[Censored]

01.19.2010

This makes me laugh way too much.

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Busy Busy Busy

01.09.2010

Lots going on in the upcoming week. Part of the busy-ness of the week will undoubtedly be due to me missing a couple of days of work due to belatedly catching my Christmas Cold. I'm down to irritating sniffles now, so the pressure is finally gone from behind my eyes.

Sunday is Gina's birthday - Happy (early or late, depending on if you ever read this) Birthday! Hopefully it will be a fun birthday for her, as I'm promising not to pick on her or point out her advanced years. I was the one that was given the senior's discount at Capt D's last year, after all. She and I still need to go finish up getting her belated christmas present, too. Luckily I've already gotten her a birthday trinket and a card!

Class starts back Monday and I'm enrolled to take Accounting II online. I've got access to the Calhoun student website and nothing is showing up as yet, so I'm hoping they're just waiting until Monday and that there's not something wrong with my registration that will force me to go scurry about the campus trying to fix.

Tuesday the open beta keys for Star Trek Online are to be sent out. I've been waiting for around 3 years, so to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. I pre-ordered the game at Amazon just to get a beta key, and I have no idea how any of this works. I'm still excited. On the verge of giddy, actually.

If I don't come up for air for a little while, the above is why. Most of it will be because of the Star Trek I'm betting.

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1/14 Update
Instead of committing a whole new entry, I'll just sort of continue the one above.

After a day and a half spent downloading the Star Trek game from various site to take part in the beta test, I found out after about 10 minutes of play time that I don't like it. It's not due to the still-in-development problems, I was expecting that. It just doesn't feel like Star Trek. Running around through the tutorial section, it's just a vaguely sci-fi game with a lot of other people playing. There's something about the play environment that's not right. I gave it a couple of hours of play time, but I never felt any better about it. So with that, I went and canceled my Amazon order (thus saving me $75 of collectors edition goodness) and will go back to World of Warcraft. I may try out Eve Online later since I have no preconceptions about it.

My Accounting class that I signed up for because it had the same teacher as the previous class (thus I would know what to expect) now has a different teacher - some guy from UAH. The class is already different in that the class grade will come from 4 tests, period. I'm giving him until the weekend to see if he posts any more information about the class outside of the syllabus that lists a timeline for chapters, suggested homework, and dates for those 4 tests. If, unlike the previous class, he doesn't provide answers to the homework to a little more detail about what will be on the tests (for example, the previous teacher didn't include vocabulary/definitions on the tests, just problems) I'll be seriously thinking about dropping this one. I'm old and curmudgeonly now think that if I'm paying for a class I should be given the proper tools to learn. I can fight away on my own and hack at problems for free if I want to do it the hard way.

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63

01.05.2010

Today would have been Mom's 63rd birthday.

Last year I wrote Mom a note and sent it up with a balloon. I liked the feeling of that, so I had planned another balloon for this year. I stopped by Party City once again and got another balloon. When I got home, I thought about writing a note but didn't. Then I went outside and let the balloon go.

As the balloon went up, East this year instead of West, I talked to Mom a little. I still miss her, I just don't feel it as much - that emptiness that she's not here. Since my last dream with Mom it seems I've reached that stage, whatever it may be called, to where the pain of her being gone doesn't creep up and catch me off guard. Originally I thought I would have been at that point a year ago, and now that I'm at that point it strikes me as a little odd. Not odd in a bad way, just me being overly analytical.

I mentioned to Gina over the weekend that we're about due a weekend getaway trip to Nashville since we hadn't been in a while. In fact, I don't remember us being since Mom died. Gina told me she hadn't wanted to mention going because she was afraid that it would stir up some bad memories. While I appreciate and understand that, I don't have any bad memories of Mom. I'm sure there are some lurking around, but I remember the good times and the happy times. Those are the kinds of stories I still tell about her.

Over Christmas I ventured to Florence to visit grandparents and got a small stack of old pictures. Some of Mom, some of me (I used to be a lot smaller evidently). Below is a pic from Christmas 1986. I'm not sure what Mom is telling MawMaw, but I don't think she's going to give in.

In case you're curious, the box in the lower left hand corner of the pop-up is The Gilligan's Island Game, which I mainly remember for the slot a - slot b board that you got to put together that made running through the island so much fun.

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More Resolves

01.01.2010

Last week Jerry and I got together and reviewed our lists of what we wanted to accomplish in 2010. It made me think about my 2009 list so I thought I would revisit it and see how goal oriented I was over the year.

Paint the room formerly full of junk
Thanks to handyman Mike and my checkbook, this was a no brainer!

Clean out the garage/Use the storage building
Although the junk in the garage seems to be cyclic, I did manage to clen it out enough I can once again park in the garage, while there's an ample amount of junk in the storage building.

Continue learning to use the Torque Game Engine (now in week 3!) and get the first version of my game together.
Over the past year a new, mostly revamped version of Torque has come out and I didn't make much progress. I'm going to have to say I didn't measure up on this one.

Make a flight simulator cockpit
My desire for this one was wanned, although I still think it would be cool. I spent the year collecting parts off and on. Still, I've got no cockpit to show for it at year's end.

Go to Jamaica. Hopefully come back, too.
I did BOTH of those!

So now we're at 2010. What do I want to put down to hold myself accountable for in 12 months?

• It's time to seriously lose some weight. I've oscillated within 20lbs over the past year, and I know I can lose weight if I just put my mind to it since I lost over 50lbs a few years back. I've been investigating different surgeries, but I still want to try to do it myself, damn it! This morning I weighed 395.8lbs. I'm going to see if I can make that "3" a "2" by next January.
• Ride the bike 60 miles. Melanie had talked about a 100KM bike ride in September. I'm going to do that.
• Finish my will. I should really wrap this one up in the next couple of days. At least I started it!
• Finish 2 more classes at school. I got an A in my accounting class. I'm registered for the next accounting class. To be honest, I don't want to take these classes, but career-wise it's a good move. I'd much rather be playing WoW.
• Replace kitchen counter top. This will be another Mike call, and it's the last of the home improvements that I know I want to do. There's 2 or 3 more, but they may be cost prohibitive.
• Remember that torque game? Get the 1st version done - you can walk around and interact with... something! Click on a door and if you have a key you can unlock it and it opens.

There's more that I want to do that I'm not putting up here. I've got to have some secrets. And things I can balk on.

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New Favorite Christmas Memory

12.31.2009

A couple of weeks ago when going over what everybody was wanting for Christmas, I told Gina to get Jacob a $10 LEGO. Jacob just had his 21st birthday, so of course I think he should have a toy. "Why don't you get it for him?" she asked me. "It's got to be from his Mom." "Well which LEGO?" should would ask. "It doesn't matter, just an inexpensive one." "Is this from me or Santa?" she asked when wrapping it. "It's a toy from his Mom, and you have to do this from now on."

One Christmas I especially remember was the year I stopped getting toys. It sucked. I got clothes, shoes, cologne, but nothing to play with. I excitedly lost sleep Christmas Eve wondering what cool toys I would get. Nada. Not long after I got my house (10 years ago?), Mom asked what I wanted for Christmas. I was off on my own and surely she expected some domestic want of mine, but I told her "I want a toy." She asked "What kind of toy?" to which I told her "It doesn't matter, as long as it comes from the toy department of some store." That year she got me a 12" Stone Cold Steve Austin in hunting garb which I had never seen and didn't know existed, and that made it even cooler that Mom had managed to not just get me a toy, but got me one that I wanted and didn't even know it.

Debbie, my current Evil Stepmother, gets me wrestling figures every Christmas. She worries about which to get in case she gets one I already have. I tell her it doesn't matter but she still worries. It's not the actual toy that counts, it's the inner child in me that enjoys just getting a toy. I know it comes across as silly, but there's a big chunk of me that will never grow up and this is my way of sharing it with people.

Christmas night came at Gina's and everybody started to get their presents. Everybody took their turn opening gifts and Jacob was up. Being 21 he's suddenly turned domestic and wanted housewares. He was opening pots, pans, cookie sheets, house shoes, clothes. He got to a small box and as he ripped the bottom of the paper off the box rattled. He froze, tilted his head, and suddenly said "It's a LEGO" from recognizing the sound. He ripped off the rest of the wrapping and saw that it was indeed a LEGO (the details of what type escape me) and we all laughed that he knew what it was from the sound, and he got a kick out of getting LEGOs like he did when he was little.

And I hope he gets that feeling for the next 50 years.

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