Talking to Myself Again

Year In Review, 2010 Edition

So. I haven't posted here in over 5 months, with very few posts in the months before that. So let's cover the entire year with a single blog posting, shall we?

Home Improvement Repair

Last year it was a new septic system. This year it was a new heat pump to replace our dead/dying air conditioner and furnace.

Back in January, I realized that our furnace just wasn't heating very well. We had someone replace the bit that wasn't working and it worked much better. Crisis averted! Or was it?

Come spring we had someone come out to recharge our air conditioner. A month later, it needed to be recharged again. Obviously it had a leak. Actually, multiple leaks, one of which was in a bit that couldn't really be patched, but would instead need to be replaced, which would be difficult, because they just don't make this style of thingamabob anymore, so even if one could be found it would cost an arm and a leg to fix it, and you're really just better off replacing the whole air conditioner, if you want my opinion. Or something like that.

So we got a heat pump. Which meant replacing the furnace that we had just had repaired a few months earlier. Oh well.

Home Improvement

We've been in this house for 2 years now, and we haven't accomplished nearly as much as I would have expected, but we have done a few things.

• Painted the master bedroom.
• Painted the living room.
• Hung new curtains in the living room.
• Began (but haven't finished) stripping the paint from the garage door.

Yard and Garden Improvement

We've also done some work on the outside.

• Cleaned, sanded, and primed Lando's fort and swing set.
• Added a climbing wall to Lando's fort.
• Expanded the size of the garden by 50%.
• Built a compost bin near the garden.

Travel

OIn June 26 we went to the annual Tebbetts picnic to visit relatives, then the next day went to the City Museum in St. Louis.

Holidays

On October 16 we went to the Jack-o-lantern Spectacular in Washington Park.

On December 11, Lando sang with his kindergarten class in a Christmas concert at Clayville.

On December 17, Lando's kindergarten class had a holiday party.

On December 25, we opened Christmas presents!

On December 31, we celebrated New Year's Eve by staying home.

Parties

On December 4, we went to Sarah and Isabella's birthday party at the Riverside Stables.

On December 12, Orlando had his 6th birthday party at Glow Golf.

On December 18, we went to Kyle's birthday party at the Pizza Machine.

On December 19, we went to Adam's birthday party at Midstate Gymnastics.

 

Family Portrait

I'm not sure whether we've ever taken a real "family photo". Lando needed one for a preschool project, so we decided the fireplace would make a nice backdrop.

Lando is standing on the fireplace hearth; he's tall, but he's not that tall!

After we took this photo, Lando was sick, so he didn't go to preschool. Then there were 2 days when preschool was closed for a workshop and parent-teacher conferences. So it wasn't until more than a week later that we were finally able to get this photo to his teachers. I haven't seen the result yet.

Speaking of parent-teacher conferences, we met with Lando's teacher, Mrs. House, to find out how Lando is doing. The short version is he's doing great! She did say that he doesn't like to dance, which was no surprise to us. Whenever the kids are asked to perform something like "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or "I'm a Little Teapot" (or whatever it is the kids do these days), he doesn't want to do it. We've noticed the same thing at Funshop, as well as at the preschool holiday shows where the kids put on a performance.

So far, despite his high energy level and friendly nature, he is not interested in being a showman!

It's "Cold" in Texas. Uh-huh.

I just got off the phone with Dad, who lives down near Brownsville, Texas.

DAD: Man, it is really cold down here!

ME: Define "cold".

DAD: 40 degrees! Maybe 39!

ME: Uh-huh. It's 21 degrees here.

Folks down south who say that it's cold get no sympathy from me. :-)

Of course, I'm in the rare position of being happy about the cold weather! The faster the ground freezes, the sooner we can get a new septic system without utterly destroying the lawn. (Well, other than the lawn where the new septic system will go. That will be utterly destroyed!)

Work Changes, New Computer, Moved -- and Mom Died

Yes, I'm back -- yet again! I suppose it's ironic that, pretty much by definition, when nothing is going on in my life, I have plenty of time to tell you about it, but when I have plenty going on in my life, I have little time to tell you about it. Judging by the long gap since my last update, you can infer that my life has been busy.

Four major events have occurred in the last couple of months. In increasing order of importance: I proposed completely changing my responsibilities at work; I bought a new computer; I moved; and my mother passed away.

The first one isn't particularly interesting to talk about. For the last couple of years, I've been responsible for the web site at the Illinois EPA. In recent months it has become increasingly apparent to me that our web development process just isn't working very well. Basically, if anyone wants something put on our web site, they send it to me. This means, first of all, that I'm an extremely busy fellow, particularly since the web site is only one of my job duties. Secondly, it means that our web site has a random hodge-podge of information, pretty much unconnected and disorganized. There might be the most extremely detailed information about one program area, but not even the most basic information about another program area. This makes it difficult to find information, to say the least.

I wrote up an 8-page memo discussing the problems with our current procedures and proposing, basically, that I turn over 90% of web development responsibilities to a team of a dozen people, drawn from the rest of the agency. That would free me up to do things like Java programming and writing database queries, rather than what has evolved into basically glorified word processing.

The second event was buying a new computer. What a story that makes! Way back on July 29, I ordered a new computer from Gateway -- a 400MHz Pentium II with 128MB RAM, Voodoo2 3D video card, DVD drive, ZIP, tape backup, theater sound system, etc. It was scheduled to ship on August 5. Well, on August 7 I received a postcard from Gateway, saying that "due to circumstances beyond our control," my order was delayed and would ship by August 21. Oh, bother. Time passed. On August 21, I received a postcard from Gateway saying that "due to circumstances beyond our control," my order was delayed and would ship by September 22. Ack! Should I cancel my order, or keep it? Decisions, decisions.

Then I learned that Intel would be releasing the 450MHz Pentium II on August 30. That would mean I could change my order to the faster chip. Sure, why not. So, after Gateway announces that they are selling 450MHz systems, I call them and change my order. There is plenty of confusion with getting the order changed, and eventually the sales critter just starts over from scratch and gives me a new order number. Time passes. September 22 comes and goes. Finally, on October 5, my new computer arrives -- twice!

Yes, sure enough, when I was given a new order number, the sales critter somehow managed to not cancel the previous order, so when the UPS truck rolled up, out hopped two computers. That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that Gateway also charged my credit card for two computers.

Well, eventually I got all of that straightened out, so I am now the proud owner of a brand spanking new screaming demon of a computer -- that can't receive e-mail! Yes, somehow or other I managed to totally hose the e-mail software on this machine. It came with Microsoft Home Essentials preinstalled. I owned Microsoft Office 97, which I loaded. I then downloaded the Office service release patch and installed it.

Unbeknownst to me, although Office 97 and Home Essentials both include Word 97, they install in separate directories. This means two copies of Word 97 are on the machine. My suspicion is that the service release patch saw the two copies, got confused, and patched the wrong one. Microsoft Outlook uses Word as its text editor, so when I went to start Outlook, it complained about a wrong DLL version when attempting to start Word. When I received the error message, I decided to uninstall Outlook and start over. Somewhere in that process I uninstalled something that I shouldn't have, and now my Internet e-mail is totally hosed. Since then I've been using my old computer to read e-mail, which isn't the most convenient thing in the world, but it works. I'm sure I'll eventually get e-mail working on this machine, but I've been too busy (naturally) to work on it!

Next, after getting my new computer in early October, I moved at the end of October! This meant that the middle of October was spent packing pretty much every waking moment when I was home. Actually, it began with me rather calmly going through everything, carefully sorting things, discarding junk, and generally being quite organized. As time passed, however, there was less sorting, less discarding, and more frantically tossing into boxes! I moved roughly 150 boxes of stuff, and I'll guess that probably a third of that is stuff that I'll just wind up throwing out -- or else just shoving into the back of closets like I did at the old place!

Anyway, I really like my new place -- I'm renting a house! Here are the specs: 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2-car garage, great room, large kitchen, breakfast nook, fireplace, and deck! It's at the end of a very short cul de sac on the extreme west end of Springfield, so there is virtually no traffic. Although it's in the city limits, it's almost in the country. You can go three blocks to a cornfield and not much farther will bring you to horses!

My favorite room, however, is the great room. It's very large (naturally), with a cathedral ceiling, a fireplace, and sliding glass doors leading out onto a deck in the back yard. I love it! The back yard itself is filled with plenty of trees, particularly pine trees, and I love that, too. In short, I like my new place!

Unfortunately, two days after I moved, I received a phone call from Dad saying that Mom was in the hospital and that she had decided that she would refuse any further treatment. She had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma 12 years ago. She underwent chemo and fought it off, but a few years ago it returned. She had more treatments, but it was a downhill struggle.

For the last year or so she had been going into the hospital quite a bit. She was never bedridden for months at a time or anything like that, but she would have to go back to the hospital numerous times every month for yet another treatment or another test. Then she began having problems with an extremely low blood count. She kept going back to the hospital and getting blood transfusions, but they can't give you white blood cells, because they would simply fight against your body. As a result she was extremely susceptible to infection, and eventually got pneumonia. At that point she decided that she was tired of the fight, so she told the doctors that she didn't want any more antibiotics to fight off the infection.

I received Dad's call on Monday, November 2, which was the day my phone service was connected at the new place. Dad said that it would just be a matter of days. After I hung up the phone I cried my eyes out for several minutes. It wasn't just because I was losing my mother, which was bad enough. It was also simply stress. For weeks I had been going nonstop, getting ready for the move, and just went it seemed like things were about to get better, they very abruptly had gotten much worse. And, oddly enough, it was also because I would never been able to show her my new home. I wanted to show her the great room, the fireplace, the deck out back, the pine trees -- but now I never could. The day before I had used my camcorder to videotape a very brief tour of the place. I decided to bring the camcorder and tape with me to the hospital. If she seemed up to it, I could play back the tape in the camcorder and she could watch it in the viewfinder.

So on Monday I drove down to St. Louis to see Mom at the hospital. All of her sisters and her brother were there. She was still in pretty good shape at that point and was in good spirits. She actually looked significantly better than she had when I had seen her in the hospital a couple of weeks before that. It was hard to believe that she would be dead in a few days. I eventually showed her the videotape of the new house, which she seemed to enjoy. It didn't really show things very well, because I hadn't expected this to be my only opportunity, but it was all I had.

After a few hours I drove back to Springfield. My brother flew into St. Louis from Austin later that night. The next day (Tuesday) after visiting with her, he drive up to Springfield to stay overnight with me. On Wednesday we drove back down to St. Louis to see Mom again. When we arrived there was a sign on her door telling visitors to go to the nurse's station. She had passed away about an hour before we had arrived.

I took it well, but I was quite surprised that she had gone so quickly. On Monday she was doing quite well, so I had guess she would last until Friday. It just really hadn't occurred to me when I left her on Monday that it would be the last time I would see her.

I suspected that Dad would prefer to have some time alone, just to wander about the house and cry without worrying about who saw, so Ross and I spent Wednesday night back in Springfield, then drove down to Dad's place on Thursday. He later thanked us for that, so I guess my suspicion was correct.

The visitation was on Friday night (November 6). I was amazed, first of all, at the amount of food that neighbors brought over -- meat trays, loaves of bread, fried chicken, lasagna, even cartons of soda. Keep in mind that this is out in the country, so when I say "neighbors", I mean "people who might live 5 miles away."

Secondly, I was amazed at the number of people who showed up at the visitation. Mom had taught kindergarten in the area for 30 years, so she and Dad knew plenty of people. Plus there were people like two of my high school teachers, our neighbors from when I was in first grade, and the parents of a pseudo-girlfriend of mine from high school. I was also very impressed by the number of my brother's friends who showed up. (Six of them served as pall bearers, actually.)

Thirdly, I was amazed at how quickly all of that food was consumed by everyone who came by after the visitation and after the funeral on Saturday.

I guess Mom went about as well as she could. We all got to see her one last time when she was still in pretty good shape, and I think it's better to go that way than to spend years in bed, the way her grandparents spent the end of their lives. She had talked for quite some time about not wanting to drag things out, so I was about as prepared as one can expect to be for it.

As for me, I'm doing fine, although I still find myself periodically remembering, "Oh yeah -- Mom's dead." There's a part of me that keeps expecting this to be temporary. Ah well. Life goes on.

Dad seems to be doing fine. He came up to visit on Sunday. After showing him the new place, we took his pickup truck down to Oak Express and picked up some nice bookshelves for the great room. They're six feet tall, four feet wide -- and already completely filled with books, mainly hardbacks.

He'll eventually head down to south Texas, like every year. They've been there several times before, so he'll know plenty of people and will have plenty of things to keep him occupied, like playing shuffleboard, golfing, and generally enjoying warm weather in the middle of winter.

Centralia Visit, Satellite TV, Software for Work, 4 Movies

Good heavens, how easily we fall out of habits -- when they're habits we didn't want to fall out of! I've missed a lot of days (as Mary has reminded me), so there is no way I'm going to be able to remember what happened over the last 11 days. Well, I'll just post what I remember and then try to get back on schedule.

Last Friday (June 6), right after I posted my previous entry, I hopped in the car to travel down south to visit my parents in Centralia, Illinois. They had called a few days earlier to ask about a computer problem they were having. It turned out that the monitor for they old Commodore Amiga 500 had died on them. Well, I've got 4 old Amigas scattered around my place, so I told them I'd grab a spare monitor and deliver it to them over the weekend.

While I was driving down Interstate 55, I saw a flatbed truck in front of me. On the back were some large containers labeled, in bold letters, "LIVE FISH." Three thoughts passed through my mind. The first thought was remembering that old joke. ("If you heard about a new movie coming out called 'Attack of the Killer Goldfish,' would you think it was about one great big goldfish or a whole bunch of little ones?" I love that joke.) The second thought was to wonder why they felt the need to label this thing. Did they think that people would drive more carefully if they knew that there were live fish traveling down the interstate? Did they think that emergency response personnel should be warned, in case of an accident? The third thought I had was to note that it is easy to obsess over trivia during a long car trip.

Saturday (June 7) they showed me their new camping trailer, a 37-foot 5th-wheel. Talk about massive! It just barely fits in the pole barn that Dad had built for his 32-foot trailer. There's probably about six inches to spare! In addition to being 37-feet long, it has three slide-outs, so it's nice and wide. It has the usual stuff, of course (kitchen, bathroom with shower, living room, bedroom, etc), but it also has some things I hadn't seen in a trailer before, such as a full-size couch that folds out into a bed, two full-size easy chairs, and even a computer desk!

While I was there, I also spent some time experimenting with Mom & Dad's new satellite TV setup. They went from something like 6 channels to 40 or so. We watched Monica Seles lose to Aranxa Sanchez Vacario (sp?) in the finals of the French Open, then just seconds after the match was over, we switched channels and watched the Triple Crown not get won.

Sunday afternoon I bid the folks goodbye and returned to Springfield.

Monday and Tuesday are a blur.

Remember a few weeks ago when I complained that I apparently wasn't going to get any of the stuff I asked for at work during our annual end-of-fiscal-year mad rush to buy things? Well, on Wednesday I actually received some stuff! Microsoft FrontPage 98 and Adobe PhotoShop arrived! I already had Frontpage at home, so that wasn't particularly exciting, but PhotoShop was something new for me. I quickly went out and bought a few books to learn how to use it. So far, I am extremely impressed! This is an incredibly powerful program and I have been amazed at how easily I am able to create some nifty looking graphics. Well, nifty looking for someone who has absolutely no artistic ability, that is. In addition, in reading through the license agreement, I was pleased to learn that I am allowed to install it on my computer at home as well! Considering that the program sells for something like $600, that's a very nice bonus! I spent most of the rest of the week and part of the weekend learning how to use it.

Wednesday night was gaming night, of course. We had pretty much a full house, so we had a massive, 8-player game going. If I remember correctly, my deck basically sucked the entire night. I really need to put together something new!

Friday, on the way home from work, I stopped off at Blockbuster to rent some videos. Ever since I got my DVD player, I've been buying DVDs instead of renting movies, so this was the first time I had rented any in quite awhile. Since virtually all DVDs are in wide-screen format, I even found myself being momentarily surprised to see that message about "this movie has been formatted to fit your television"!

On Saturday I watched "As Good as it Gets" and "Gattaca". "As Good as it Gets" was very good! Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson -- how could they go wrong! I enjoyed it alot. "Gattaca" was reasonably good, too. It's about a future society where genetic selection means that the elite are born without imperfections. Sort of a Brave New World kind of thing. It was interesting, but not great.

Sunday I watched "Boogie Nights" and "Brassed Off". "Boogie Nights" was something of a disappointment, given all of the good things the critics had said about it. It was interesting, but it seemed to lack a climax (no pun intended) or an ending. It was sort of like they just ran out of ideas and stopped shooting. I think it sort of lacked focus. "Brassed Off" was pretty good. It was about a British town where the local coal mine is being closed and the people rally around the coal miners' brass band. It wasn't exactly "Hamlet", but I enjoyed it.

Well, I think we're going to have to call that good enough for this entry. Hopefully I can get back on schedule after this! (Monica? Next time, I think.)

My Life by the Numbers

Plenty of days to catch up on. Are you really interested? No? Then skip this bit.

Last Saturday: I was visiting my parents, so I wasn't able to weigh myself.

Last Sunday: Ditto.

Last Monday: 232.5 pounds. I gained only a half-pound while visiting my parents, which is a good thing! My mom always thinks she's feeding an army when she cooks. :-) Walked 2 miles in 27:37. That's my fastest time yet!

Tuesday: 232 pounds. Walked 2 miles in 28:09. I'm rather surprised at that time, since I had decided not to try walking fast. A couple of weeks ago I would have been amazed at that time. I guess this means I'm getting into (relative) shape.

Wednesday: 232 pounds.

Thursday: 233 pounds.

Friday: 232 pounds. My weight seems to be stuck! Walked 2 miles in 27:30. That's another personal best time!

Saturday: 230.5 pounds. Coolness!

Sunday: 230.5 pounds.

Monday: 230 pounds. That's my lowest weight since October of last year. I've lost 15 pounds in 11 weeks.

Today: 231 pounds. Didn't walk, but I mowed the grass, so I figure that counts. :-)

Gaming Night, Dead Amiga, Satellite TV, Mom and Dad Camping, Training

Wednesday night was gaming night. David and Sharri have just bought a house, so they weren't there and apparently aren't going to be for awhile, due to getting ready to move and trying to sell their house. Jen and Mike were there, though, so we still had seven players.

When I got home, I received a message from my parents that their computer's monitor had died on them. They're still using an old Commodore Amiga 500 with 1 megabyte of RAM and no hard drive. I think I've got about 4 old Amiga monitors lying around here (don't ask), and I think two of them still work, so I'll have to test them out this weekend.

I called them back on Thursday. In addition to talking about the monitor, Dad said that they now have their satellite dish, with 41 channels. Welcome to the '90s! They also went camping at the lake for the week leading up to Memorial Day, using their new monster trailer. He said they really like it, although they nearly had a disaster when the water system developed a leak. If they weren't there to discover it and turn off the water, they would have had a flood on their hands! As for Mom, her radiation treatments went well. They ended a couple of weeks ago, but she'll probably have another couple of weeks of treatments soon. After that, they're hoping to head out west to do some real camping!

Thursday and Friday I was in a class at the training center, Novell Netware 4.1 for Users. It was pretty much a waste of time. I learned some things, but what I learned I think I could've picked up in about 30 minutes from a book.

That doesn't matter, though, because we're in our annual end-of-fiscal-year spending panic at work. This happens every year. Our department has a budget of zero dollars -- literally. (I'm using the word "literally" in its intended sense of "truly," not as hyperbole.) If we want anything, we have to persuade another department to pay for it. As a result, we get nothing until the other departments have run out of things to spend their money on. At that point they toss some money our way and we have to spend it almost overnight.

In addition, the money can't be spent on just anything. For example, "training" money can only be spent on training, not on hardware, software, or anything else. As a result, we can only spend this training money on whatever classes happen to be available right now. Never mind that this course is nearly useless, while one being offered in two months is just what we need -- we won't have any money two months from now, so it gets spent on the nearly useless course.

In short, our so-called purchasing system sucks.

My Life by the Numbers

Wednesday: 232.5 pounds. I'm not sure how I lost two pounds overnight; I weighed myself three times to confirm. Walked 2 miles in 28:43.

Thursday: 234 pounds. It's always like this after gaming nights. :-) Walked 2 miles in 27:59! "Why so fast?", you ask me. While I was walking, I spotted two women walking a block or two ahead of me. My competitive instincts kicked in and I walked faster to try to catch up and pass them. However, that only lasted for the first half of my walk, because they played a trick on me and took a different route. Wimps! I would've left 'em in my dust -- if one can kick up any dust while walking on a blacktop road.

Today: 234 pounds. Didn't walk. Didn't wanna.

Mother's Day Gift, MtG, SCA, Moving Computers

"So," I hear you asking, "why haven't updated this page since Tuesday?" I might say that it's because Wednesday night was gaming night and Thursday night was SCA meeting night and last night I just didn't get around to it. However, since I just today finally bought a Mother's Day gift for my mom, I suspect the real reason is that I'm simply an evil, evil person.

So on with the spiel.

Tuesday night, I called Ross and reminded him that Sunday was Mother's Day. One would think that I would also do something about that myself, but one would be naïve.

Wednesday night, as I said, was our traditional weekly "get together and lose at Magic" night. Actually, it was a little different this time. After playing one multi-player game (in which I basically did nothing but play lands and ask Adam and David how much damage they were doing to me), we played a little mini tournament. With six players, there wasn't really a good way to do it. We didn't really have enough time to play round robin (each player plays against each other player), so we did some bizarre double elimination bracket format. I wound up on top of the winners bracket, and Mary wound up on top of the losers bracket, so then she and I played against each other and she wound up winning. At that point it was late, it was pouring down rain, and Bob needed a ride home, so off we went. After I got to thinking about it, however, I realized that Mary and I probably should have played again, since we had both lost the same number of duels at that point. (Did you follow all of that? Neither did I, and I was there!) Oh well. When all was said and done, I think it would have taken the same amount of time just to play round robin!

Also on Wednesday night, I failed to get anything for Mom for Mother's Day.

Thursday night was the local SCA meeting. For those of you who don't know, the SCA is the Society for Creative Anachronism, a non-profit group that dresses up in medieval clothing to hold tournaments and feasts. If you ever see some people out in the park whacking each other over the head with sticks, it's probably us. (If it isn't, call 911.) Anyway, due to constantly being out of town on business trips, this was the first meeting I had been able to attend since February. That isn't a good thing, considering that I'm the editor of the group's newsletter. Anyway, we're busily planning an event that we'll be holding in September -- coronation. The new "king" and "queen" of the Middle Kingdom will be crowned there, so we're expecting something on the order of a thousand people to be showing up.

Also on Thursday night, I failed to get a Mother's Day gift for Mom.

Friday I spent pretty much the entire workday in the Bureau of Water GIS room moving computers around. They're bringing in an instructor to teach a class in a couple of weeks and they wanted to rearrange everything. This meant shutting down all of the hardware, disconnecting everything, moving it out of the way so that the maintenance people could move the partition walls, desks, and tables, then reconnecting everything and getting it all talking to the network again. Not my idea of fun, and certainly more physical activity than I get in a typical workday. I went home quite beat on Friday night -- which explains in part why I didn't quite get around to posting a new entry here that night!

Oh, and I failed to get anything for Mom. (But you knew that, because at the start of this bit, I said that I finally got it done today. Weren't you paying attention?)

My Life by the Numbers

Wednesday: 238 pounds; 2 miles in 29:35.

Actually, it could have been faster, except that I had stopped briefly to talk to a man who was walking his dog. On the other hand, after that conversation, I walked faster to make up lost time, so perhaps it was an advantage!

Thursday: 237.5 pounds; didn't walk. I didn't get home until after midnight on Wednesday, and it was promising to rain, so I figured there wasn't any point in even pretending that I was going to get up at 6:00 AM to go walking.

Friday: 238 pounds; 2 miles in 29:19.

Today: 238 pounds; didn't walk. Hey, it's the weekend! Besides, I'm sore from Friday. Well, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Ultima Online, Palm III, Organizers, The Player, Ross's Job, Email, Weight Loss

Well, let's see. Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Ah yes, Friday.

On Friday, I spent most of the evening playing Ultima Online. My character, Dominic Duvall, finally had the skills and the equipment needed for me to feel comfortable doing a little adventuring -- which was the whole point of playing the game in the first place! Anyway, he started out by journeying through the wilderness hunting God's creatures -- deer, bears, panthers, wolves, pigs, particularly worrisome bunnies, etc. At one point I stumbled across a mongbat, my first actual monster! I killed it easily. Then I stumbled across a troll, and after taking a few tentative swings, I came to the conclusion that cowardice is the better part of valor, so I ran away. Okay, note to myself: I can kill a mongbat with ease, but I'm not yet ready to take on a troll. Got it. Then I found a ratman and killed him without too much effort.

At this point, I felt ready to try exploring a dungeon. According to other players, one of the easiest dungeons to survive is called "Wrong," so I went there and walked inside. It was at that point that I remembered that my character had no source of light. Okay, note to myself…. I solved that problem by turning the brightness way up on my monitor, to the point where I could see quite well. I guess I can scratch out that note about bringing a source of light next time.

Anyway, there were several other characters in the dungeon, so when a lizardman showed up, three of us quickly dispatched him. My first kill in a dungeon! I journeyed onward, killing a ratman and finding actual treasure! That's right, only six months after the release of Ultima Online, and I had already managed to get some gold in a dungeon! (Yes, that was sarcasm. Not that I'm bitter or anything.) Moving deeper into the dungeon, I came across a group of adventurers fighting about 3 trolls! Emboldened by the presence of other adventurers, I moved in and joined the fray. After several minutes, we had finally dispatched the last of them. No sooner had we divided up the treasure than about 5-6 more trolls showed up! We launched into battle, but it soon became apparent to me that I was not going to last to the end of this encounter. I then very heroically cried out, "Sorry guys, but I'm outta here," and retreated from the battle to heal my wounds.

By then it was getting somewhat late, so I returned to Vesper to deposit my spoils in the bank: 600 gold pieces, an amethyst, some weapons, and several spell reagents. At this point, I have nearly 3,000 gold pieces in the bank -- a truly massive improvement over anything I had been able to do in the previous six months. At this point, I think I could actually begin to enjoy this game!

Saturday, for a change, we didn't get together to play Magic, due to people being either out of town or playing in a Star Wars tournament. I spent much of the day continuing to learn about how to use the Palm III, as well as how to get it to work with my PC-based day-planner software. One decision I'm trying to make is whether to stick with Franklin-Covey's Ascend, or to switch to either Day-Timer's Organizer or Microsoft's Outlook. At work, we're given Novell's GroupWise, but it absolutely sucks, so I'm spared from having to consider that as a possibility.

Also on Saturday, I received The Player on DVD, which I had ordered a few days earlier. The Player is probably my favorite movie of all time, in part because it is a movie about movies, and because it requires you to pay close attention in order to pick up all of the little snippits going on in the background. I quite happily plopped down in front of the TV and watched it! The DVD has several nice special features. In addition to a commentary soundtrack by the director and the writer, it also has a cameo index, which allows you to quickly jump to the scenes in which over fifty stars make cameo appearances.

Mom and Dad called to say that they had talked to Ross after his first week back at work. His normal work schedule will be twelve-hour days, three days on one week, then four days on the next. However, initially he'll be working a normal eight-hour shift, five days per week, while he gets acquainted with everyone.

While we were talking, Mom and Dad asked me for my e-mail address. Their next-door neighbors have a computer now and are going to show Mom and Dad how to send e-mail over the Internet. Dad keeps threatening to buy a new computer (they still have a Commodore Amiga 500), but hasn't done so yet. Mom has virtually no interest in computers, but she said that being able to send e-mail to Ross and me would be nice. We'll see. With their new 36-foot trailer, they should have enough room for one!

Today, I spent much of the day trying to clean house, going through boxes of papers, throwing away half of them and trying to sort and file the other half. Non-stop excitement!

In other news, recently I found myself weighing 245 pounds, my highest weight ever. Having achieved such a satisfyingly lofty goal, I've decided that perhaps it's time to consider shooting for some other goal -- perhaps something like 180 pounds. I've heard that telling others of your goals provides an incentive for working to achieve them. With that in mind, I proudly present to you...

My Life by the Numbers

Saturday: Weight, 239 pounds. I walked 2 miles in 31 minutes, 45 seconds.

Today: Weight, 239 pounds. Walked 2 miles in 30 minutes, 18 seconds. The biggest challenge was dodging all of the worms that had crawled up onto the pavement after last night's rain. Worm-dodging percentage: 98% (unofficial).

MtG, Mom & Dad's New Travel Trailer

So far, my plan to write this in the morning isn't going too well. Yeah, well, so sue me.

Yesterday, I accomplished absolutely nothing at work. I could have stayed home and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference. But that's okay, ‘cuz once I got home, I put together a new Magic deck. (Those of you who don't play Magic: the Gathering can pretty much skip the rest of this paragraph.) It's a "Prosperous Bloom" deck that was listed in the October 1997 issue of The Duelist. I tried it out a few times solo, and was stunned not only at how well it worked, but even more by the suddenness of it. I'd take 3-4 turns, with nothing much happening, and then out of nowhere, on turn 4 or 5, it would kick in and the game would be instantly over. I was simply amazed. Of course, it's one thing to work well without an opponent; it's quite another to succeed when taking damage and facing Counterspells. So I played it against David over our lunch hour today and won all but one game. Simply stunning. (Did I mention it was stunning?)

(For those of you who skipped the previous paragraph, we now return you to the rest of today's entry.)

I forgot to mention the other day that, when Mom & Dad were visiting, they told me that they had bought a new travel trailer -- again! It seems like every two years or so they come down with a case of "two-foot-itis", meaning that they decide they would really prefer to have a trailer just two feet longer than the one they have. What they had before was a 31-foot trailer, so they decided back in February to buy a 33-foot trailer. They went to the dealer, picked all the options and the layout they wanted, then placed their order. Time passed, but there were problems and delays at the factory. More time passed and the dealer grew more and more embarrassed. Finally, a few days ago, their new trailer arrived! But when they went to pick it up, they discovered that a 36-foot trailer had been built by mistake! Well, the dealer said that he could re-order it to get them a 33-foot trailer, or he could just give them the 36-foot trailer at the 33-foot trailer price.

So they now own a 36-foot trailer.

Of course, if you're going to be hauling around a 36-foot trailer, you need a bigger pickup truck to pull it -- so they're getting a new pickup truck, too. I didn't realize that teachers' retirement plans paid so well!

New TV, Mom & Dad Visit, Joan Baez Concert, Ultima Online, 12 Monkeys

I've decided to try changing the way I make new entries here. To this point, I've been waiting to write about each day at the end of that day, just before I go to bed. Unfortunately, it's the end of the day precisely because I'm tired and ready for bed. Today I'll try something different -- writing during the day, rather than late at night. If I can, I'll try to write in the morning, before I go to work, but don't count on it.

Friday was a very good day! First of all, I took the day off from work, which will improve any day's chances of being good. Secondly, my new TV finally arrived! I'm now the proud owner of five remote controls, all of which are essential to do anything. At least the new TV has multiple input jacks, which means that I no longer have to unhook the VCR in order to hook up the DVD player, and vice versa. I can even connect the camcorder in the front, rather than fumbling around in back. Very nice.

Mom and Dad showed up around noon, so we went out to MCL Cafeteria for lunch – arriving right after a busload of tourists, apparently. As usual, the food was good and we all took a bit too much of it. After that, we took a drive down to Sangchris Lake State Park to see whether it would be a good place for them to camp for a few days while visiting in the future. One of the campgrounds was less than impressive, while the other looked fine.

That evening we went to see Joan Baez in concert at Sangamon Auditorium. It was a very good concert! Another guitarist, a bass player, a percussionist, and a guy who alternately played horns, fiddle, and mandolin accompanied her. In addition, Richard Shindell played with her on some of the songs. There was some humorous banter onstage between the musicians, and it looked like they were enjoying themselves. Also, the percussionist, Carol Steel, added a level of energy and enthusiasm to the concert. Joan played a good mixture of new songs and old favorites. All in all, a very good evening.

After Mom and Dad left for home, I played Ultima Online. Amazingly enough, everything was exactly as I had left it; no server crash to erase an hour's progress! By the end of that session (at 2:30 in the morning), I had over 1,000 gold in the bank and another 250 gold on my character. We're finally making progress!

Of course, on Saturday morning, after I had played about a half-hour, the server crashed again, wiping out that half-hour's work. When I played again that afternoon, one of the other players stole the 250 gold that my character was carrying with him. The server very carefully did not crash to wipe out the theft. But that was okay, because I made the money back rather quickly.

I picked up a few more DVD movies: 12 Monkeys, Brazil, Apollo 13, and The Right Stuff. Yesterday I watched 12 Monkeys, an excellent movie! In addition to the movie, the DVD includes a "making of" show which is an hour and a half long. I watched that -- and learned that my interpretation of the ending of 12 Monkeys is different than what Terry Gilliam had intended! I don't want to go into it here, in case someone reading this hasn't seen the movie before, but if you have a DVD player, I definitely encourage you to get the DVD version of 12 Monkeys for the very good bonus material it contains.