Okay, I’m biting the bullet. I’ll be taking a vacation in early November. Jamaica. I’ve put down the reserve money, so I’m committed now. I still need to get the airline tickets. I have some leeway of the route, so I’m thinking I might be able to stop off in Miami along the way and see my sister. But I don’t know if this would be a good time for her, as she is still settling in.
A vacation will be really nice.
In other news I went for a run today. My ankle was slightly swollen before I started, but I haven’t had much pain lately. It only really bothered me when going up and down hills. But it was nice to get out and have some solid exercise. I’ve put ice on it, and it doesn’t feel bad. I’ll take a wait and see approach now.
Yesterday I got a new pipe for my scooter. It had been promised to me when I first got the machine, and it finally came in. So now when I scooter it has a much lower sound. Before it was debatable whether it sounded like a lawnmower or a chainsaw. I sound more serious now. I can also feel the acceleration, and I found I have a top speed of 100kph going down a hill, as opposed to the 90kph before. (Please don’t ask me what the speed limit is on that hill.)
The person at the scooter store wanted a quick race. He had a 70cc Vespa against my 50cc Derbi with the new pipe. He won, but it was close. I was one foot behind him once we got up to speed, and I didn’t fall behind or catch up. Just a steady 1 foot. So if I had a better start I would have been ahead. He thinks if we had a longer course I would have overtaken.

Yesterday’s newspaper had the headline “Edmonton on way to being Alberta’s crystal meth center”. Today’s paper covered some of the people addicted to it. “‘When you’re high, time flies,’ Shawn says. He kept a spotless apartment, and would draw amazing pictures when he was on meth.”
That actually sounds like a great advertisement for taking meth. I could really use a clean up on my apartment. I keep the main areas clean, but I seem to have neglected the industrial strength of a spring cleaning. So if I take some crystal meth I might be able to get my place back in order.
Unfortunately they didn’t leave a phone number of where dealers can be reached.

Boring journal entries my foot.

This has been an exhausting day.
It was fine for the most part, but I just became drained since work ended. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like commuting. Before the move it was, at most, a ten minute drive. Today I drove half an hour to get home, with several traffic jams. (Would it have been faster if I was using the scooter?) To top it all off, there was even a traffic jam in the elevator. Two girls that were too lazy to travel one floor up by stairs forced me to stop off at every floor.
In addition, the people I’m trying to commission to help me with a good halloween costume are now saying they can’t do it. They are trying to find someone else to take over, so there is still a chance.
I had improv class, but everyone seemed so tired. A very low energy class.
I need a vacation.
I’m going to take that one in November that sounds good. I hope I can afford it with money being tight.

Yesterday I abandoned eHarmony.
I’ve been paying for its use, but no one seems to want to contact me. Now part of it is my fault. I only recently posted a picture, and I could have written better essays about myself. But the people they recommend I contact all seem to have done very little with the site. Since I seem to be getting the dregs, I cut bait. Why should I pay to have my self-esteem shredded.
It also didn’t help that a friend started trying out online dating, and I do believe he has gotten a girlfriend already. So I’m trying out a different service, the one he used. I filled in a profile quickly yesterday, posted the essay I’ve been working on, and then went to bed.
This evening I have three girls who have expressed interest.

I guess a better post some pictures too.

So I talked to my parents yesterday. They have found out I’ve been keeping a journal. I let my sister know about it when she moved to Miami, but she can’t read it online, so I’ve been sending her the entries by email.
I think my mother is upset that I’m not sending them to her too. But as I’ve covered before, I really don’t want my mother reading about all the minutia of my life. That would be creepy.
My sister also described reading my journals as always referring to playing games of Ultima. Apparently that is all I am doing. I don’t think so. I browsed the old entries, and for one weekend I do mention it a lot, but not since then, and only for a bit before. But I always like to meet people’s expectations, so….
Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Ultima!

Last Saturday, there was the “Tommy Chong Memorial Scavenger Hunt” for the scooterists in Edmonton. I wandered past at the wrong moment, and was drafted in. At least the temperature really improved that day. It actually did go up to 20 degrees. (And for the record, my thermometer was showing the high for the past week, not the current temperature.)
Anyway, it wasn’t that much fun. We were given clues of where we needed to go and get evidence that we had been there. The clues are what killed me. They seemed geared for people who had lived in Edmonton all their life. How was I supposed to know that the university bar was called “The Powerplant”. There were a few that I should have been able to get, no matter where I lived, but I guess I’m just dumb. I got a few of the clues, but on the whole I gave up after an hour. I returned to the start and gave my entries. Then I went off to do other things.

There is a civic election coming up in Edmonton. I have to vote on a mayor and city councilors. When I think about this, there is really only one issue that concerns me. Everything else seems to have no effect. Sure I would like traffic flow to improve, but I’m not going to see that for years. Urban sprawl doesn’t personally affect me, and I doubt there is a real difference on that policy between the candidates.
No, the one issue that concerns me is smoking. I want this city to get as non-smoking as quickly as possible. There is going to be a total ban on smoking next June, and I can’t wait. I would vote for the person who pledges to ramp up the schedule in a heartbeat. I want to be able to go out to social places, and not have to immediately wash all my clothes as soon as I get home.
With the smoking ban coming in, there really isn’t anything for me to concern myself over. But now the stupid stupid bingo halls want to be exempted. They are trying to get the great blessed smoking bylaw changed?! That’s just wrong.
But god bless the evil black bile that they consider their hearts. They published in the paper a list of the “candidates the Edmonton Bingo News considers qualified and in favour of loosening the July 1 smoking ban at bingo halls and casinos”. The council and mayor that would have the best chance of overturning the smoking bylaw. This makes my life so convenient. Here is a list of people that have so completely lost my vote. And to think, I was considering voting for Noce.
In other news, it is a very weird feeling to go shopping in Superstore while carrying a lone golf club. Try it sometime.

Well the snow has melted. According to the weather network and my thermometer, it is 20 degrees outside. It’s completely overcast, windy, feels like it wants to rain, and when I go outside, it is very cold. I think I’m going to be cooped up in my place for the weekend.
I need to take a vacation. For the past year, I’ve been thinking of taking a sun holiday for sometime in the fall. The weather is helping confirm this. However the weather is also causing me to have second thoughts. I found a resort that sounded interesting. It even had special events the week before my birthday. So it sounded like a good place to go. The thing is, it is located in Jamaica. Which I believe just got run over by hurricane Ivan. I don’t know what the condition is for the resort, but I’m suspecting it isn’t good. The deadline for applying is September 15th, so I’ve got four days to figure this out. It’s expensive place though, even before airfare, so I may just pass on it and try for a generic Club Med excursion.
There is nothing wrong with Club Med, I had a good time there last time. But I’ve been there already. And it got run over by a hurricane last month.
I do know that if I go to the Caribbean, I’m going to have to stop off in Miami and see how my sister is doing. Last I checked she wasn’t dealing with snow. Just the various hurricanes bearing down on her.
Stupid weather.

Yesterday I was supposed to go running after work. I decided not to. The weather was pretty bad and I played the “my ankle hurts” card. But to justify myself, I decided that today I would use the Club Fit pass to try out the new gym. Since work is now above a Club Fit gym, a bunch of us got together and had a tour of the place. They gave us passes that are good for a week.
I’ve been a member of Club Fit in the past, at the location on the south side. It was usually crowded in the mornings, and it was hard to get a treadmill. They also had removed the fans, so when I was going at a good speed, I started overheating. Fans are important. Passive air circulation won’t do. Anyway, I stopped going when I joined the Running Room run club. That and my condo has a small gym with a treadmill (and fan) that I can use in a pinch. So I really don’t need a Club Fit. But hey! Free Pass!
So, go to bed early, get up at 5:30, then off to Club Fit.
If I might digress for a moment first: Snow?! It’s early September. Why the hell is it snowing? My sister is dealing with a trio of hurricanes right now, but at least she doesn’t have SNOW! Bloody weather.
Anyway, it wasn’t crowded at this gym. I used the treadmill for half an hour and my ankle felt fine. That could be because there is less stress on the body with a treadmill. The place where the feet are pounding has extra springiness. However, I did not enjoy the time running there. There were no fans. The scenery never changed. There was no one to talk to. The only thing it had going for it was the springiness.
Afterwards, since I hadn’t had breakfast, it was off to Denny’s. Conveniently close, and a good breakfast place. They do look at me funny when I order an entire carafe of orange juice for myself. I finished it, and I could have drunk some more.
Then back to the building and to work. Cute beauty esthetician in the elevator, and friendly too. Work dragged on forever, and I wasn’t very productive. I got up a little too early.
This evening though I got together with some friends and played pool. My team won the last two games, not through skill (we weren’t too bad) but because the other team kept scratching when they were trying to sink the 8-ball. Unfortunately, I now smell like a chimney. Only ten months until the smoking bylaw kicks in.

Today I went to work. But for the first time in 28 days, I drove a car. It was nice enough that I could have taken a scooter. However, it was the first Tuesday of the month, which is when I stock up on a lot of groceries. So I needed more transport than a scooter can handle.
After work, after shopping, I did a brief stopover at home, then right back out again. Had a quick sushi dinner, then it was off to Improv class.
The class was fun. Jana O’Conner is teaching. So far she’s been great. Previously, when I missed a month of classes, it felt like I was starting from scratch. Since there hasn’t been a class for two months, I was concerned. But I seem to be doing well.
It’s a small class this time, with only five people, and I know all of them. We all seem to be at a similar level of skill, so this should be a good month. Megs made an observation about me. “He is good at improv, but he doesn’t think he is.”
Stuff to ponder.

It is done.

It took an entire long weekend (with many breaks), but Minax is dead and Ultima 2 is completed.
It was more frustrating than the first one. A lot of things didn’t make sense, and I would have been hooped if it hadn’t been for walkthroughs available on the net. (And included with the game.) For instance, I have no idea why giving money to the doorman in New San Antonio will raise your stats. Most of the other frustration can be summed up by saying “money problems”. To do anything to improve yourself, you need to make money. And lots of it. And there is no easy way to get it. Except for killing monsters, and that gets repetitively boring soon enough.

So, here I am, on my balcony, trying to sun myself. The weather this weekend has been pretty bad, but I believe I’ve covered that already. But today is a high of 16, with sunny periods. I’m trying to milk those sunny periods for all I can.
It’s at that annoying temperature where it’s pleasant when the sun is beaming down on you. But when there is a cloud, it feels cool enough to be uncomfortable.
And what happens? A cloud has parked itself right in front of the sun, and it isn’t moving. The sun is going across the horizon faster than this cloud. Especially annoying is that there is a large patch of blue sky, just to the east of it. If the wind would only blow that stupid cloud out of the way.
So I decided to threaten the cloud. I’ve taken out my laptop and I’m using it. So now if it gets too bright, like say if a rogue cloud moves, I won’t be able to see the screen. Take that!
While I’m waiting for white fluffy things to migrate I’m working on an essay for online dating. I signed up for online dating back in February, but I’ve never put work into the personal essay. So I now have to do soul-searching and try to come up with a fun and interesting way to describe myself. It’s not easy.
In other news, Ultima 2 is progressing. The main hurdle has been trying to find frigates to do my killing for me. (They are easily the most deadly weapon in the game. Quicksword! I thumb my nose at you.) I’ve now got one in every map except 1463 BC. I’m also wasting time waiting for creatures to respawn. I need a lot of treasure in this game, and the only way to get it is to kill things. Conveniently enemies always head for me, but there isn’t enough of them. And the treasure you get is not commiserate with their threat. I’ve had lowly orcs, that die after being hit once with a rock, give me more treasure and experience than a huge balrog that survived many multiple canon blasts.
Sun seems to be back now. Back to work, er … lounging.
Later note: That didn’t last long. Another cloud has got the first one’s back. So I’m stuck where I was before.

I really don’t seem to be productive lately. I have things I need/want to do, but I never seem to get around to doing them. When I should have been productive, I was instead lounging around. The big thing I did today was to start playing Ultima 2.
The game isn’t as good as Ultima 1. When I first played it on the Apple II many years ago we had cheat programs so that you could pump of your character. This time I don’t. Mind you, if I put my mind to it, I probably could figure out the saved game file and artificially inflate the character. The extent of my cheating has been looking at walkthroughs. I read them because I don’t want to waste time puzzling through the game. I did that decades ago. I want to finish it and get that checkmark on my “life tasks” list. I won’t finish this as quickly as the original, that’s for sure. The way the game is set up, I have to spend a lot of time just trying to earn money.
The scooter gang didn’t seem to be doing anything tonight. It is cold and a long weekend so either one is an excuse not to show up. I still went, and instead learned a bit about tweaking my scooter. The ride feels a lot smoother now, and hopefully more fuel efficient.
After that I finally had the filet mignon that I had promised myself. I then watched the movie “Finding Nemo”. Now I’m in Starbucks (no problem ordering a medium this time) and updating my journal.

The weather outside is sucky. So instead of being productive on this wasted long weekend, yesterday I decided to see the movie 40 Days and 40 Nights. I’ve been trying to rent more movies, so that the huge screen television I have isn’t such a waste. Since there are so many old releases that I haven’t seen, I decided to try tackling them alphabetically. I go to the video store, start with the top of the alphabet, and go until there is a movie I haven’t seen, but have at least a vague interest in seeing.
Since this movie started with a number, it was one of the first picks. It’s just a young male sex comedy, so I went in with low expectations. After seeing it, a few things bothered me about it. I’ll assume everyone reading this has already seen the movie, so spoiler will follow.
The movie was everything I expected. Surprisingly, the evil act that Nicole did near the end had no comeuppance. As near as I can tell, she profited from her maliciousness, with no consequences. That annoyed me. Although I should always appreciate when a Hollywood movie breaks from the stereotypes. It wasn’t until a few hours later that is suddenly dawned on me what had actually happened.
Nicole raped Matt.
I believe that courts recognize this as a possibility in this day and age. And yet no one talks about legal proceedings in this movie. It would be fairly easy to prove, because Nicole would have to admit it if she wanted to win the bet.
Other than that, it was a nice fantasy. I would love to live in Matt’s world where women will freely throw themselves at men. It was actually a little depressing for me when you compare this fantasy to ones life.

I forgot to mention. One of my D&D players works at Wal-Mart. They had a fund raising thing going on, where they brought up Krispy-Kreme donuts from Calgary. So he had purchased a dozen for the game.
So, after all this time I was able to try one of these fabled donuts.
Nothing ever lives up to the hype. They were okay, but I’ve had a lot better donuts at Tim Hortens. They had a more cake-like taste, and a lot of sugar. It might have helped if they were fresher. But for now, I no longer have any interest in going out of my way to try them.

Today, I had the D&D game. I didn’t feel prepared, so I was lucky that we got let out of work early because of the long weekend. It gave me an hour and a half more to polish up the game.
I think it was a good game, but I got distracted. When I have a problem in D&D, I have a good rule of thumb that has served me well: Throw monsters at the problem. It works in a surprising number of places. I had hoped to have enough prepared that there wouldn’t be any need for monsters. There always has to be some combat, so I need to have at least one monster. And that was to be covered by a lone purple worm that leaps into the poisoned sand to attack the party. It would die quickly, and the players would learn why the worms don’t spread out.
But then they go and kill the worm too fast for the poison to show its affect. Feeling denied, I added two more. Then three more. That’s when the players got the idea that now was the ideal time to run. They then got to watch the worms die from the poisoned sand as they pursued.
My players are sick of purple worms, but that’s because they’ve been in the only place in the world where they are allowed to roam free. Basically the purple worm sanctuary. So there are quite a few there.
That battle sucked up more time than I expected. So by the end of the night, they hadn’t gotten nearly far enough. Hopefully I’ll be better prepared next time.
After it was over, and I was home, I watched the movie “Novocain”. I had rented it last Friday, and it is due at 10:00 AM tomorrow. So it was either see it now, or not at all. Showtime started at 11:30. It was a good movie, although the protagonist was fairly stupid in the start, which led him into a lot more trouble. But there wouldn’t have been a movie if he hadn’t been. It starred Steve Martin, but he was never funny. I’d like to see him in more comedies, like “Bowfinger”, but I guess he has to spread his wings.
Now it is far too late. I really have to go to bed.

So yesterday, well technically two days ago since it is early tomorrow, I was drafted into the condo council meeting. One person hadn’t shown up for several months and they decided to appoint me when they kicked him out. This had been decided last month, and I had agreed to be the replacement. Unfortunately they hadn’t sent written notice to the absentee member, so I couldn’t be made official yet. So I got to sit through the meeting, but I had no power to vote.
It was interesting, but the whole thing took two and a half hours. (It didn’t help that the fire alarm started misbehaving during the meeting.) I didn’t get out of there until 9:30. Which sucked. I had planned to have a bacon-wrapped filet mignon for dinner, but it was too late to barbecue it up, so I had some leftover chicken and a danish instead. I could have really used the time to prepare for the D&D game on Friday. So I stayed up late trying to prepare.

Did I mention I found the missing box of stuff? It was about twelve steps from my door. It probably didn’t get to my office because there was no label on it. I thought I had put one on. Oops.

I invest through Nesbitt-Burns. But my advisors keep retiring and I keep getting new ones. And they always wand to talk to me face to face. So I was meeting with a new one today at 6:00 in the evening. Downtown.
My god! Parking was hell. He said that they would validate my parking. I assumed that it would only be the parking for Manulife place. But I couldn’t find it. I had the address, but I got confused with Scotia Place. They have the address on the front of their building, for a different street.
Manulife place is supposed to be at 10180, on 101st street. So driving up 101st street, I see Scotia Place on the right. They have the number 10160, so I look for Manulife on the right. But if you look closer at the address, you can see that it is 10160 Jasper Avenue. A different street. So that completely threw me, because Manulife was on the left.
I give up trying to find Manulife parking, and take Scotia Place parking. I then find Manulife across the street. When I finally talk to the advisor, he tells me that the parking access is on 102nd street. A little tidbit of information it would have been nice to know!
Parking ends up being $3.50. That’s all the change I have. I have been running on banking fumes right now. A previous investment earlier this summer drained my account to below $1,000. When it is below $1,000, I have to pay service charges. Since it was below that for part of August, I don’t want to withdraw more money.
I was hoping that in September I would be above, but the credit card bill, and a few other surprise charges have put me a bit below. I get paid Friday, but that doesn’t help. If I’m under for only a day in the month, it’s enough. This is the first time this has happened to me. I have always had the minimum balance before, and I’m cranky about paying service charges. And now I have another month of trying to use my bank account as little as possible.
I’ll be surprised if I get sympathy from anyone.

University classes are starting up now. I was seriously thinking of signing up for a course. I was interested in learning Danish. It’s part of my heritage, and would be useful to know a bit of if I’m going to Europe next year. But when I checked the schedule, the it is only being taught at one time. 9:00 in the morning on every weekday.
I was hoping for an evening class. If I took that one, I would be missing two hours of every work day, and that would be near impossible to make up. So my dreams of being multi-cultural have been dashed.

Today was moving day. I now no longer have a ten minute commute to work. Now I have to go clear across to the west end to the new location. Approx. 25 minutes. I’m hoping it will improve as I learn the secret shortcuts. It would also help if I don’t stop for gas.
I took the scooter to be special, which might have been a mistake. It wasn’t raining, but it had been, so the streets were a little slippery. But I got there safely, and parked in the underground parking. In winter, if all goes according to plan, I’ll never be outside again.
And now I have an office of my own.
Smaller than advertised.
I swear that on paper it looked much better. (The office manager is not a draftsman, but that didn’t stop her from trying.) But in real life, the desk is too big. I have to squeeze through some parts. Maybe I need to trade parts with some other people. (Collect the whole set!)
The big goal was to not have my back to the door, and to be able to enjoy the window. The way it is right now, I have to walk around the whole desk to get to or from the door. But, I do get to go past the window on this commute. And the view is nice.
Well it overlooks a highway, and a revolving sign that advertises the building. I can watch it when I’m bored and learn that the “Alberta Academy of Aesthetics” is located in this building. i.e. Somewhere in this building is a place full of beautiful women, trying to be more beautiful. This is what makes the view so nice. I watched some guy dropping off his gorgeous girlfriend below my window. I even got to watch as she leaned over to collect her stuff from the car. With current fashion trends working in my favor, it is easy to tell that she is wearing a thong.
Conveniently, the windows are one way, so I can ogle whomever I want, without them knowing.
Stalking is such an ugly word.
The unfortunate part of this move is that I am now missing half my stuff. I packed two boxes for the move (not counting computers and furniture) and only one was delivered. The other box isn’t critical, yet, but it has all the books from my bookcase. So now if I want to look up Perl, HTML, phone numbers, or even how to use our product, I’m out of luck. Calendar’s gone too. I searched throughout the office looking for it, but I can’t find it. I’m hoping it will turn up, because it isn’t at the old place.
Having an office, after being in an open space for six years, is taking some getting used to. It feels lonely. I can’t talk to someone as easily as before. It’s also a lot easier to hear bothersome sounds. Where once the sound of ventilation was hidden behind the general drone of people, it’s now harder to ignore.
The commute home is better. And I did get to bump into the aforementioned gorgeous girlfriend while heading to the parking garage. (Unfortunately some not-gorgeous-nerd from another business was talking to me at the time. As if that matters.) I stopped off at the Apple store across the street (because I can), but they didn’t have an Airport Express, so my paycheck stays intact.

I’ve been dead on my feet today. I got to bed at a reasonable hour, and got up at one too. But I’ve been tired all day. My guess is that although the caffeine made me feel awake, yesterday, I still needed sleep. In other words, the late nights have caught up with me.
By this afternoon I started waking up, but that was after I had popped a few Smarties. (Which usually puts me to sleep, but that’s another story.)
I need to got to bed early today.

I just looked out off my balcony and saw a nearby tree.
Some of its leaves are no longer green, but a lovely shade of yellow.
This is not a good sign.

This is weird. I was up until 3:00 AM yesterday (or this morning technically). But I woke up at 9:30 feeling fairly alert. Normally I’m sloth-like at this stage. Heck, I was fairly alert at 3:00 AM. I can only assume that this is because I took an aspirin yesterday evening. The caffeine kicked in, and I’m still enjoying the bounty of unnatural chemicals.
I suppose this is what it is like if one drinks coffee. Alertness.
Still can’t stand the taste of it though. And am I right now someone I’m not? Bah, stupid philosophers.

So, I got a Windows computer by scavenging parts from my dying workplace. Old as the hills, so I know it won’t get uppity. Sound is practically non-existent. I’m not even going to trust the network card in my LAN.
At 8:30 this evening I took a pill for my headache and decided that I wouldn’t go out tonight. (Come to think of it, I haven’t been out all day. I think I’m lazy.) Instead I turned on the “new” (HA!) computer and started playing Ultima 1 for the first time in fifteen to twenty years. For the past week I’ve only been testing it out, but now I sat down and started playing it.
Apparently they have updated the game slightly. Now you can actually see your enemies coming at you, instead of them just appearing on the map. No longer can I just hold down the “[A]ttack” key and have things come up to me and die. Now I have to hunt them down and aim. And the towns and castles have some variation to their layout. With the variation though, you can’t buy everything at every town. I remember fifteen years ago that I set up shop around the town of Linda. For no good reason. It wasn’t centrally located and had nothing nearby except for one dungeon. As a more sophisticated gamer I can see it for the backwater slum that it is. Back then, I purchased one of every transport while I was there and used the surroundings as my garage.
Now I can’t even buy a decent horse there, much less a working space shuttle.
Anyway I started playing at 8:30. I just finished fifteen minutes ago at 2:30 in the morning. Mondain is dead. I have his gem. The people love me. And I’m up way to late.
This has been a nice catharsis for me. I have a much better feeling about this than I ever did for “Splinter Cell”. After all this time, I have finally beaten the game. Back then I was too young to focus on the goals, and just enjoyed wandering around killing things. This time, I knew what to do, and I went out and did it.
Strangely I kept the mapping to a minimum. Previously I spent an entire summer vacation mapping Ultima 4. This time, I just mapped one dungeon. It’s the only one I went in the entire game. I read somewhere that the maps are generated fresh for every game, so the map is effectively useless now.
Now I suppose I should try Ultima 2.
Uh oh. I think I can see where this is heading…

My randomly selected music seems oddly appropriate. Because, technically it is.

The past two days have been somewhat unproductive at work.
With the move happening this weekend, not much computer work got done. We instead spent time packing. On the plus side, we got nice lunches yesterday and today. On Thursday we had Olive Garden pasta brought in. Today we had pizza. We also had the afternoon off.
I spent this afternoon sunning on my balcony. I think I’m trying to get a better tan. Actually I’m trying to get any tan. The glow of the computer screen isn’t really doing anything for me.
This evening I had some friends over to play games. We played “The Works” (Cameron won) and then a long game of “Empire Builder” (I won.) I’m especially proud of my win in “Empire Builder”. I was well ahead of everyone, even though I spent some rounds doing nothing because I had to wait for other things to happen. Close games are exciting, but you always know that luck had a lot to do with the win.
After they were gone, I returned the movies from last week and picked up two more: Formula 51 and Novocaine.
I hope they are good.
I don’t really have any plans for the weekend. But I have a number of chores I need to finish up. I’m not sure if I’ll be running on Sunday. My ankle is still feeling a bit off.

So today, after making breakfast, I noticed what looked like ice in my dishwasher. That made no sense. Investigation followed. It was actually a dish that had decided to shatter within. And it did it right over a grill that I’m assuming removes the soiled water. So any little pieces that have fallen in there are going to be impossible to remove. Well I did my best to clean it up, but I know at least one shard fell into the grill. I’m running it right now and it is making a sound as if a small shard of glass is bouncing around the inside. I’m going to use the hope-it-goes-away strategy to deal with this.
My work is moving this week to the west end. Productivity is down and it is easy to get distracted as we’re going through the motions of packing.
At 6:00 today, we had a tour of the new place. (Instead of the Wednesday run. For the best, since my ankle still feels sore.) It isn’t quite done yet, but most of it is. I got to see what my office will look like. My window office! It’s nice. I have the thermostat for the offices around me, so I’m feeling a small power rush right now.
My biggest problem is that I will now have an actual commute to work. Instead of the ten minute drive down one street, I’ll have to plow through morning traffic and deal with rush hour. It took me half an hour to get to the place from home. But I blame that on taking ten minutes to wait through a traffic jam. It only took me twenty minutes to get back, traffic jam free. I do know that the route back is a lot more efficient. I’ll do some experimentation to find out what is best.
I got in touch with my sister in Florida. It looks like she is getting a job. She just has to pass some security and drug checks. She has top secret clearance with the Canadian military, so I’m not worried.

Darn, it didn’t work.
Well the script worked, but my computer didn’t run it until I came to it. I’m guessing that the problem was that I had set it to turn on at 7:00 AM, and it was already on, just asleep. Sleeping computers don’t run scripts.
As soon as I woke it up, it realized there was a scheduled event and ran it. I’ll need to do more research to see if there is a way around it. It’s still a good script because it downloads everything at once, instead when I show interest in something.

Every morning, while I’m brushing my teeth, I fire up the computer and check a number of websites for online comics. (Sluggy freelance should be 7 years old tomorrow. Feels like I just started reading that comic three weeks ago. Oh wait.) I get to soak my teeth in toothpaste in the time it takes me to read all of the ones I like to keep up with. But it takes awhile to download them all.
I’ve done some experimenting with Applescript today. I wrote a script that I can run that will automatically go to all the websites of all the comics I want to read. It even checks the day of the week to only grab the ones that should be new. Then I added in another step so that it also opens my mail program and checks my mail for me.
To top it all off, my computer should now wake up at 7:00 in the morning, even if it is off, and run this script. So now, when I get to the brushing the teeth portion of my morning routine, I won’t have to wait for everything to download.
These days I’m feeling more like programming my own stuff. It’s nice. I’ve taken to looking at my fractal planet generator program again. I’m playing around with it every so often.
I think this is because my D&D game keeps getting delayed, so I have time to play around with my other interests. I still have a lot I need to do in other areas, but I’m keeping busy.