Packing with Nerd Shields

05.07.2009

My "free" time is almost over. Tomorrow I get up and go to Kentucky for Mom's burial/memorial service. Saturday morning I get up and fly to my Jamaican vacation. I've gotten everything I needed to get done beforehand finished, all that's left is to pack. Packing shouldn't take more than 30 minutes - grab clothes, shove in suitcase, fini.

I'm taking my laptop with me, more as a charger for iPods and transferring pictures off the camera than anything else. I've been trying to figuire out if there's anything special I want to put on the iPod since the laptop doesn't have iTunes (or any music) loaded. I've got my standard, work-related background music. there's some Stephen Lynch and Lewis Black on there to amuse me.

I started to browse the iTunes store audiobooks, thinking there might be something entertaining for the plane flights that would catch my eye. With the new Trek movie coming out tomorrow, they were iTunes was hyping their Trek audiobooks. I started to think that something along those lines would be good to take, then I had a sudden flash. Years ago when I was working at Corr Wireless and had to travel to Oneonta (90 minutes) more than was reasonable, I picked up a handful of Trek audiobooks. I think there were some that I never got around to listening to (having gotten a better job after 3 months at Corr).

I went to one of my Star Trek shelves and found the audiobook section (sounds impressive, huh?). Out jumped "The Genesis Wave" by John Vornholt. This was a 3 book series that was released on audio, and the 3rd book was still shrink-wrapped. Each book is 3 hours of Tim Russ. That's a lot of Tim Russ. Now I'm copying 9 hours of Tim Russ to my iPod.

Nerd shields to maximum!

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So Long & Thanks For The Fish

05.04.2009

This will likely be my last post until mid-May, hence the Douglas Adams inspired title!

This week I have a lot to do. Loads to do. So much to do that I'm taking a couple of days off from work in hopes that I'll actually get everything done. For the things to be done to make sense, I have to work backwards from my schedule. Saturday at 7:50AM Gina and I leave for a week in Jamaica. I'm supposed to be excited, but I'm not yet. I'm sure it'll hit later in the week, but now I've got to much to do. While we're in Jamaica, Handy Man Mike will be painting and putting laminate flooring in 2 of my bedrooms, which leads my to chore #1 - I have to completely clean out the bedrooms. Drawers, closets, crap. Everything but the bed, because it's too blasted heavy/bulky for me to move. I did it once and said I'd never do it again.

Chore #2 is a side effect of Chore #1, in that I'm setting up a makeshift closet in my dining area (with a big open space thanks to Westar Joe taking the table I've been borrowing from Gina for 9 years). This way I can still get to clothes to dress myself for the week along with pack for the Jamaica trip.

Chore #2.5 is to figure out what to do with all the crap I unearth from closets as I clean them out. I'm almost scared of what I'll find.

Friday is a trip to Kentucky for Mom's burial/memorial service. This isn't so much a chore (although getting everybody to Kentucky and back might be), but it'll take all day Friday, so I can't put anything off to do after Thursday. I have to make sure I'm packed and ready to fly out Thursday.

There are also the little things to remember to do before I leave. Stop mail delivery. Make sure all my bills are mailed. Turn the thermostat to a respectable temperature (even though people will be in and out with pain and flooring). Is there anything I don't need to leave out laying around? Go to the doctor and get my flying anxiety medicine. Is all the stinky garbage out of the house?

Oh, and what to pack? Get some spending/tipping money. Passport! What book(s) do I take? Sunglasses, sunscreen, those little wipes I use on my glasses. Sinus drugs.

So I have a busy week. Then I have a week of relaxing in a hammock (I hope). After that, I have no idea what to really expect.

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WoWing Again

04.26.2009

About 2 months ago I got sucked back into the World of Warcraft after a 6 month(ish) break. My original character had reached level 51 after 3 months of intermittent playing, but I had gotten stuck leveling and was kind of in a rut, so I thought it was time to take a break. The new expansion came out in November, so everyone I knew that had been playing was once again pushing me to play. After putting it off, I finally gave in.

My problem with playing with friends is that none of them play on the same server. I know 4 people that play regularly, and they're all on different servers. The problem with starting out on a server that your friends are playing on is that even though they offer to help you, you're starting out on the low-level quests that are relatively boring for the experienced characters. I made a new character on each of my friends' server and played a little, usually getting to a level in the low-teens before giving up - I just wasn't having much fun playing.

3 weeks ago I went online and purchased a leveling guide that had gotten good reviews. Since coming back I had been playing Horde, which I had not played 6 months prior. Now I think I was ready to go back to playing for the Alliance. Although I had run through these quests last year, it had been long enough that I didn't remember the details so soon as to make it all boring. Plus the leveling guide had me running quests in a speedy order. After the first weekend I has reached level 12 (for me, that's incredible!). I was having fun playing, soloing most of my quests and not dying too often. Jason from work has a level 80 Death Knight on this server, so he would pop in and help run me through a dungeon to pick up some loot when he was between super-duper quests.

I tried picking up my level 51 guy and playing him, but I'm so lost in what quests I'm supposed to be running, along with forgetting what abilities he actually has. Maybe once my other guy gets leveled up I can play both of them since they're the same character class.
Stats at WoWArmory.com

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I Heart New Keys (or is it Newks)?

04.15.2009

Thanks to lunch with Ponytail Jason a few months back I discovered that Newks Express Cafe is not a restaurant that specializes in microwaved food, but the home of my new favorite salad (being The ULTIMATE Salad!). On top of that, most of the old gang that I had noticed that had disappeared from McAlisters had ended up at Newks. I felt like the cat that had been abandoned and then found it's way cross-country to get back home!

Thanks to the timing of extra goings on at work, personally, and whatever else might count, I found myself eating at Newks more often since I wasn't buying groceries as much (maybe I was just lazy?). During a work week most people visit an eatery once, maybe twice if the food is good and/or quick. People tend to tire of eating at the same place (although getting a burger some place different every day is fine - I've done that plenty of times). While being too lazy to get groceries, I found myself at Newks 3 or 4 times in a week. And I wasn't sampling the full menu - I was sticking to the aforementioned ULTIMATE salad. It's a damn good salad.

Between eating there so often, along with my history of eating often at McAlisters, I soon found myself cutting up with Adam, Nate, Milner, and the rest of the gang that had transferred over. I like to think I wasn't too annoying, but I know myself too well. Fortunately, they're able to take it in stride. On top of that, they even take care of me. Cases in point:

• My standard order is an ULTIMATE salad with no #@%damn tomatoes. Half the time I don't even have to say anything when ordering, I just walk up and hand whichever cashier of the day that knows me too well some money and my food shows up.
• Sometimes my ULTIMATE salad has #@%damn tomatoes on it. I demand that whoever is responsible be terminated immediately. Although nobody's been fired yet, everybody comes by and gives me a hard time for having #@%damn tomatoes.
• I like the Coke Zero. I told them (which is everyone that works there) I like the Coke Zero. I went to lunch on Tuesday and found that the fountain drinks now dispense Coke Zero.

Now I'm going to have to go eat more often to justify them carrying Coke Zero.

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Amazonian Bucks

04.01.2009

Back in October-ish I got an Amazon sponsored Visa card. I charge oodles of everyday purchases and limit my check writing to paying off the credit card at the end of the month, mostly because I refuse to balance my check book and this limits the number of entries. When I signed up for the card I read the blurb about how you get points (to trade in for crap later). I had been using a generic-point card from some other bank for years, so I understood the basic concept.

The Amazon sponsored card had a better point scheme than my other card. The previous card had a straight 1 point per dollar spent benefit. The Amazon card was the same, except you got double points for groceries and triple points for anything bought at Amazon. On top of that, they doubled all the points for the first 3 months.

I buy from Amazon every week. For 3 months I was getting 6X the point value. Even better (for me), was the main reward bonus to trade points in for were Amazon Gift Cards. The previous credit card reward system would let me get a $25 Amazon Gift Card for 3000 points. The Amazon sponsored card has a $25 Amazon Gift Card for 2500 points. In essence, I charge $500 less to get the same bonus. I'm all about that!

Time marches on and I accrue points. It's reaching a slow time in the Amazon shopping season, so I decide to cash in some points. Heck, I decide to cash in as many as I can. I've accrued tons of points. I go to cash in on some Amazon Gift Cards, and there I notice a funny thing. The gift cards are only available for $25. No other denomination. You can buy any quantity, but each card is only $25. I load up my cart with $25 gift cards. 4 days later, my mail contains a large, stuffed envelope. My cards! Gift cards may be a misnomer, because technically these are gift certificates with a 14 character code to type in. I've got 18 of them.

I enter all the codes in my Amazon account and see the total available credit tick higher. It was almost a fun little game. 14 characters, $25, ding!

Every time I get some Amazon credit, I usually go a little crazy and/or find some sale that I can't pass up to where the credit never lasts as long as I hope. I'm shooting for not spending any of my money in April and just using credit. We'll see how that works out.

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