The Great Summary
Life’s been pretty busy lately, so no posts even though I have quite a few ideas. Instead of trying to find the time to give everything the full treatment here’s some summaries. I wish I could do a full post about each of these, but that’s just not going to happen…
GaryCon 2008: In honor of Gary Gygax, we got together the weekend after his death to play some classing First Edition AD&D. We got together Friday night and generated quite a few characters, and then got together Saturday for an unknown module. We had Kolvedic running the game (best 1st ed. AD&D GM I’ve seen), and we had Jhianna, Spice, Jasmine, Bobo, The California Transplant Couple, and myself playing. We had in the group a ranger, fighter, thief, cleric, mage, cavalier, and another fighter in the group. I was playing the cavalier and had a blast with it. I bellowed orders, charged the enemies, called them cowards, and wreaked havoc. The rest of the group followed me with a great deal more intelligence and restraint, which is good because I died, was reincarnated, came back as a badger, and was polymorphed back into my original shape of an elf. Good stuff. I thought I was a bad-ass during the game, but when we tallied kills, I came away with killing an already wounded hell hound. Yep. The good old cavalier took out a wounded mutt. Dammit. Ah well. That’s ok. We all had a blast, and it was a good time. It reminded me of how good D&D could be. The unknown module turned out to be G3 – Hall Of The Fire Giant King. Also, in honor of Gary, I bought some good 15 year old single malt scotch since he liked to drink that. No one joined me in lifting a glass to his name, so I drank most of the bottle myself (across both nights that is.) Turns out that I really like scotch so long as there is a splash of water in the glass. Who would have known?
Kiernan: He’s growing, smiling, and being a great little kid. He went through his first head cold, and he was miserable. That didn’t make us happy because we didn’t like to see him unhappy, and he had a hard time not crying most of the time because life sucks when you’re sick. He’s finally over it, and life is back to normal. I’m loving every moment of being around him, and after a long, hard day at work, it’s good to see him smile at me the first thing in the evening. It really warms the heart.
School: I started two new classes a little over two weeks ago. One is my last undergrad class (computer system security) and the other is my first graduate class (concepts of information technology). The computer security class is really neat and interesting, and not horribly difficult. The concepts of IT class is a bitch, though. The concepts and teachings are very much the same stuff (though updated) that I learned back in jr. high and high school. BORING. However, I have a cast study and a research paper due each week. The case study needs to be 2-3 pages in length, and the research paper is 8-10 pages in length. That’s 10-13 pages of research and writing EACH WEEK. Urhg. Oh. By the way. There’s a 15-20 page essay due at the end of the class. Damn!
10 Year Wedding Anniversary: Yep. Kiara and I made it 10 years! Yay! She got me some really awesome professional photos of her and Kiernan that are just perfect. I love them all, and most of them are in large format in very nice frames to put around the house and in my office. I finally got to give her the engagement ring that I’ve been owing her for over 10 years now. I bought it back in December, and I’ve been sitting on it for four months. It took quite a bit not to give it to her early. The ring didn’t make her cry, but she did tear up some. I think that maybe if my presentation was better, I could have opened up the water works. I was just too nervous to make the moment more special than it already was. I was almost as nervous as I was when I asked her to marry me on July 4th, 1997.
Health: I came down constipated last Friday. This has never happened me before as I’m usually on the other end of the digestive spectrum. I wasn’t sure what to do about it, but I figured it would pass. It didn’t. By the time last night rolled around I was totally miserable. It hurt to move anything but my fingers, I was bloated, and I felt like utter crap… well.. full of crap, actually. I got my hands on some prune juice (nasty stuff!) and downed 20 ounces of it. After the fact, Kiara informed me that you’re really not supposed to drink more than 8 ounces at a time. Crap. Literally. After about 90 minutes, the prune juice kicked in, and I spent the next 5-6 hours on the toilet. Ugh. However, I feel MUCH better today. Sorry to share this with you, but I just had to. Oh? You say that I didn’t? Too bad.
Doctor: One thing came out of the constipation episode. I made an appointment with my doctor for several things. One was my gnarly toenails, another was my inability to totally quit smoking, and the last was to talk about the history of colon cancer in my family. I was really afraid that I was 100% blocked off due to a tumor. Nope. I’m not a hypochondriac, but with my family history and the way I was feeling, it crossed my mind more than twice. Anyway, I got a prescription for Lamasil for the toenails, but have to wait for some liver tests to come back. I also got a referral to a GI doctor for my first annual colonoscopy. I’ll make sure to post the video when I get it. Just Kidding! I also got a prescription for Chantix for the smoking, but the doctor said that with as little as I smoke (about a pack a week or so) that I’m probably not addicted to the nicotine anymore, and it’s all mental. Plus, the Chantix is not covered by insurance, only works 3% of the time, can cause massive nausea, and has, in rare cases, caused people to have suicidal thoughts. I’m pretty sure the suicidal thoughts are from the lack of smoking and not the addition of the drug. Anyway, I’m not going to do the Chantix thing. The doctor suggested hypnotism for the smoking. A few other people have told me this, so I think I may give it a try. However, Kiara and/or Craing will be there with a baseball bat. If the hypnotists starts to make me cluck like a chicken or screw with my head, they are under orders to beat the hypnotist to death with the baseball bat.
Eyes: I also had an eye doctor appointment today, and I came out with healthy eyes (same ones I went in with too!) and two years after LASIK my vision is still at 20/15, but I can tell it’s not quite the “perfect” 20/15 that it was a year ago. I can see 20/15, but it’s slightly fuzzy whereas last year it was very crisp and the 20/10 chart was the fuzzy one.
Work: I normally don’t talk about work because I’ve heard of people being fired for it, but I’m just going to say that things are going great, and I’m loving it here. There was some talk of starting a security team, but that idea got axed because of budget concerns, but it’s on the plate for later this year or early next year… maybe. That’s ok. I can wait for it as I still have quite a bit to learn in that area. Also, I’m creeping up on my 2 year anniversary at work. I’m not sure how I managed to do that, but I did! Yay!
I think that pretty much sums up the past two weeks. Time to get back to work and homework and such. Going to be a long-ass day!
