After 20 years I should get over it.

01.23.2013

I've been in a nit-picky mood over the last couple of days. I can chalk in up to hormones, I know this is cyclic in nature. My nit-pickyness tends to bring out my inner asshole, so I try my best to just avoid people for the week or so this lasts. I don't feel like I've been doing a good job, though. I just have this feeling that I'm irritating people. I don't really care right now, but next week it will bother me.

My nit-picking mind set threw me back in time last night. I was laying in bed waiting to fall asleep and my mind wandered back 20 years. This time in 1993 I was enrolled in Calhoun Community College making one last attempt at getting through school after dropping out at least twice (maybe three times). When I started at CCC I transferred no credits and started over from scratch. I had roughly a years worth of credits from my previous collegiate attempts, but a fresh start was something I needed more than that year of credit.

This time 20 years ago I was in my 2nd quarter of school. My first quarter I had pulled in 4 A's and was proud of myself - it seems starting over might actually work. My bain of this quarter was English 102, not so much for the content (all anyone ever talked about concerning this class was the emphasis on a research paper we had to write) but due to the teacher. There's a certain aura around community colleges - basically it's 13th and 14th grades, just an extension of high school. My EH102 teacher was determined this was to be a high level college course.

I was fine with the class content, what was expected of us, what we had to do from day to day. Being the old man in the class (after all I was roughly 10 years older than everybody else in this class) I didn't wait until the last minute to do anything. The big research paper we had to write was to be an argumentative (pick a side) paper on any subject we chose. I picked my topic - The Need For Increased Computer Security, since at the time there people were just learning about hackers and their ilk - and of the 10 weeks of class I speant at least 7 weeks working on my paper by collecting and documenting research, writing, and re-writing. Whatever book of rules we were supposed to follow (some details I can forget after 20 years!) I was as sure as I could be I was following those rules.

On the day we were to turn in our papers we also had a test. I remember turning in my paper and being fairly confident I was going to get an A. A's were not easy to get in this class, I do remember that much. When I glanced up from my test and saw the teacher with the turned in papers I knew I might be in a little trouble. He had a ruler and was measuring margins.

Although I had set my printer up for the right size margins, 20 years ago we used tractor-fed printers (the kind of paper with strips of perferated holes on each side). I was pretty sure I hadn't lined up my paper-feed properly. Crap.

The next week I got my paper back. 89. Not an A. What all had I done wrong? I looked through for red marks on my paper. There was 1 for incorrect margins (damn you tractor feed!). I also had a mark where I referred to "University of X" and "X University". Lastly I had a red mark for a comma I didn't need.

3 red marks. 11 points off. I found out later I had the highest grade in the class on the turned in research papers. At the time it didn't help. 20 years later I'm still a bit miffed.

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Cold. Car. Compressor.

01.15.2013

The first cold of 2012 is mostly over - I've still got a couple more days of antibiotics to take, but I'm about as well as I'm going to get (nagging cough notwithstanding). The antibiotic knocks me out about an hour after I take it. It's a once-a-day antibiotic, so I'm assuming my nap an hour after taking it is a side effect.

I tried to go to work today but didn't make it. Oddly enough it had nothing do to with being sick (or recovering). Last week I was running errands and the car made a funny noise between the Athens Lowe's and Staples. These are across the highway from each other, and it was a chilly day so I was trying to chalk it up to the car not warming up enough before turning it off. The sound was that of a fan rattling. I'm not sure what switches I was hitting, but by the time I made it to Gina's house to ask her opinion everything was sounding back to normal - hence the "maybe the car hadn't warmed up enough" diagnosis.

This morning as I made my way to work that sound popped up again as I turned on the defogger/defroster. I generate enough heat on a cold day that I fog up the windows. I heard a rattling fan and figured it had something to do with that defogger button, since the sound went away when I turned the defogger off. The only problem here was that the window was fogging up so bad I couldn't see out. I made it as far as Publix (roughly 4 miles) before I turned around and made it back home, taking only twice as long as normal. Every time I would wipe the inside of the windshield, I would work up enough heat to fog it up all over again.

Once the morning traffic dies down, I went back out and tried holding my breath as I headed toward the Athens mechanic. The windows were cracked, it's 38° outside, and I'm worried about my body heat fogging up the windows. The windows didn't get too bad by the time I got to the garage. The mechanic gave me a quick diagnosis - compressor. I figured it would be something expensive. He then spent the next hour calling around and getting parts which won't all get delivered until tomorrow. So I held my breath and headed home again.

Tomorrow I'll drop the car off to get it fixed. I don't know when Ford decided to make the compressor and important part of the defogger running. I always thought it was just a fan that blew non-compressed air. Now I know better.

I bought the car on Halloween 2009. 3¼ years I've now had:

• Flat Tire
• Broken Compressor

Usually after the 3rd problem I start looking for another car. I hope that 3rd problem can wait another 2 years.

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The first cold of 2013!

01.10.2013

I had a little cough Monday night. Tuesday I stayed home and Sudafed-ed up. Wednesday I was still coughing. Thursday I went to the doctor. I have a cold.

I wasn't worried about having the flu - well, not a lot. When I catch the flu I run a fever and have body aches. Both of these were missing. I was feeling congested enough that I knew if I didn't go to the doctor now I would just suffer all weekend and end up going Monday. Hence, try to cut out some suffering and go today.

I've mentioned before how my doctor works out of a walk-in clinic, no appointment possible. I've been going to him for close to 20 years. The only drawback to the lack of an appointment is all the waiting. I got to his office at 2:00. There were 4 people in the waiting room ahead of me. I know from experience it takes roughly 20 minutes/person before you go in the back to get your vitals taken. At 3:30 I went back. At 4:30 I was on my way to Publix to get some prescription strength cough syrup, an antibiotic, and I had gotten my first ever cortisone shot in the office.

It's now 7:00PM. I've had my shot, taken an antibiotic, and downed a few swigs of cough syrup. I'm sweating and running a 99° temp (and for me 97° is normal). I know this is good because my head doesn't feel like it's going to explode.

Now I'm going to pick out either a movie or some Star Trek episode and go wall asleep while they're playing. As such, whatever I pick to watch will be something I don't have to actually pay attention to.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Gina. I've got to figure out the proper way to celebrate, because this ain't it.

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Errand Day

01.04.2013

Today is my catch-up day. Odd that I would need a day to catch up on things after my little holiday vacation. Part of catching up is doing the things I didn't get done during said vacation.

Part of that started yesterday when I got home. I have been meaning to go out to the storage building and dig out a couple of boardgames (mainly Scene It) that I knew were out there. By the time I was through digging, I had 3 armloads of games. That's just crazy! I seem to hide these things everywhere.

Today I have a couple of errands to run in the greater Athens/Madison metropolitan area which should take no more (hopefully) than an hour and a half. Then I'm back home for... home errands? Chores?

The big thing I want to finish today is the latest revamp of the Zombie Mall rules. The big change has been switching "health" to "bandages" as it makes more sense with how it's used. That's entailed not just changing the name, but making a new graphic and changing the context in which it's used in the rules. I made changes to the Loot Cards but still need to go through the rules and update them - that's my big project for the day.

The backs of the Loot Cards have changed, too. Above, the original back is to the left. I really like those outstretched arms, but the original art is a littler better known than I thought. So I dug out Poser, found a zombie skin texture, turned the green hue up way too high and made my own version (as seen on the right). The background of the card is now color coded to match the type of counter it goes with now that I have Loot and Objective Tokens/Cards.

I ordered a small sample of replacement cards from Printer Studio. They're a little bit cheaper than ArtsCow (where I made the original deck) but I'm not sure about the size of the graphics for the card properly fitting - their layout tool didn't seem show any change when I changed the image size. So I'm spending $7 to print a sample deck with a variety of sizes to see if there really is any difference.

So that's my day. I wonder if it will go anything like I plan?

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2012 Wrap Up Show

12.31.2012

It used to be that the week between Christmas and New Years would be full of retrospectives and countdowns on tv and radio. That doesn't seem to be the case any more, or maybe I don't watch enough tv nor listen to enough radio. While sitting with Jerry last night, I decided to have my own review of 2012, not to rank the happenings but more to get an overall feel for how the year went.

This was the year of surgery. Me with my pilonidal cyst, Jer with his collarbone. Expanding that, Jim had a kidney stone and Dad was in the hospital with some prostate problems.

This was the year of not working a lot. Thanks to my post-op infection, I ended up missing roughly a month of work due to my surgery - a point I was sure to thank Jim about during my annual review at work. Although I had plenty of sick leave and vacation banked, it's nice to be able to use it without any problems from my boss. I may not care much for my day-to-day job, but I wouldn't go anywhere else to work (unless Jim gets rid of me, but we've talked about that scenario so I'm good).

It was the year Gina took care of me. Even after my surgery Gina had a couple of months of looking at my butt twice a day since I couldn't reach the right areas to change out gauze. The hardest thing for me to do is admit when I can't take care of myself, and this was one of those times. A loooong one of those times. I really don't know what I would have done without her - helps me realize how much I love that woman.

It was the year we played games. Even with mine and Jerry's overlapping surgical issues, we still got together with Keith and Joe and played more games that we have in the previous 5 years. I even played with Rynn and Alex a couple of times. I've got to get better, though, I tend to lose the majority of the time. It's still fun to play, regardless of who wins. I like that.

It was the year I started to make a board game. Looking back, I started working on Zombie Mall in July. I didn't think after 6 months I would still be working on it, especially to still be tweaking the game. After 2 play-test and various discussions I think it's almost ready for people to play without me standing there and explaining the rules. People that have seen pics and explanations, especially on Facebook, have asked about the game and if I'm planning on marketing it. Although that's an option, and one I've thought about, more than anything this is just an idea in my head that I have to get out. Plus, so far it's neat to see people play something I've made and both understand it and enjoy it.

That's the crux of my year. Bad things happen (surgery infection, longer recovery time than expected, I had a flat tire), but my day-to-day life is good. I recognize that, and I enjoy recognizing that. I wouldn't mind another year that ended up like 2012.

It would be nice to skip the month convalescing in bed this time around, though.

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