Time for an Update

01.29.2010

I've been quiet online for the past week and a half. Yes, I'm still alive - life is just keeping me busy.

My first Accounting II test is next week, and I'm not sure how prepared I'm going to end up. The chapter covers short term liabilities, payroll, and long term liabilities. It sounds simple enough, but the examples don't seem consistent to me. The cut-off point from short-term to long-term seems to jump around. On top of that, I have a different teacher from the previous class and I'm not sure how 33 multiple choice questions will work on an accounting test.

My big boy TV in the living room died last Sunday. There was a bad storm in the wee hours of Sunday morning, so although the TV was plugged into a surge protector, some bad mojo might have sneaked through. It was only 5 years old, but I had already had a handful of problems with it in those 5 years. I'm hoping to take advantage of some Super Bowl Big TV sales in the upcoming week.

Monday I head to Nashville with my close personal 1st tier friend Evil Mathias to attend Raw, live! It's been a few years since I went to a wrestling show. Matt picked us up some tickets that are supposed to be by the entrance ramp. Although there's great potential for being up close when the guys go to the ring, I keep thinking about the loud and fiery pyro we're going to be close to. Maybe I'll just hang out at with Jason and the lighting/sound guys?

Somehow I've picked up some little web projects to work on between work and various people I know. I've been playing around with WordPress which I've avoided for years. Pretty soon I'll have to go ahead and start looking into Joomla so I can check it off my list!

My homemade video game development had a forward spurt that's stalled out over the past week or so. Mainly I need to purchase a library that better manipulates the camera and allows interaction between the player and objects on the map. I need to purchase it because I sure don't want to write it - that stuff looks complicated.

So, to summarize:

• Still alive.
• Busy.

That's all until I'm less busy, or less alive?

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[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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