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October 29th, 2009
10:32 pm
Can't really say a whole lot about Las Vegas because so far my whole exposure has simply been the Strip (Las Vegas boulevard) and the views from the places we've been staying on this vacation. The strip is full of life and people, and many of them are very beautiful but walking past them they don't look all that happy. Everyone is wrapped up in their own personal now. So I guess it's not all that different than everywhere else after all.
Yesterday morning we moved out of the amazingly swank rooms in the Palazzo and back to our rooms in the Marriot Grand Chateau. The rooms are much smaller here and you can't see the mountains nearly as well from them (that's the difference between floor 50 and floor 18), BUT when I look down just outside my window now, I see the backyard of what looks like a small daycare/grade-school, and every so often I can see little kids circling the grounds on their tricycles. Today from my room I watched them do a small halloween parade round the building and I could barely hear them chanting "Trick! Trick! Trick or treat!". There must have been about 200 kids in all, all dressed in costumes, and all very excited. It was adorable.
I've become such a softy in recent years :/
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October 23rd, 2009
09:03 pm - Augh
Stress week. Is it just me or are all weeks that lead up to vacations doubly stressful? So much to do, and really I couldn't trust half of it to coworkers because (1) they weren't in the loop on the situation and (2) they had their own workloads to clear out.
The good news is that I pretty much did it all. So yay me!
Also, Jeanne headed off to Vegas a bit ahead of the rest of us because hey her best friend is getting married and that's a thing you do. But that means she left little Rohan with Mom and Pop for the past couple of days and that's a lot of stress to be putting onto Mom. Pop isn't really in much condition to help Mom handle an 18-month old, so she's mostly struggling through with him alone.
I headed over yesterday and today after work and spent the last 3 hours of his day with him to help spell Mom a little bit. Yesterday it worked out well, but today he woke from his nap early and was really clingy and nobody but Mom was satisfactory. I tried to distract him, but ended up only teaching him another silly game. Yesterday he rushed around a corner and fell and I said "Did you just fall?" and from that point on he was intentionally falling every five minutes, and then he'd lay there bonking his head against the floor. Today I blocked him in a corner and starting spinning and he started doing the same thing, and later he kept going to that corner and spinning more. Yesterday I worried that I'd encouraged something that would end up giving him a big goose-egg on his head, and today I worried that he'd get so dizzy he'd end up faceplanting into the kitchen table. Jeanne will be so pleased that I've taught him these skills.
Tonight I need to get my head straight about what I'm taking and what I'm leaving. The packing can wait until tomorrow AM, but I need to get the lists written down now.
Vacations shouldn't be stressful, should they?
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October 14th, 2009
11:59 am
Bit late but here we go...
Saturday: Rock Band session, part two. Mike and Chris came over around 10 and we set up pretty quickly. Mike brought the receiver part this time, so his guitar worked fine (better really than mine did). We all rotated through the main positions -- lead, bass, and drums. Nobody wants to do the singing role, and it's probably safer that way anyway. Around noon we took a break and ate some JimmyJohn's sandwiches, and then gave it another couple of hours before breaking it all up again.
I'm starting to come to the conclusion that playing drums is more fun than the guitar. Something about laying down the beat to the music is just that much more satisfying. That having been said, my shoulders were tight as hell afterward and I ended up napping a solid 2 hours before I felt awake enough to finish out the day.
Sunday I headed over to the parent's place, where Aunt Connie, my sister Jeanne and her baby Rohan are all visiting. We packed up from there and headed to the yearly Sausage Supper at the church. I got put on Rohan-minder duty for a fair chunk of it and he was really active. He's not only learned to walk since I last saw him, he practically runs! He spent a bit of the time just watching people playing at different booths and another bit of it tipping over parking cones. The rest of the time spent seemed to consist of him employing various tricks to not eat the food Jeanne tried to spoon into his mouth. On the whole, he was successful.
After those events, we headed home and then Pop and I ran out and bought a Wii and a Wii Fit Plus to go with it. The hope here is that Pop and Mom might use it for basic exercises and also for some gameplay. The setup was pretty simple, but it was hard to calibrate the Wii Fit correctly. Plus it said I was 173 lbs, which is just a little high (or at least in my mind it is).
Monday and Tuesday at work have been ball-breakers. Lots and lots to do and not so much time to do it. For some reason my energy levels are really low, which isn't helping. Add the dull overcast weather and chill winds and overall I'm about ready to climb into bed and hibernate until next April.
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October 6th, 2009
02:36 pm
The weekend went pretty well overall, though I STILL didn't mow the backyard. Instead I caught up on more recorded shows and watched a series of movies. Guess it was a football theme on TBS because they showed The Longest Yard, The Replacements, and Rudy in quick succession. I actually laughed out loud at the cheerleader scene in The Replacements where they caused the opposing team to get a penalty. I'd forgotten how funny that was.
Also I saw The Man Who Knew Too Little, which was Bill Murray doing his typical goofy guy. Not too bad.
I checked the deals on Direct-2-Drive again on Saturday and grabbed Saints Row 2 and Defense Grid. Then yesterday I snapped up Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War - Dark Crusade and Company of Heroes Gold. Of those four games, I've already played and finished 3 of them, but at $5 each, I figure it's well worth it. Plus they're digital downloads, so if I ever want them again I can just re-download and register them and I'll be golden. On the downside though, Saints Row 2 crashed after about 2 hours of gameplay, which it never did when I played it on the PS3. Hope that's not a sign of things to come.
Oh, and when I went to mow my lawn yesterday, and I swear I really meant to mow it, I noticed that I was pretty much out of gas in the tank. My spare gas tank is still about 1/5 full of gas from 3 years ago, so I couldn't really use that, so bah. Until I get some fresh gas into that tank, I guess the lawn will wait. Also, I want to make sure I don't load too much gas in there because heck the mowing season only has 2-3 mows left in it I'm thinking.
Had a weird dream last night, though I can't remember much of it anymore. I just remember the very last bit, where I was in a plane with a dozen or so paratrooper babies. Seriously. Babies in paratrooper gear. One of them had a red shirt on and when I looked closer at him, he was a very large shark. Told you it was weird.
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October 1st, 2009
08:23 am
Well, October is here. This means:
Cooler weather
More rain (probably)
Fewer lawn mowings needed
Confusion over whether to turn the house AC or heating on
Same for the car
Standard leaf-changing events
Depressing leaf-dropping events
Annoying leaf-raking events
It's already been several weeks since I woke with daylight outside the window, so now I just close the blinds at night. That way I can pretend there's sunlight outside when I wake, even though I know there isn't.
I'm "on the bench" at work, which means I don't have any late-shift schedules at all for the entire month. So no, staying late but also no sleeping in in the morning. Oh well, at least it will keep my vacation trip simple.
Direct-2-Drive has been running a special where it's offered several games for $5 each. Most of them are nothing I'd want to play, but I did grab a few of them to try. The past week or so I spent playing Beyond Good and Evil and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. It was cartoony, but once you accept that factor, the gameplay was decent and it moved right along. It reminded me in many ways of the Ratchet and Clank games, only with fewer jumping puzzles. I finished it off last night and was very satisfied.
When I got my haircut yesterday, the stylist/barber/whatever asked about my conditioner. I told her that I just use those 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner things and she tsk'd at me. Said I should use a conditioner because my scalp is getting dry and the combined stuff doesn't leave the conditioner in long enough. "It washes out when you rinse out the shampoo." Well, yeah. But I take the point, maybe I need to look into something that helps keep the scalp from drying out. Beats me.
That reminds me that I need to schedule a doctor appointment for some time this month. Get an annual physical and gripe about stupid things my body has decided to fuss over.
So sleepy. How the heck am I going to get through this work day?
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September 28th, 2009
12:31 pm - In which a liberal amount of ROCK is added to the mix
Woke very early on Saturday, which has been happening more and more lately. Anyway, I puttered around on the PC for a few hours and then went back to sleep until 9:30. Got back up and puttered some more before heading off to see Surrogates with Mike and Chris.
Verdict: Not bad. It was a short movie with only a few sidetracks, so it was easy to stay with it. It'll convert over very well to prime-time viewing on TV.
Afterward we grabbed lunch at the Tilted Kilt, which is apparently a new place in the area. Not too bad, though the service was slow. I had a Shepherd's Pie and it was too much for me to finish. Chris got some kind of burger that just about looked bigger than his head. Mike got the French Scottish Dip, and he was the only one of us who actually managed to finish his plate. Yeeps.
THEN we went back to my place and rocked out, or rather made a clumsy attempt at rocking out on Rock Band 2. Only had the drums and guitar (Mike's spare guitar was missing the IR transmitter), so we took turns switching instruments round-robin style and generally heckling each other. Mister Peterson came out to watch the proceedings and tentatively accept petting, which was good. I think if this were a regular event he'd be even less tentative, though I doubt Blur would ever bother.
When all the rock had been removed from our collective rock-out pool, I showed them a quick bit of Halo 3: ODST, which I think failed to impress any of us. No biggie. And then they packed up and headed home, just in time for my energy levels to tank and force me to slump my way into a sweet bit of napping.
Oh, yeah, and it rained. A lot. So no lawnmowing Saturday or Sunday! If the weather stays clear today, I'll try to get out and do the front.
Did I mention that it's CRAZY COLD today? Cuz yeah, it is. When I drove in to work this morning it was around 48F/9C. It's sitting around 66F/19C now, but it looks like another chilly night is in store tonight. Amazing, I may need to actually turn the heating on in the house!
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September 24th, 2009
06:13 pm - Me am play gods
Dresden Codak page doesn't get updated often, but when it does it is almost always a gem. Is it even possible to not love Caveman Science Fiction?
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04:19 pm - Why the late shift is awesome
Sleep. That's why.
I still end up getting up at 5:45AM or so and feeding the cats, but after that I go right back to sleep. On late-shift days, the goal is to not get back up until some time between 8:30 and 9. Today I mostly succeeded with flying colors or bells on or whatever idiom best suits.
Oddly enough though, I had several very vivid dreams in rapid succession. The one I remember best is that I was traveling on foot to Pittsburgh and was passing through a very white, snowy plain. At the edge of it was a sprawl of neighborhood houses and from a distance I could see a small group of polar bears, one large and two or three small ones running parallel to the backyards. A couple of hundred feet behind them was a pack of white wolves, not hunting the bears but just kind of following them. Two of the wolves, one large one and a small cub, broke off from their pack and came running up to me. I should have been scared, but for some reason I wasn't. And then I realized that the large wolf was one I had helped raise in the past. It was really happy to see me, but then I notices that it had 5 or 6 rubberbands tied tightly all over its muzzle and head. I pulled off one of the ones on its muzzle that looked really painful, but the wolf didn't complain. And that's about when I woke up.
I have no idea what it all means. So I go to the experts of the intartubes! Or at least one of them.
To dream that you are walking with ease, signifies a slow, but steady progress toward your goals. You are moving through life in a confident manner. Consider your destination.
To see a polar bear in your dream, signifies a reawakening.
To dream that you are in an unknown neighborhood, signifies aspects of your unconscious.
To see the plains in your dream, represents wholesomeness. and something that is homegrown. Alternatively, it signifies that you have a clear and smooth path ahead. The dream may also be a metaphor for someone who is plain.
To see a white wolf in your dream, then it signifies valor and victory. You have the ability to see the light even in your darkest hours.
To see or use a rubber band in your dream, suggests that you need to be more accommodating to others. You may need to expand your attitude, imagination and way of thinking.
So all in all it sounds like it was a pretty positive dream, symbol-wise. Except for the part about being plain, but hey I knew that already. And if a big wolf wants me to be more accomodating, he should just come right out and say so instead of try to sneak one past me in a dream. What the heck was I doing going to Pittsburgh anyway?
Current Mood:  Scholastic
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September 23rd, 2009
01:43 pm
Seems like the transition into Fall is an easy one this year. Summer was so startlingly calm and pleasant in this area that it almost felt like we were cheating. Sure we had a few sweltering days, but not too many and not too dry, and on some the humidity got so low I thought I'd woken up in a different state. So Fall is here anyway, which is good and bad. Good because now the weather will cool down just a bit more for a while before the miserableness of Winter arrives. Bad because the days are already so much shorter and the time of allergies has arrived.
On the way home last night I stopped off at the local Best Buy and picked up Halo 3: ODST. Hardly got more than an hour of gameplay in before the mild throbbing I'd been carrying in my head with me all day flared up into a genuine, leaking-tear duct migraine on the right side of my head. So that was it for that game. Happily, a good night of sleep seems to have remedied the pain so ODST will ride again tonight I guess.
Grabbed lunch from St. Raymonds today, and I swear I am crashing hard now. Just want to find a nice dark room and nap for a few hours. Augh!
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September 21st, 2009
05:58 am - Things I can't find but which I know are around here somewhere:
1: Mister Peterson's collar. Not that he ever wears it, but I hate when I lose track of it.
2: The Domino's ad with the one code on it for the special I always order.
3: My doggone camera, and/or the sock that my camera is in.
4: Scotch tape.
5: My exacto knife (probably hiding somewhere near the scotch tape).
I'm sure there's more, but that's all that comes to mind this bleary Monday morning.
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