a lot of crawling around and a few stops to get some fresh air, but I finally got it all reinsulated. While I was in there, I also stuffed some foam insulation around the dryer vent, and used canned foam to fill a rather large gap on one side (the side opposite the garage). I then exited the crawlspace (breaking Joanna's laundry shelf in the process; I put a little too much weight on it while crawling out the narrow hole), and sealed it back up with particle board and more foam insulation (the non-canned, less permanent kind). Hopefully, I won't need to go back in there anytime soon, but at least I know what to expect if I do have to. I had some little fears in the back of my mind that there may be small animals living in there. I expect a mouse MIGHT have been able to fit through some of the little gaps I found, but I did not see any mice, nor anything larger, nor was there any evidence of any chewing or nesting, as mice would be doing, so that helped to ease my mind, as well. Living in a house, there are all sorts of things discovered as one works through it, maintaining and modifying. Mice living under the dining room was one thing I hoped not to discover :)

Sunday was more laid back. I raked leaves for a couple of hours, then added some insulation along the sides of our front walk-in garage door, and also the door leading from the garage into the house. Previously, while standing in the garage, I could see a little bit of light from the dining room. Now, there is no such light, except a little at the bottom. I purchased a door sweep at Home Depot which will take care of that remaining issue. The door definitely shuts tighter now; requires a little more force, but it is definitely better insulated. Seems right on time, too. I heard a possibility of snow showers tomorrow... We had a bit of warmth, but I suspect we're headed right into the cold now.

We took Lynx to the vet on Saturday for a checkup. He had been seeming more lethargic over the past couple of weeks, and we had noticed he had been coughing every couple of days. We found out he has asthma, which is treatable. He had some bloodwork and x-rays done while we were there. His bloodwork came back fine, except for the level which indicates asthma. His lungs also look very healthy, but they are expanded a bit because he has had to fight a bit for air. They gave him a steroid shot, and will follow up in a few weeks. So far, he seems fine; I think he is even coming out of his lethargy a bit; he was playful last night, and Joanna said he was watching the squirrels this morning with interest :) Makes us happy to see him feeling better :)

Page Updates:
- updated dragon-rider.us main page (Happenings section).


10/16/2008:
Today marks my 4-year anniversary of working for Travelers. It has been a good job so far; I have learned a lot and also passed on my knowledge to a lot of people. I enjoy my job for the most part; I enjoy encountering tricky techical problems, investigating them, and solving them. There are some annoying aspects, of course, but I think there almost always is when it comes to work. The annoying does not overshadow the enjoyable for me, here, and as long as that is the case, I think I will be doing alright.

It has been another very tiring week. I had to leave work early on Tuesday because of a nasty toothache. It was throbbing, and driving sharp sticks of pain into my head, making me feel nauseous and just plain bad. I got an emergency appointment at my dentist that day, and they checked it out. Turns out I have a rather large hole on the back of one of my teeth; that is where the pain is coming from. It is on the back, so it is very hard to see. Thankfully, the dentist thinks it can be patched up with a filling; I sincerely hope I will not need anything more major than that. I am getting the filling done on Monday afternoon. I have been prescribed Tylenol 3 for the pain, and that definitely helps. Makes me feel a little spacey, but it's better than being in pain. Hopefully after the filling is done and the tooth has a chance to heal up, I will feel much better.

Upon further research, my 4-year anniversary at Travelers is actually 10/18, not today. I was close!


10/09/2008:
Ashes had a seizure on Tuesday night. There do not appear to be any long-lasting effects. I hope there are not. We were in the living room, sitting by the cage, when it happened. Joanna saw her fall and twitch. We picked her out carefully, quickly; she looked surprised and definitely out-of-it. We cuddled her awhile, and Joanna put her in the hood of her sweatshirt to rest. We had her sleep in our room that night, in a little cage, to make sure of her condition. By yesterday morning, she seemed to be fully recovered. She was moving around fine, and looked very alert, so we put her back in with her daughters, and she has been fine since then. We hope it doesn't occur again, but now there is that little piece, that little bur of worry, sunk into our hearts...

I am very tired this week. There has been a great deal of conflict in the Realms lately. My body and mind are not used to dealing with the pressures of having to focus in this world and the astral at the same time. It has probably been over a year since I have had to be this focused in both places. Much of the time, I can delay my focus on the Realms until the evening, when I am more relaxed or even sleeping, but the conflict now comes calling whenever it comes, and I will not push it off; it is very important that I focus on it and deal with situations as they come up, directing and acting as I need to, to hopefully ensure our success.

Page Updates:
- updated dragon-rider.us main page (Happenings section).


10/03/2008:
This week has been up and down. Up: I was advised on Monday that I am getting a raise. A rather large one. My first October check will reflect the raise. Down: the new medication I started taking to help prevent more kidney stones is giving me an upset stomach. I am hoping after a couple weeks of taking the pills, my stomach will settle down. It hasn't been terrible, but uncomfortable, sometimes very much so. Up: Joanna and Kris' business client came and saw the castle and head wreaths they constructed for her, and she absolutely loves them. This makes for a happy them and a happy me. Down: been tired this week, but not as bad as last week. Up: I am continuing to correspond with the Realms guardian who found me, through my site. I have joined a chat network, and will hopefully be corresponding with her and others that share our knowledge soon. End result: the week has been more up than down :)

Joanna and I are continuing to enjoy Requiem. I hit 24th level last night with my Shaman. I have been focusing on dealing as much fire damage as possible at a range, but also put a few skill points into protective magics, as I tend to pull alot of aggro from monsters. This is especially true of my AoE spells; they are great for dealing damage to a lot of things at once, but often I then find myself surrounded by many angry, singed creatures, clawing me and clubbing me in the face. My protective Fire Coat (boosts defense) and Fire Shield (returns a percentage of the melee damage dealt back to my attacker) has helped to keep me from death in these situations. My companions, of course, are the most helpful. Sean, Joanna, and I tend to play together often, and we make a good team. In a game like this, it is important to have helpful, competent companions. Non-competent companions can get you killed in a hurry...

Page Updates:
- updated dragon-rider.us main page (Happenings section).


09/26/2008:
I have had contact from another guardian of the Realms. This is the first direct contact I have had since I started this site, however many years ago. I am taking this as a good sign. Just yesterday morning, I was thinking about this site; how I have tried to maintain it, and over time, I have added a lot of information, but most of my friends already know what's on it. I know some come to read my journal, but I doubt they look over much of the rest of the site, since it hasn't changed much in the past couple of years. Then I checked my inbox last night, and behold, an email addressed to the Man in Grey. It is a good feeling, exhilerating in nature. I have been found by an internet wanderer, and that person is aware of the Realms, and is also a guardian. I will be maintaining email correspondence with this person, and finding out more about him/her. This brings me hope and good spirits. It also reminds me that I haven't updated the dragon-rider.us main site in quite awhile... I will see what I can do about that.

Joanna and I started playing a free MMORPG last weekend: Requiem: Bloodymare. It was reviewed in one of my PC Gamer magazines, and it looked interesting. The plot is a little thin, but that doesn't concern us much. The gameplay is engaging, and the creature design is amazing, which is what drew us to the game initially. The combat and death sequences are also very bloody.

The gameplay itself is similar to what I experienced when playing World of Warcraft. The mouse control is very similar, as are the keyboard controls and shortcut bars. The quests are fairly generic: kill x of this kind of monster, or make this delivery (which almost always spawns an additional quest, along the same line). One receives XP and loot from killing monsters; completing quests tends to provide a huge XP boost, along with some pretty nice items. Quests also give a reason to explore the lands, venturing further and further from the starting areas, into more dangerous territory.

Dungeons are instanced, which makes for less cluttered hunting; you only go in with the people in your party. The respawn rates outside are pretty high; in the dungeons (well, the 1 we have visited so far), the monsters respawn more slowly. This is good, because we end up fighting in a smaller space, and we don't want to aggro everything around us that may be respawning.

We are really enjoying our time with the game. It is Joanna's first MMO. After some initial control issues (there is always a learning curve for each MMO), it was pretty easy to get into. The text on some of the quests is a little off, but I really don't have any major complaints about the game. My machine lags on it a bit, mostly when I am first loading up, but once in the game, it runs pretty well (especially in dungeons, where it doesn't need to render the large outdoor spaces). The lag isn't really the game's fault, I don't think, as Joanna's machine runs it just fine :) The graphics are nice and smooth, even on the minimum settings. I expect we will be enjoying the game for quite awhile, or at least while it remains free to play. Subscription plans can be purchased, and they offer bonuses like more (and better) drops from monsters, more XP per kill, and less XP loss when death occurs. We may consider a subscription at a later date, if we decide we want to dedicate ourselves to it, but it is not currently necessary.


09/17/2008:
Flower died this morning around 1 am. I am filled with sadness at her passing. My tears never feel very far away.

She was sleeping peacefully when Joanna left last night, and looked OK when I got home around 8 pm. We went in to get her out for some food and snuggle time around 10:00, and she was in really bad shape. She had a lot of dried red around her eyes and nose (porphyrin), and she was having trouble breathing. We took her into the bathroom and cleaned her off, using q-tips, tissue, and warm water. Once cleaned, we wrapped her in a bit of fleece blanket, then sat on the couch and cared for her for the next several hours. She definitely had some fluid in her lungs; we could hear it in each breath. She would breathe fine for a little while, then start coughing. We picked her up a bit, at these times, so she could cough the stuff free of her lungs. Other than the coughing, she was not uncomfortable. She lay still, with her eyes closed, for most of the night. She would occasionally open her eyes, and even brux gently. While we cared for her, we watched Winnie the Pooh on DVD, and then part of the Neverending Story II after that. We wanted something to watch, but nothing too involving. These were good choices. Around 1 am, Flower starting coughing heavily again. I was holding her then, and I picked her up to help her. She coughed a few times, sighed...and stopped breathing. She passed on, then, quickly and with little discomfort. I had prayed, when she began getting sick, that when she went, it would be quick. Joanna prayed that when she went, she would be in the company of family. Both of our prayers were answered. Flower will be cremated. Her ashes will be placed in small wooden box, and she will sit a shelf, next to her sister, Ninlin. They are now reunited, in the afterworld, with each other, and I know they will wait for us there.

I feel an emptiness from Flower's passing. She was a small rat, but she had a lot of love for us, and she shared it often. She slept with us, or nearby, every night. She loved to be petted, loved to explore, and was usually very happy, bruxing and playing when the opportunity arose. She was our travel rat, and went up to VT with us several times. She was good in the car, and would snuggle and sleep on the back of Joanna's neck, under her hair, while I drove. She also became our computer-rat. She would play on Joanna's desk while we played games, eventually snuggling down into the fleece-lined tube on the desk and falling asleep. Her presence will be greatly missed in the house. She was the second of the first pair of rats that were ours, together. Ninlin's passing was hard on me; Flower's feels harder still. I will always remember her as my snowbear, with that cute little nose and curious red eyes, standing up and making a cute face when she wanted to come out of the cage, and playing with me on the bed. I feel tears wanting to spill again. I expect they will come later, as they came while I was holding her live body last night, and after she passed on, as I petted her and smoothed her white fur with my fingers, gently.

Unsurprisingly, I slept poorly last night. My dreams were of Flower, but they were dreams that disturbed me at the time, rather than bringing the peace I desired. I think they were telling me that I can and should be at peace, with the knowledge that part of her will always be with me, inside, in my heart. I slept poorly and not enough, but I came to work anyway. I may leave early, or I may tough it out. Will see how I feel later. I felt pretty bad earlier, but I had a little breakfast, and now I feel better.


09/12/2008:
Exhaustion seems to hang around me like a cloud. It takes me longer to do things, including things like my morning business and my pre-bed business. I feel I have not gotten enough sleep any given night this week, for one reason or another. I am hoping to get some sleep this weekend. Hopefully it will help me feel better. My stomach has been good and bad this week. Definitely worse while at work. The tightness near my solar plexus has been especially bad, especially today. I attribute it to stress. I have tried to de-stress myself at night. It has been helping, but I am still stressed. Should be a good weekend. That will help. Playing D&D tomorrow. I am starting a new 1st level campaign; something new and different. I still have my other campaign, that I want to play again (quite badly), but we have not been able to gather everyone in quite a long time. So we're going to try something new. I started writing notes for the campaign this weekend over a year ago. I have been working steadily on it over the past couple of weeks. I feel ready to play. I have first-session anxiety, mostly ungrounded, as the fact I am a good DM has been reinforced, through comments by my players, many times. But still I have anxiety. It will fade as we play, and it will be a fun time.

Flower, our remaining white rat, is not doing well :( We are sure she has developed the same problem that Ninlin developed near the end of her life on this earth: a tumor in her brain or (I think Joanna said) pituitary (sp) gland. She has lost a lot of her control and strength in her front legs, though her back legs are still pretty strong. She has also developed several small tumors along her belly and sides. They don't seem to be growing much, but they are multiplying. She has beaten Isis' record for "most tumors we've seen on a rat in her lifetime". She is not able to eat the hard pellets, so we have been feeding her bread, baby food, and vitamin paste. She has lost a lot of weight, but we are trying to maintain what she has left. I am sure her condition contributes to my stress. She doesn't feel well, but we will do all we can to make her comfortable. She still likes to snuggle with us, but we can't have her out on the bed while we sleep anymore, because she falls off and then has to spend the night on the (increasingly cold) floor. There is sadness, and I know it contributes to my list of current stresses. I love her so much.


09/10/2008:
Yesterday was long and very tiring, but the end result was good: Joanna's car now has an inspection sticker! It is now all legal. Whew.

I got up early yesterday to take the car to Curry Honda. I was there almost 3 hours, and the ending cost to me was $0, which is pretty great. There was no exhaust leak to be found. They put the car up on the lift and looked at it carefully, but the exhaust system is intact (yay). I replaced the rear wiper blade on Sunday, so all that was left was the backup lights. I thought I had fixed them Sunday by replacing the fuse, but they were not working again yesterday. After working with the mechanic for awhile, we found that there is a loose (or most likely worn) contact under the shifting lever. The backup lights stay on, as long as one holds the lever back just a little. This was good enough for me, and the mechanic, and it seemed well for the inspector, as well, so we got our sticker.

As a result of the long wait at Curry, I was into work late, and worked through lunch to make up some of my time, resulting in a very exhausted me by the end of last night. Still had enough energy to hand out a whupping in DotA, though. That helped energize me a bit, certainly :)

Joanna and I did get her car out on Sunday for some driving practice. We went to an empty school parking lot nearby and drove around a bit. Did a lot of parking practice, then did a bit of road driving. Her reflexes and confidence will improve as we go, I know it. I have great confidence in her, and I am hoping it will rub off on her :) We have been trying to get out again this week, but there hasn't really been a good night for it yet. Maybe tonight. Definitely this weekend :)


09/05/2008:
Another long time since an update, another series of long weeks. Last weekend was a lot of fun. We held a summer's end Slobfest at our house. Jesse came down from VT, Mike came up from D.C., and friends came over from W. Mass (Kris, Sean, Roland, and Rob). Joanna acted as hostess, and she did a great job. She baked tasty brownies, and made up a veggie platter with dill dip, and a bread platter with homemade spinach dip. All the food was much enjoyed. Jesse DM'd our campaign, which was an introduction to 4th edition. We all enjoyed playing. We actually finished the campaign, and none of the PCs died. I am not ready to switch from 3rd to 4th edition yet, but if someone were to DM another campaign, I would play in it. It is fun, and there is a LOT to do during combat. Kris described it as "magic girl / anime D&D". Each ability and power has a special name; some have special gestures to perform. I played a cleric, and played him generally as I would a 3rd Ed cleric, so it didn't feel as anime-y to me, but I can see what she means.

The previous weekend we did...stuff. I know we did. Some stuff. I need to update more often. My weeks blur together.

Joanna's car is not quite legal yet, but we are getting there. Had a bit of a hassle with Curry Honda; they gave me the impression they had performed an inspection but couldn't give me a sticker because there was no front license plate. I learned the next day that they hadn't even performed the inspection... I took it back this morning, front license plate in place, and they inspected it. It failed, as I knew it would, but now I know what is wrong: needs rear wiper blade (can fix this myself); backup lights do not work (may be able to fix this; hopefully I'll have time to check out the fuse box and the bulbs this weekend); exhaust has a leak (cannot fix this -- have an appointment Tuesday morning for Curry to put it up on the lift, find the leak, and fix it). Once this is all done, we should have a sticker and be good to go. The car is insured and registered. We have an updated inspection rejection sticker, which is legal to drive on for a few days, so we are planning to get some driving time in this weekend. Whee! The car still needs a tune-up, but I'll worry about that once it passes inspection. It runs decently; not apt to just up and die, imo. Just needs a little work, and some love, which it will get :)


08/20/2008:
It has been a busy couple of weeks. Joanna got her driver's permit last Monday (yay), and is going to go for her license as soon as possible. We need to find some time to get some driving practice in. It didn't heppen last weekend. I am hoping we can go this weekend. Speaking of driving, Joanna now also has her first car :) It's a little red Nissan 240sx, 2-door. She fell in love with it right away, and I think it will be a good first vehicle for her. She wanted something small, and it is small; I did not want her in anything too small, and it is not too small. I feel she will be protected in the event of an accident, and she feels she can drive it well. Works out well for everyone :)

The car runs pretty well, and it handles nicely, but it cannot be driven legally yet. It is insured, and we are waiting on the RMV-1 form from the insurance company so we can get it registered at the RMV. Once registered, it needs to be inspected within 7 days, and then, we will finally be able to get it out so Joanna can drive around in it :) I was rather annoyed today, because we did receive the RMV-1 form, but Joanna's name was spelled incorrectly on the form. I called the insurance company, and was informed the form cannot be modified in any way by us; they need to send us out a new, corrected, registered form. So now we get to wait some more. The car looks nice sitting in the driveway, but I would prefer that it be getting some miles put on it, and Joanna be getting some practice driving it! Hopefully we will have the corrected form within a few days, and I can go get the car registered early next week. I know there are a few small things that need to be repaired for it to pass MA state inspection, but it shouldn't cost very much to take care of them. I hope to have it all legalized by next weekend.

Last weekend was my birthday weekend (30...I still don't believe it, really), and it was really nice. On Saturday, Joanna and I went to Forest Park. We went to the zoo, which was small but nice, with quite a large variety of animals for its size. After the zoo, we walked around the rose gardens for awhile, and Joanna took a lot of really nice pictures. After the park, we took our time driving back out of the Park. It is really quite large, and beautiful. I've lived in MA almost 8 years, and I had never been. Shameful, I'm sure. We will definitely be going back sometime, maybe for a cookout or picnic or something. There are a lot of places to play and relax there. After Forest Park, we did some shopping, then went home and had homemade tacos for dinner (mmm, mmm, mmm). I felt like a movie during dinner, something action-oriented, so we watched Terminator 3, which we picked up recently at FYE to complete the series. I had seen it once before; Joanna had not seen most of it. It was fun, and we both enjoyed it. I still really like the ending; it is hopeful. After the movie, we rounded off the evening with some video games. Good fun, good day. Sunday was also good; we got a lot done that day. Cleaned all the rat cages, and some of the rats, organized some things, got the front lawn mowed...good day full of accomplishments, but also with relaxation and fun :)


08/12/2008:
Had a great weekend. Hung out with friends for awhile on Saturday and played some card games. On Sunday, my parents and sister came down to visit (my sister was on her way to the airport to fly back to Utah). We went out for lunch, to celebrate us being together, and also to celebrate my birthday early, since my parents won't be around this coming weekend (we had planned to go visit this weekend, but those plans had to change). My parents gave me a very surprise birthday gift: a Nintendo Wii! I was completely, utterly surprised. I'm still surprised. I go home and see it, and am still amazed that I own a Wii. My sister gave me a second Wiimote to go with it, so Joanna and I can play games together. The Wii came with Wii sports, so we have been playing that. Several of my friends have Wiis, so I hope to be able to borrow some games from them, to try out, at some point. I also receive my two F.E.A.R. expansions in the mail last week (Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate), so I have those to play. I started on Extraction Point, and am enjoying it so far. It is suitably creepy, and continues the story well.

Time to go home. Hopefully post more tomorrow :)


08/08/2008:
Early August already. This summer is flying by. My week was hectic and stressful, but there were good parts, too. My work schedule got all messed up this week. Worked 9 to 6 Monday, 9:30 to 4:15 on Tuesday, my usual 10 to 7 on Wednesday and Thursday, and then 9 to 6 again today. I got out early on Tuesday to pick up my sister from the airport. She is attending a friend's wedding this weekend, and flew into Bradley. She stayed at our house Tuesday night, which was great. I can't remember the last time I saw her before Tuesday. I wish we had more time to spend together, and I cherish what time we did have. Her and our parents are coming to visit on Sunday. They are stopping by on their way to the airport for Meghan to fly back to Utah. We will probably go out for lunch. I look forward to it.

We have started shopping for a car for Joanna. It is fun and exciting. Been a long time since I shopped for a "first car". This will be Joanna's first car. In Canada, when she had her junior license, she drove her parents' car. She will be going for her permit test on Monday, and then hopefully her driver's license test soon thereafter, after we get some driving practice in. She will need her own vehicle, and it would be good for her to learn on the car she will be driving. We are just looking at private sellers right now, and I expect we will find something suitable. Will get it inspected, of course, by a mechanic, before buying anything. Will take it for a test drive and see how it goes. We have a few to look at tomorrow, and at least one on Sunday. I'm looking forward to it :)


07/30/2008:
Had a nice weekend. Did get to do some of that yardwork I was talking about. The gutters were pretty clean already. Got some branches trimmed off the tree out front. Ended up having to go to Home Depot to get a better saw. The one I have is good, but it is square, and not good for smaller areas, such as the area where two branches join together (expecially when I'm removing the bottom branch). Also, it's really made more for cutting boards and treated wood, not trees (though I have cut down severeal trees with it already). We were going to get one of the nice combination pruning tool / saws, on a long pole, but they cost more than we were willing to spend. Instead, I got a hand-held pruning saw, with a 12" blade. It works really well! With it, I was able to prune the necessary branches easily. I still have one left, on the house side; next nice weekend day we have, I'll put the ladder up and take care of that one, too. I got all the small branches trimmed off and ready for disposal (yard waste removal every 2 weeks), and put the larger branches in the back yard, where I will cut them up later, for firewood. It won't hurt any to get a little stockpile together for this winter.

We did some other errands on the weekend, and also did a lot of relaxing, which was great. We played video games, played with the rats, and had a generally good time :) Not sure what this coming weekend will bring, yet. We may be headed to Long Island to help Mark and Michelle move. Hopefully I'll have more information on that in my email box when I get home.


07/25/2008:
I am kidney-stone free! Well, free of the big one, at least. I may still have some tiny ones in there, but I worry less about those. I hold hope that with all the water I drink, they will flow out of me with little or no trouble.

I went into the hospital yesterday, to have a sonic treatment done. The purpose was to break up the large (3 mm) stone that had formed in my right kidney, so I could then pass the pieces. I went in, got all IV'd up, including a sedative, and was taken to the OR for the procedure. It turns out that the intense pain I was in last Tuesday was the stone passing the rest of the way through, and out of me. They scanned me with the xray machine, and confirmed that the stone is no longer there, which is great. It hurt like hell to pass it, but I am glad it is gone. I am also glad I went yesterday, to confirm it was all gone. The sedative they gave me made me woozy for awhile, and then upset stomach after that, which continued into today (though more mild today). I am still feeling tired, but I think it is just the stress of the week. I start my weekend soon, and am looking forward to it.

It is supposed to be nice outside tomorrow, and I am hoping to get some work done around the yard, but I won't overdo it. I want to take it easy; I still feel drained and less energetic than usual. Accomplishing things helps me feel more energized, though, so I am sure to get at least a few things done. I have some branches to clean up in the back, want to trim the tree in the front, want to check the gutters after the huge rainstorm we had over the past couple of days...


07/10/2008:
A tiring and painful week. Had another kidney stone on Monday, but came to work anyway. Spent that day and most of Tuesday in mild to severe pain (though not quite as severe as the one a couple of weeks ago). I was taking Tylenol 3 to dull the pain, which worked, but made me sleepy. I didn't take too much, as I had to work, and then drive afterwards. Wednesday, the pain had mostly subsided, but I developed an upset stomach (probably due to the stress on my body from the pain on the previous days). It is still with me today, and I am also tired, even though I slept well. At least there is very little pain now (still the occasional twinge).

My weekend was good -- went up to VT for a couple of days to see my parents. Got to see friends of the family, too, as well as Jeff, Kheri, and Jesse. We had a good time. Played some games, rode the ATVs a bit, got some sun (a bit too much on my legs), and had a general good time. Came back home Saturday night, to spend that evening and Sunday with Joanna at the house.

The previous weekend was also good -- Joanna and I met Sean, Sarah and the kids at the movie theater, and we saw Pixar's new film, Wall E. It was cute and fun to watch. It was sad in some places ("WaaaallllEEEE"). The animation was, of course, excellent. We all enjoyed it. I'd watch it again. :)

Happy birthday to my lovely wife today :) I called and sang to her (happy birthday) :)

Not much else I can think of right now. Work has been very busy. I keep hoping to have a more regular updating schedule here. There are still things I want to do with my site (more than just updating my journal semi-regularly). One day, I'll get to it...