Book update

So, while my friend goes over the second chapter (he stated he's usually a slow reader), I re-wrote both chapters 1 and 2 of what I already had. Added some more detail, while cutting out some repetitions that were unnecessary. Then I started on chapter 3. I think I actually have that chapter up to a breaking point to start chapter 4 now.

I'll just wait until Victoria gets home and, if she's not too tired, have her read what I've done. Then probably do some more writing tomorrow.

Today was kind of productive to a point. After Victoria left for work, I sat down and re-read what I had already written. Got myself into the tune of how my story was going, and started to rewrite things. In came Jasmine, asking if she could have some ice cream. I noted that it had began to rain and was storming pretty hard outside (I should have gotten off the computer earlier, but I had my headset on listening to some music and didn't hear the storm's fury until I got asked that question). I told her that "I'm sorry, no, if the power goes out, we'll want as much cold things in there to keep everything all cool." About that time, was when the power went poof, as if to say "See, he was right!".

We played around in the house some, got some naps in while the storm raged on. Once the rain had died off, we were able to go ahead and play outside, and we did that for a while. My lawn guy came driving up the horrible road that's next to my place (that almost is never used). He said that there was a downed power line on that back road, and they had the road closed, and were directing traffic up this horrible one. See, the road next to my place is riddled with potholes, so much so that I'd even seen one person's vehicle get completely disabled by breaking a tie-rod.

So we sat out there playing and enjoying the outdoors, as it was a little cooler outside than it was inside at that point. It finally started to get dark outside, and mosquitoes were going to become an issue, so we stepped inside. It was pitch black when I closed the door. I stumbled around, got to the mantle where we have a good stock of some candles, and where the lighters are. The moment I lit one what happens? My mom calls ... what? you thought that the power was going to come on?

I had called her prior when we had the power out for a couple hours, to ask if perhaps they could grab some dry ice for us so that we could keep the frozen stuff frozen, and the fridge stuff cool. She was returning the call stating that my dad said that the food would actually be fine for up to 3 days as long as they weren't opened. I pointed out that there were things that were just freshly put into the freezer that really shouldn't thaw back out only to be re-frozen especially this early in their freezing process. Right then though... that's when the power kicked back on.

I let my mom get off the phone, the kids were screaming happy "Yay Daddy! The power's back!" ... "Can we watch a movie?" ... "Can we stay up?". Such an array of questions and exclamations were spawning forth in my direction while I was trying to put back out the candles I had already lit. Finally the question of "Can you make dinner?" came out. I would have made the hamburgers that I had planned on making on the grill outside, but being that I didn't want to break into the package of meat without being able to freeze the extras properly, that didn't get done. So, we had some hot dogs and lunch meat sandwiches.

I then got a movie in for the kids, they chose Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I got myself a drink of water, sat down at my desk, cranked back up the computer, and started reviewing what I had changed already, and made some more changes. Finished off rewriting or editing chapters one and two, then started up on chapter three. I think I'm to a good breaking point to go onto another chapter. I've made some twists in the story that was originally in my head and majorly from the story I had written while I was in USMC boot camp. They're for the better I think though. As the 'story' I had written on paper before just seemed to be more of a biography of the character, rather than an actual publishable story. I mean, how many biographies are out there ... about a fictional character?!?! ... None that I know of.

Well, while writing this, it seems the time has eeped past midnight, so this post will be actually made the following day from when it started heh heh. Oh well.

lots of things going on

So, as of this week, we officially have Victoria's pay from Disney going to our USAA account, now I've gotta get my VA Disability stuff to go to the new USAA account as well. Then it's just a matter of contacting our mortgage people to have our direct withdraw set up to use the same. With this fresh start on everything, it will allow me to set things straighter than they currently are, so that we aren't hurting for money in the middle of the month like it has been lately.

With her checks already going to be going to the new account, it's nice that they've been giving her some extra hours. Now, by this, I mean a LOT of extra hours. Apparently one of her co-workers had just recently had surgery to have some cancer removed from his back. He has been unable to lift things like normal due to this of course, so he has either been needing constant help, or has called out for medical reasons. So Victoria got asked just this past Friday if she could come in on Saturday in the morning to work his old shift. Then Sunday she had to do the same, either that or it was for someone else that called out. Monday rolled around, she hadn't been asked on Sunday to come in, but we got a call at 6AM ... yes, 6 in the morning ... asking if she could come in again. Tuesday (today of course), Wednesday and Thursday of this week are her days off, so that's all good right? ... Well, just about an hour ago we got a call, apparently two people called out sick for tonight. More hours for her I suppose. She decided that she would go ahead and go to work.

We had actually just gotten back from going to Wal-mart to get some groceries that my trip to BJ's yesterday didn't get. Things like some fresh vegies, and things to mix with the large amount of hamburger meat.

Oh, we also got a new Beta fish for Jasmine, as she was tasked with keeping her room clean for an entire month to be eligible to get a fish. We chose the Beta because of the fact that they require very little maintenance. That, and the fact that she could find a very colourfull one easily. Here's a picture of said fish: http://twitgoo.com/15yh3m

Dinner tonight, well, not entirely sure how it'll all mesh together. Plan was to do Hamburgers, ad then I realized that we had forgotten about picking up some asparagus to try out for the kids, and on myself. See, the last time that I had asparagus was when I was like 11 or 12, and I ate the stuff like candy, then got sick of it as such. We also had some broccoli seeing as the kids love the stuff. Yes, my children actually do like to have vegetables.

So, with all of these things going on, at least on the bright side, we'll have a good build up of money in our new account.

Oh, and seeing as I only got one contacting about my story, which is actually one of my best friends from high school. He's given me some good input, along with some input from Victoria, I'll be re-writing what I've got to give more descriptions (it seems a bit, barren and not enough information). Whenever I finish it off, if I end up being able to get it to the point of possibly publishing it...they'll be definitely in the 'thank you' section ...

2 hours + 1 roll of Duct tape = ???

A patched up under-house overhaul so to say...

I noticed that it was staying hotter in the house than what I'd like it to be ... I mean I've got the AC cranked to 76, but it rarely even gets to the 70's at all. Not too long ago, about a month now I would say, we had a little visitor that decided to adopt the under-side of our house. No, not in the floor, but just under the house. A small excitable puppy. This puppy had managed to find out how to make life bearable under the house for himself seeing as we wouldn't let him inside (due to the new puppies and all).

This dog managed to dislodge the Y-Splitter that feeds the house of it's AC. At first I had seen the fact that he had knocked the duct work off the AC unit itself, but I duct taped that up ... the next day it still was hot as hell in the house. Victoria and I crawled under the house and found the Y-split thing, and while I tended to the kids and stuff, she duct-taped up the splitter.

So when our puppies that we've decided to keep liked being under the house a lot more than being inside (granted, they are dogs, it is dirt under there, and we have been trying to make sure they go potty outside and everything), I crawled under there to see how things were. The duct was still connected everywhere, but the crawlspace was actually still cool. I got close to the center of the house, and noticed it being much cooler. I slithered over next to the duct, and felt a breeze on my head. No, not on my face, on the back of my head. The air was coming from above me, while the ductwork was below me.

I looked up, and saw a square, framed with 2x4 pieces of wood, but not complete so to say. There were nails poking out of these pieces of wood, and the insulation was ripped out of the area. At first I thought it was just the junction of the two halves of the house that was leaking down (as inside you can feel the heat pouring in from the roof at the middle of the house in some spots). But the air wasn't coming strong from the gap, rather from inside this hole. I noticed that I could hear the TV in the living room perfectly from this spot, so it was channeling air all under the house, and it was just a clear shot throughout. Now, for those that don't know, my living room is in the opposite end of the house from where the AC ducts are feed into the house.

I went traversing under the house and got one of the kids to get the duct tape for me, then I went around and taped up some large holes everywhere. Some where the insulation was near touching the ground for how much it had been torn out. Rummaging around under the house, luckily it was cool, or I'd've been roasting my brains out. Of course, now my back is saying "why the hell did you do that?" ... but let's see how well the house keeps cool now, if any better. I sure hope so, I hate how hot it is in here at times (right now it's 91 outside by what the weather thing shows on my desktop, and the thermostat is showing 89 for the AC... not much of a difference from outside eh?).

Time to relax ...

the evening...

Lots of posts today eh?

So after posting that last thing with the updates, I sat down at my computer, and began looking up different things, mainly started with looking for jobs at game companies outside of Florida (seeing as the only one here in Florida is EA Sports, and I'm no sport nut).

I popped into my facebook thing and made a couple posts (one being that of a video of a song featuring the muppets). One of my friends happened to be on as well and we chatted for a while.

Now, this friend recently graduated at a film school, and has yet to find a job. Go figure, it seems those of us with higher than normal educations and knowledge have the worst times in finding a job. Well, meh to that I say! He's written a good little movie plot and even scripted it out. I've had the pleasure of reading it myself, as he requested to have a little bit of insight as to what I thought, without of course, going and blabbing about it to anyone ... and by that, I mean the actual plot or anything. In return, he was going to read my story that I've written thus far to give me some pointers so that I can get on it and work with the story and how it would be able to be accepted by other readers if I were to even publish it, or, if he could possibly look at the story, and make it into a movie, so that both of us could get paid.

I've spent the last few hours actually pouring over the scripting and stuff by him. I had a few pointers that I e-mailed back to him so that he can work on it some, most of it being minor grammar changes, and a couple description problems. Nothing that wouldn't be easy to fix of course.

I also found that he also reads this blog from time to time, and I appreciate it greatly. I know I may ramble on from time to time, but as he stated, it's good for me to be able to get shit off my chest and on paper (well, not in this case, unless you're printing this stuff out to read later, in which case I ask ... "WHY?!?!").

So, with that, I'm going to go to have a bio break, hop in the shower, and then lie down somewhere ... not sure if it'll be in the recliner or in bed. I've just not been feeling myself for the last few days. At all. My body is acting out and doing things that it should, but my mind... I'm not sure where it's gone to, but I hope that it returns smoothly soon so that I can actually think properly again.

Until then, thanks whoever you are that's reading, if anyone other than my friend that's already acknowledged that he does...

Tasks complete...

Kitchen: Check

Laundry: Mostly done, only one or two loads left.

Kids rooms: Check (at 6:00 they were clean at least)

Living room: Check

Dusted all: Check

No TV: Check

No Computer: Can't say that I wasn't on it, I mean, I'm making posts throughout the day eh? But, I can say, no games until after this is posted, in which I may be playing a small bit of EQ2 trial before heading to bed.

Hmm, maybe I should see if one of the game companies outside of Florida would employ me...'course the big thing of getting them to move me out to them would be ... a big deal breaker I suppose, as I don't have any "extra-ordinary" skills that make me a wanted employee. Wonder how one goes about becoming a GM nowadays...

Intros for family, and a spice recipe

Let's start this off a bit differently. I've been (throughout the blog here) been referring to my Wife as such ... rather than addressing by name. Also the same goes for our children. So, for those that may be randomly happening upon the blog here, you'll know who each are by their name if you care. Starting off, my lovely Wife; Victoria. We met in our senior year in High School ... yep, high-school sweethearts so to say. Throughout the year we talked, but never really dated at all (hell, I never went on any dates ever, and even then the first one I ever really took could probably be classified as our honeymoon). Come our graduation though that changed.

We dated for quite some time, more than we wanted to originally really. I was going into the Marine Corps, and we never let on to our parents that we were planning on getting married eventually. We actually wanted to get married before I went into boot camp, but yea, family 'disturbances' kept us from really getting hitched.

After some time in Okinawa, I came home (proffering it as I wanted to go home to turn 21) and got married 3 days after my birthday. We went on our honeymoon to Bush Gardens, Tampa, and then to Disney the next day. Yea, a two day honeymoon. A few days later I went back to Okinawa to finish my tour over there, which was only a few months.

I got transfered over to California for my next duty station, and I brought Victoria with me. Along the way we of course had our fun...9 months later, our son Delden was born. Strange name eh? Well, we both wanted something unique, so I made one up on the spot... Well, somewhat. It did come from a fantasy book series I read many years ago (and still have BTW). Looked at a map, pointed, and it looked good.

Later on, after moving back here to Florida, we moved around a few times...at first in with my parents while we looked for a place. Then to live with my brother who was getting into a large rental house. After an old girlfriend of my brother's moved in, and brought drugs with her, we moved out. At the same time, Victoria's mother was going to be moving. We moved into their old place for a time, and had more fun. A large battle happened at Victoria's mother's house, wherein her (ex)girlfriend actually HIT Victoria while I was working at Disney. At this time my wife was due within a few months, and we didn't want to be around that kind of thing.

So we moved again, this time to our own place. A little while later our first daughter was born, Victoria named her Jasmine. True to her name, she thinks she's a princess all the time. A few years later, we had our last bit of fun, in the form of Karisma. She has a lot of charisma, befitting of her name.

Here we sit, almost 4 years after that, and that was also about the time that I had lost my last job. So yea, I can judge how long I've been out of work by the age of our youngest. Now, I say "last" in the previous paragraph as we had that fixed, on Victoria's end at least. I'd have done it myself, but as she could wrap hers up with the last birth, we did it that way.

We are looking to try to move out of this dump that we have grown into. Yea, some of the things that are wrong with the place have been around since the beginning, but the things that have 'grown', cause us to want a bigger place. Also, somewhere closer to Disney so that Victoria can get to/from work at a reasonable pace, rather than the current hour one way. I've applied at Disney myself, actually had done it one time previously about 7 months ago, and within a week I had gotten a rejection e-mail. This time however, I got the confirmation e-mail that they got the application, but it was modified from the last time one I had gotten. This one had a little blurb about doing background checks. This was written in after the 'form letter' reply, as it was a different text font.

Here it is another month after I just applied, and still nothing. I have already gone down to the casting center myself to see if they've rejected me, or if it's in consideration, or whatever. The girl I talked to said that my application was in the system, and whenever there's a position open, they'll more than likely contact me. To me that sounds like my background check went through OK, and I am actually qualified to do the job I applied for, I just have to wait my turn. Here's hoping, but in the mean time, I'll be spending the 3 days off that Victoria has this week doing some major application drop-offs. Perhaps I'll look at some of the 3rd party vendors that are based in Disney areas... maybe even at City Walk over at Universal, but of course, after the parking is free for that one.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Now, I wrote in the title there that I'd be giving a spice recipe... well, it's not a full fledged "put 1/4 cup of ..." recipe so to say. But rather it's a mixture of stuff that I mix together sometimes to have a dry-rub for baked or grilled meats. You'll have to use your own judgement for measurements.

Sugar (the base of the mix, there's much more of this than the rest. Diabetic? Use splenda, it's good, also it's finer than regular sugar so yea)

(sea) Salt

Pepper

Spices ... yea, vague eh? See, we've got this huge spice collection that is over our stove, and I usually just grab whatever sounds good or smells good. Tonight's collection for the Chicken Quarters that were taken out earlier this morning:

Mint

Steak spice

Sesame seeds

Dill weed

Thyme

So yea, again, it's a mix-as-you-please type of thing... perhaps you could say it's a "little girl" rub (sugar, spice, and everything nice?).

Take the meat that you want to spice up, wash it off nicely, pull any excess fat off if you like, pat dry with a good paper towel (one that won't leave stuff behind in the form of the towel itself). I say paper towel as they're disposable, and if you're doing like I was tonight, with chicken, you don't want the risk of whatever was on it to be contaminating the rest of your laundry before it gets washed, or if you're like us and saving energy by washing with cold water, yea, much safer. Long sentence there sorry. Anyway, get a cookie tray, put aluminum foil on it, put whatever meat you want to spice up on that sheet, wash your hands and try them off. Using one hand sprinkle some spice mix over your meat (the one on the tray man!), you can rub it in if you like with your other (ok, seriously ... my mind isn't really in the gutter, but I can see where it could be looking that way). Turn the meat over with your wet / meat handling hand, and sprinkle more on the back of whatever meat you've got. Now comes the time you decide what cooking method you'll use, and just cook it till it's done.

For ribs, I'd suggest putting in the oven for like 45 - 60 minutes on a 250 heat. After that, turn off the oven, leaving the ribs in the oven, wait for like 20 minutes or so, then drag them out to the grill, and fire them up. Either that, or, if you don't have a grill, crank back on your oven to about 375, and check the temperature of the ribs in like 30 minutes or so.

Enjoy!

A day without

So, it's been another arduous time where things have gotten out of hand around the house. Things haven't been getting done, laundry getting backed up, kitchen not so clean as it should be...hell, the whole house hasn't been cleaned totally in a LONG time.

So here I go today: No TV, no games, no slacking.... Ok, maybe a little slacking, as in, breaks from time to time (Like I'm spending right now to write this thing). Today's chores: the whole flippin house!

I've already ran a couple loads of laundry, but there's still so much more to get done. Towels are being dried, and kids clothes that were run prior are being put away. In the washer now are my wife's and my clothes. On deck are some clothes that were sitting in the laundry room strewn about on the floor.

Next up after this break: unloading of the dishwasher, reloading it, running it (if it's full). Scrubbing of the range was started earlier, I've just gotta finish it off. Cleaning of the counter tops is a must as well. I've gotta make room and stuff to make dinner...not sure what I'll do with the chicken that I pulled out, maybe look something up online for spices, either that or I'll make my own little rub and put it on them to bake in the oven.

After getting the kitchen substantially better than it currently is, I'll go through the house with the swifter duster thing and dust the heck out of everything.

The kids rooms should be spotless by this time I would hope in this day's schedule so to say.

So, why am I posting my schedule for cleaning my own house? why should this matter to you? I don't think it would, I guess this is just a way for me to have stuff written down as to what I'm doing so that I pretty much HAVE to do it after I put it down. Yea I could probably edit out whatever I didn't get done, but that would defeat the purpose for convincing myself to get off the electronics for a day. I'll probably more than likely make another short post stating what I'd done... sort of like an achievement tagging?? there we go, perhaps I should make up some icons later to post and stuff. Maybe others could use it in their own endeavors?

Meh.

The pain

It's so .... horrible...

So, I was tending to some laundry, when I picked up a basket in apparently the exact wrong way. The nerve in my back pinched just right... and I was saying hello to the floor.

I layed there for a little while before managing to drag m'self back to the living room where the kids were already watching Nick on the TV and it's playing the last chapter of Avatar: The Last Airbender. So, while sitting in pain at least I have something enjoyable to watch.

I've managed to have my daughter bring me the laptop so that I can type this whole thing up here. I've also texted my wife telling her about earlier when our usual lawn guy finally stopped by to say he'll be by tomorrow to mow the yard ...

Seeing as our financial schtuff with SunTrust is finally done with, we can start transferring our direct deposit stuff to our new USAA accounts. Then get ourselves a lawn mower and be able to do it ourselves.

Now, I just saw something on a commercial ... a digital "beer pong" cup ... of course, they're not calling it beer pong, but something like kaponk or whatever. I'm not about to rewind just to see it again. How crazy ...

Anyway, all I can write about now, I'll find something to write about tomorrow.

gah

So I f'd up ... I forgot to make a post yesterday ... I remembered it at like 12:40 in the mornin, when my wife got home. So, I'll make a post now, and one later, how's that sound? Good? Bad? Ya know what? I don't care, it's me writing, and nobody seems to be reading anyway.

As some may have noted (if you don't have some ad-block software) there have been some ads by google popping up around here. Seeing as I don't have any real way of tracking how many visitors that I know of, this'll show me roughly how many ads were 'delivered' in front of people. Of course, this isn't a begging for you to click on the links, so don't take it that way. Just figured I'd give you a heads up.

So, this morning my wife had to get up early to go to work. Granted, normally she works evenings. She got asked last night if she could come in today early and work the full day, getting a double shift. Not being a person to pass up easy-ish money, she took them up on that offer. While here I sit at home, going to apply at a few more places, only to most likely be shot down like I did yesterday.

See, every day I go and apply at a load of places, usually about 5 ... most of them being here locally...I have however, attempted applying at some places out of state, just on the off chance of actually getting something. So, if ANYONE knows of a job out there that I'd be able to do, with my limitations, that is either here in central Florida, or somewhere else that would be easy enough to get housing, by all means, tell me. Remember from my previous post, that I've got certain limitations, in the fact that I can't lift heavy things for risk of having my back shut completely down and ending up on the ground. I'm good with computers, in that I can fix them from any spyware/adware problems. I'm also CompTIA A+ certified, so I can work on the innards as well and diagnose (with proper tools if available) what the problem is with a computer pretty regularly. I was trained in the USMC to do network administration and construction, although I haven't done this in a while and only worked on NT systems, I'm sure that the new stuff is much easier, and works much better.

Currently I live in Central Florida, but I'll take anywhere in the states, heck, if you've got a job for me, and wouldn't mind shacking up a 32 year old gamer that can fix computers and run networks, by all means, contact me! I say I've gotta be in the states only because of the fact that I'm working with the VA right now trying to get my pain fixed. Granted like one of the previous posts, I do have some appointments coming that will possibly help or at the least tell me if they can or can't help me.

Anywhos ... yea, this should do for now, I'll post stuff up later tonight before I go to bed.

A story...

So, a long time ago (USMC Boot Camp) I started writing up a little story about the life experiences of one of my characters. Basically a nice little bit on the character name that I chose to use a long time ago when getting into BBS stuff, including starting my own BBS long before I joined the Marines.

Anyway, that little story was a way for me to keep my sanity I think while enduring the crap of boot camp. After getting out of that hell hole, I stopped writing it. Well, my wife had found the story, attempted to read it, but my handwriting was horrible and she couldn't read it at all. I told her that I could just re-write it and have it on the computer so that she could read it easily. At that time, I had a junky computer, and was hooked up to the TV for my monitor.

I've upgraded my system, and gotten a new monitor, and well, seeing as it'd been a few months since I touched that story, that I'd start working on it again. I've got a couple chapters so to say written down. My wife's read through them, and stated that it seemed a little slow moving, so I'll probably end up going back through and doing some edits to it.

See, I can't exactly follow what I wrote back in '97 as I seem to be missing some of the pages of what I had originally written, and the graphite seems to have faded quite a bit from the small pages, so I can't make out about half of what I wrote. I'm having to basically start from scratch and go from there. What I'd like to know from any readers (if I've even got any regulars now) is if you'd like to read what I have done thus far and give me any tips, or if I should start from scratch again in another format or whatever.

I'm new to the whole writing thing, at least for stories that is. I have looked over my wife's readings online (she likes the Harry Potter fan-fictions) and feel that I could do much better than some of them. The main problem I'd have is actually getting this out in front of people somehow, seeing as it's a home-grown story, not really based off any one current fictional story, where would I be best to have it posted up and reviewed at? That's why I'm asking you, the readers of this semi-regular (hoping to be more regular as you may have noted that I'm going for a daily posting as I originally wanted) blog, what you think.

Right, so if anyone wants to read the first couple chapters, and give their honest opinions, message me here on blogger, or comment about it with your e-mail or something, I'll send it to you. And how about this: Anyone that donates say... $5 or more will get regular updates (once a month maybe?) to the story I'm writing if they so desire after reading what I've got currently. Perhaps if I had people that really wanted to read and give me creative input on how I'm doing or how I can improve my writing, I'd be more inclined to keep writing it. I keep getting into other things and stepping away from what I really should finish.

What to write about...

So, yesterday, I had been thinking as to what I should write about, couldn't think of anything.

But then later in the afternoon, I checked the mail, to find that I'd finally gotten an appointment to see a neurosurgeon about my back!! Finally, after getting out of the marine corps back in 2001, I've gotten an appointment that should have been scheduled way back then. So, how about a little medical background for those that don't know me that well.

Firstly, yes, I was in the USMC, served from 1997 to 2001. I was released on honorable terms (finished my active service agreement), although close to the end there they were talking about possibly medically discharging me for my back. Looking back I should have taken them up on that, rather than wanting to get the heck out of there as fast as possible (wouldn't you want to get out of a job that you never really truly signed up for?). Once I got out, I started working on getting my paperwork started to actually get into the VA system.

A year later, I finally get into the VA system, and get my first doctor. It seemed alright as I was getting appointments every month it seemed to establish my claim and what's going on and everything. About 5 months later I finally get the paperwork finished to start getting disability payments. At first, they only set me at like 10% disability. What this means is that I could have actually been 19% disabled in their paperwork, but they round down to the 10's. At 10% I got jack and squat for pay, and I mean like nothing. After another 6 months or so of constant appointments, I get a new doctor, as the last one I had was moved to another location.

This new doc explained that my appointments would be pushed to every 6 months as they've got all they need or whatever. So, then started the long waits between appointments, and increasing pain constantly. After a while I finally got back in to be re-evaluated for my disability. At this evaluation they found that I've got Degenerative Disc Disease, coupled with Muscle Spasms. This pushed me up to 20%, which is a little better, but still not much. Basically this meant that my back would continually be getting worse, and the muscle spasms wouldn't stop anytime soon.

Skip ahead another year or so, and two more doctors...Get to be re-evaluated again at my request. They had to add Herniated Disc and Pinching Siatic nerve. This pushed me up to 40%, which is nice, as once you're 30% or above, you get compensation for your spouse and dependents. While this amount that I'm currently getting (roughly $700 a month) is nice, that's a far cry from what I could get if I had a job (which by this time, I'd lost my last job). I've been at this disability rating for quite some time now (4 years about)...so I asked my newest doctor; that is supposed to be my last one, as he's not planning on moving anywhere and is one of the supervisors or whatever at the clinic; if I could get re-evaluated again. I also asked him what the latest was on my request to see a neurosurgeon, as my previous doc had put in a request to have me seen 6 months prior. He looked at my latest MRI that I had gotten back in February, and stated that they showed the Degenerative stuff, along with the herniation, that was also torn now. So yay, even more stuff going poor.

So, here I am with two appointments now, one description of the location and stuff is very ... cryptic ("LEE SWS MH INDIVIDUAL Clinic" .... LEE I can suppose is the Leesburg clinic as that's where my normal clinic is... but the rest, not too sure about), possibly the evaluation thing? But the last two times I got re-evaluated, I had to go all the way to Gainesville. And my other appointment is actually with the Neurosurgeon, which is located at Gainesville. Luckily the Neurosurgeon is on a Tuesday, which is one of my wife's two days off usually.

Wish me luck for these things, both of which are on the same week (6th for Neurosurgeon, and 8th for the other thing) ... here's hoping that at least I get an increase in my disability ... if not being eligible for surgery on my back to get rid of my pain, or relieve some of it.

As promised

Well, seeing as I said that I'd do this, here's a bit of a post to show what happened to me, and why I'll never go back to WoW.

First and foremost, the only reason I started in WoW was because some co-workers back (way-back-when) I was working told me to try it out, and they'd get me in their guild, help me out, and everything (granted, that was the same way I got into EQ1 in the '90s, and FFXI). As expected, and as I had experienced all the other times that I joined an MMORPG, I was NOT gracefully recruited into whatever guild was present, nor was I helped out at all once in world. So I already had a bad taste in my mouth about this world.

So, I started off on my own, learned the game, learned how to make money easily enough, made a few random friends that soon forgot about me. At work the following week someone else happened to see that I was looking through one of the sites for WoW gear, then explained he was actually roped in by the same people, but he'd get me into the guild he had created. So I actually got into a guild that was friendly and everything. Everything seemed to be going great, then I changed jobs to a whole other company...I was then kicked out of that guild (silly right? just because I no longer worked at the same location you'll remove me from the guild?) ... That drew me away from WoW then and there for the first time. Now, this was on the US servers.

Two weeks after I had canned my subscription, I got an e-mail from the actual GM staff stating that my account was being locked down due to RMT advertisement in world. I replied that my account had not been accessed, and the game was uninstalled from my system the week prior.

I went back to FFXI which was my favorite MMORPG at the time. Went along in that until it started turning into a job and I was neglecting things. Browsed around some free MMOs out there, and met a few cool people in FlyFF. These guys happened to be in the UK. After hanging out and changing games with them a few times, some of them decided to get into WoW. I was asked to join them. So, naturally I went and had to find somehow on the net to get a EU version of WoW. I managed to find one, and was able to access EU wow from here in the US.

It was quite funny being on the EU WoW, get into a random party, and have everyone start saying where they're from. Everyone was like "How / Why are you playing on EU servers rather than US servers?". I went a while, I got up kind of far with a hunter, then realized upon stepping into a town, that it seemed 75% of the population of that server were hunters! About this time I also started running out of money, as I had lost my job (which actually was the last one I've had).

I went back to browsing around and spending time in random Free to play MMOs. I managed to get some personal work doing computer repairs for people, so I started back up in FFXI. Unfortunately things have changed in FFXI for the worse to me at least. No more standard parties, everything was a TP burn (melee happy parties). I tried out some of the end game stuff after raising a good TP burning class (dragoon ... as a tarutaru LOL), got all my summoner relic gear, and started on my dragoon gear. I got fed up with some of the stupidity that started happening, namely the desire of the devs to make it so that the new level cap would be 90 rather than 75. So I quit FFXI for good on that note.

Back to playing free stuff I went. The newest expansion for WoW came out (wrath of the lich king), and one of my buddies in the UK stated that he had a good job, and if I wanted to play again, all I'd have to do is buy the expansion, and he'd pay for the monthly subscription! Hey, who's to pass up a chance to play WoW on the real servers for free? I went back to the same place I had gotten my EU version, and got the expansion for EU...my friend started paying for it as he stated he would. I started up a Druid and went from 1 to 80 in a little less than two weeks. Solo mind you, I didn't get power leveled or run through anything.

After a while, I noted that my fried that was paying for the game hadn't been on in like a month. I'd been doing lots of raiding with the guild we were in. I had attempted to help with some raiding stuff and set u p an advanced run for one dungeon coordinated with another guild. Apparently I had stepped on someone else's plans (two weeks in advance I was planning this event), and they got into a hissy fit and left the guild and had told the leader of the guild that they were quitting the game because of it. I got an eye full about the whole thing, and my only saving grace, was the fact that this other person had NOT put their planned event in the guild calendar for me to even see that there would be a conflict.

So, with things compounding (getting yelled at for setting up a very successful event, friend that was paying for me not playing anymore, not enjoying end-game things, hating PvP, etc etc) I decided to part ways with the game. I figured that I'd had enough money from other computer repair things I'd done to warrant going back to the US servers. I called up Bliz and see if it was possible to transfer my wrath expansion from EU to the US version. They said there would be no way, so I said forget it, not going to come back to US servers if I'd have to re-buy the expansion.

Within 3 hours of that call, I got an e-mail from US GM support stating that the account was being locked for in game advertising. I replied that I didn't even have the game installed, and hadn't had a subscription on it for like ever. They suggested I have the password changed and reset. So I went through those little stupidities of confirming that my system was clear of virus' and stuff. I got e-mailed my new random lettered and numbered password, signed into the account management, and found that that rep I talked to apparently applied a free 14 day trial of the new expansion ... despite me saying I wasn't going to come back. About 3 minutes later I get another e-mail stating that advertising had been done again.

I called up the support again, and stated that it couldn't be me because I don't even have the game installed on my system. The password hadn't been changed either. Apparently the password retrieval thing where "I forgot my password" uses the secret question/answer, and rather than e-mailing the password, it just displays the current one on their site! Now this is when the rep told me that was probably the case. I asked them what I could do about it, and they stated I'd have to get a security token to keep it secure. I asked if they could just change the secret question/answer. They replied that those things cannot be changed, ever. So I then stated that if that was the way that they were getting in, when were they going to send me my free security token as that was the only way to lock it down. They laughed and said that I'd have to purchase it. I told them to lock the account down and mark the whole account as stolen, and no desire to return.

Sighing I returned to free MMO land, still hopping on my friend's vent server from time to time. One day though, one of the people asked "Hey, so you're back?" I was like "um, no, I'm playing another game right now". Apparently my character was logged in, and was in wintergrasp mining up a storm, which was out of place, as my chosen gatherings while playing is always skinning and herbalism. They followed me around for a while and noted that I was apparently walking through trees and stuff. So I went to log into my account management page and change the password. Funny thing though, a security token had been applied to the account, so I couldn't get in.

I contacted support via e-mail (as I wasn't about to call international to tell them to lock the account) and stated that the account was stolen and being paid for by someone else, along with the fact that the security token was applied to the account. They've locked the account after a month of watching the account, the security token and everything. Apparently the token was applied to 9 other accounts that were also apparently stolen. Yay? I helped get 10 accounts toasted? I dunno.

Either way, I'm done with both FFXI and WoW. So now I'm wanting to get onto EverQuest 2, but like before, I've not got money to purchase the game, nor the monthly subscriptions. So here's where I ask for either a donation (found a way to get it in the sidebar finally) or if anyone would be willing to pay for the monthly subscription while I scrounge up the money to purchase the game itself? Could do the Recruit A Friend thing I suppose so that you'd get some good exp along with helping me learn the world?

That's good for today I suppose heh heh. writing again tomorrow about ... I dunno yet, but we'll see.

Vacation over :( …… and a bit on MMO Crafting

So, the wife's vacation is now over, so sad. I enjoyed the time I was able to spend with her greatly. We'd gotten to do a few things over this vacation that I didn't write about, so here we go...

As already written, we did the family reunion thing last Saturday, which was cool in some parts, depressing in others, and painful at the end (I was sore as heck but meh).

Sunday was time to get collars for the puppies.

Monday was the puppies first shots, which wiped the money out of our pockets that we didn't have.

Tuesday was um...oh yes, an appointment for my wife at an augmentation office (get things evened out, and back to prior size).

Wednesday was supposed to be the day to take my parents to Animal Kingdom (which my Dad keeps forgetting that he's been to it), but my wife ended up being sick, so I made her stay in bed all day...not to mention that one of my Dad's friends had a stroke and didn't want the ambulance, so he had to go help the guy to the hospital.

Thursday my wife went with her sister, a niece, and our oldest daughter, to some outlet mall somewhere to hang out (my wife doesn't get to hang out with her sisters much at all, they all live so far away).

Friday, was the 'make up' day for Animal Kingdom. Hopefully by spending a whole day and doing almost everything in the park will be more memorable for my Dad and he'll remember being there. The day was supposed to be really friggin hot, but luckily for us, the lovely Florida rain came along to cool it down. Also lucky, it wasn't the ugly "I'll spit on the ground, then let the sun come out to make life a muggy mess", but rather a nice downpour (while we just happened to be inside eating lunch) and a continuous sprinkle through the rest of the day.

Saturday was a relaxation day, we did go to the store and get some groceries following a food plan so we didn't get too much, and which should cover us until Thursday when we get money again from paycheck.

Today, well, is the day my wive's gotta go back to work. I'll let her relax and get her internal clock somewhat back in line so that she can be able to work and not be super tired.

Only like 4.5 days left on my (first) trial in EverQuest 2. I'd really like to be able to play this for a while and see how dungeons and how friendly a guild I can find would be. I'm having to laugh at all the things that are in EQ2 that have been taken into other MMORPGs. Yes, you may say that all MMORPGs take things from each other, and they've become 'standard' things, like gathering of materials from the land to craft stuff up. The differences in craft systems in the big MMOs are different from each other, so each has it's own quirk so to say.

So let's look at crafting across a few MMOs that are big on the market: EverQuest (and 2), Final Fantasy XI, and World of Warcraft. EQ (I think) was the first MMORPG out of the three, their crafting system you'd have to find/buy the recipe for what you had to craft. Now when you went to craft things, if it was trivial to your skill, you could succeed flawlessly, if it was around your skill level you may get hurt by the crafting machine backfiring on you if you failed on the crafting. If you failed critically, say on a craft that was much higher than your current skill...well you'd DIE! In EQ2 they've slowed down the whole "blow yourself up" bit, and made the crafting a little more interactive, wherein you have to keep the durability of whatever you're crafting up high, while trying to push the progress bar up as well. Little "impurities" pop up and you have to use a skill to counter that impurity, if you succeed, you'll get a big bump in durability and/or progress. But if you fail at it, one of a few things can happen, small hit to durability and/or progress, large hit to the same, or... it could hurt you. Of course, you could die to this if you aren't careful.

Now how about WoW, the newest of the three. Crafting is roughly the same, wherein you have to purchase/find the recipes. But there is no failures. So no matter what, you don't have to worry about failing, or dying, and there's no interaction whatsoever. Just push button, watch it go.

So, what about FFXI? Well, granted this came out after EQ, I'm not sure entirely if this came out before or after EQ2, but I know that EQ2 was out and the crafting system above was in play before FFXI did something recently with their crafting. Unlike EQ(2) and WoW, you don't gather materials off the ground, you have to farm them up by killing creatures and hope the materials you need drop. Secondly, you don't have a recipe book so to say, you have to know the recipe yourself, or have it written down OUTSIDE THE GAME. Which means more than likely you'll have the FFXI Wiki up in another window at all times to look up how to craft something you want, or to look up the recipe that you forgot. FFXI used crystals for a time to craft, no interaction except some thoughts that depending on what direction you faced with which crystal increased your success rate or high quality success rate. Once you fired up the combination, you had no interaction. Now, the funny thing is that recently FFXI has implemented a 'new' crafting method. You have to find a pot somewhere (or have crafted a portable one) and start crafting with it. While crafting impurities will come up which you have to react to or risk getting harmed. You have to get the item 'pure' enough to extract the proper thing you were trying to craft. Again, you have to know the combination to make it. Sound familiar? Well, there is a small difference between this and EQ2's method...You can involve your party in the crafting process as well in FFXI. So your party members could be tasked with keeping valves turned properly, or make sure the pressure in this pot isn't too high or low, or just help by sitting there letting their other craft skill help in the creation of whatever item. Yea, see, in FFXI if you didn't know, you can only have one main craft with crystals. These pot combinations, some of them require that you have the main craft up high on two or more crafts. So that uber weapon you wanted to craft in this pot? yea, you've gotta find another player that has high crafting in other crafts, not to mention also have a good amount of this pot crafting method as well.

So yea, each has their own little quirks somewhat. Each has it's own difficulty. EQ's you gotta make sure not to drop the durability down too much, but still relatively easy. FFXI you've gotta have a wiki or external paperwork showing what recipes you can make. While WoW you just ... do it. I'm not sure if this makes FFXI the hardest crafting system as you've gotta kill creatures to farm up your craft items, along with having to know the combinations outside the game to make anything. Or would EQ's be harder as you do have to make sure not to ruin your item while you're trying to craft (sometimes taking a long time to make something). Hands down WoW's is the easiest, push button, watch it craft and succeed. I'd probably have to say: FFXI > EQ2 > WoW in terms of difficulty of crafting.

With this one system, you can see that if you're into crafting, and want a ton of challenge, go for FFXI. If you'd prefer an idiot's method to crafting, go for WoW. If you'd like a little middle ground, hit up EQ2. There are other things that make each game nice, but everything that I could point out has them in the same order for difficulty. Partying? FFXI it's basically the life of the game, you HAVE to party to get anywhere past 10. WoW and EQ2, both solo friendly, but have party only areas. Questing? FFXI doesn't have any indicators who has a quest for you, you have to know, have wiki up to know, or randomly talk to the NPC's. WoW and EQ2, both have indicators as to where a quest is available, but WoW sometimes sends you back and forth between areas to complete some quests, EQ2 hasn't done that to me yet, but I'm sure it may happen.

So yea, pick your MMORPG carefully. If you want a kid friendly, easy as heck MMO, go for World of Warcraft (oh, and make sure your secret question/answer isn't anything searchable in a dictionary...the gold sellers use that to get your password, and you're not informed when they try and/or succeed. Not to mention that Blizzard can NOT change this secret question / answer EVER. I've lost two accounts, one in US servers, and one in EU servers to this. I'll write about this either later or tomorrow). If you're looking for a crazy difficult challenge, go for FFXI (be ready to be inundated with gold sellers sending you tells, unless they've finally fixed that in the last couple months). Want ease of experience gain, semi-difficult crafting system, and good party atmosphere, go EQ2.

Vacationing

So, my wife's on vacation this week...it started Saturday, which was when we went to the family reunion and stuff. Sunday we hung out a little bit, Monday came a bit of shopping to get collars for the puppies (which will soon be grown out of, man they're growing fast) ... Tuesday was a doc appt. Wednesday was supposed to be a day to go to Disney with the family, but my wife got sick overnight and spend most of the day sleeping (at my pestering that she needed it). She's gotten better so that's a good thing. Thursday, well, my wife's sister came over, and they had a girl's day out shopping.

So here it comes to today. We're slated to go ahead and go to Disney again today. Everything seems to be in order, except for the fact that I'm STILL dealing with SunTrust trying to get our flipping money back that they basically stole from me. Apparently when I called last week stating that we had gotten official word that the provisional credit they applied on our account, someone went ahead and put in the request to get our NSF fees back... but as of this moment, nope, still not there. So yea, not too pleased with them right now.

Well, main reason I'm up this early? The puppies of course. They started barking so I had to let them out. Alarm going to go off here in a little bit to wake up my wife and I ... but of course, yea. This was going to be a good morning, but I realized one small thing ... we've got no food in the house, especially for breakfast. Yea, this fraud crap has had us on lock-down for spending any money on our own flippin food supplies.

So, on a lighter note, I'd still like to get EQ2, which I've dumped in my wishlists a few different places. 'Course I'd prefer to get it on my steam account, but who's really going to do that for me? Didn't think so. If for any reason there were anyone that pops into this blog when I tweet it in a little bit, that'd like to donate some money, I'll see about plugging in a donation button or something.

*meh, edit... can't seem to find easily somewhere to plug in a donation button from paypal, so here you go:

Family Reunion yesterday

So, yesterday was the Family Reunion for my wife's side of the family. We went to a little park called Horseshoe Lake . A couple of families got themselves cabins to sleep in and store stuff while the party went on. So we did have a place to go if we wanted to go get out of the heat.

The park itself was pretty nice, not too terribly big, and had canoes for people that wanted to do that on the pretty good sized lake. A trail led around the lake from what I saw, but I didn't think I could make the trek without my cane, or someone else just in case. See, the main problem, well, maybe not a 'problem' per say ... was the fact that there was no cell service where we were at for the most part, for anyone, and there was a good variety of service carriers there. The lake had a roped off section for swimming, and the water was nice and warm, not too hot, and not at all cold.

The lunch was pretty nice, albeit annoying with all the flies that decided to show up and try to eat everything. There were hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken. For desert, what my wife and I were tasked to bring, there were chocolate swirled cheesecake, tiramisu, and a sugar free red velvet cake. See, the sugar free was because one of the people that unfortunately didn't get to show up, can't have sugar. Everyone had a blast, and for the most part, the food got all eaten. Heck, even half of the red velvet cake got eaten. It's not that it wasn't good, it was just that everyone was full (that, and the fact that the one person that was supposed to come would have brought like 5 others with them).

All in all, it was a great day, I swam a fair bit, the kids enjoyed themselves, my wife had a good time, and the family got to get together again. It is always a blast to hang out with her family. They say they're all crazy at some point in time, and that's not a bad thing.

Of course, seeing as I was gone all day yesterday, no video games were played, just the family time and swimming...and of course the eating. Even through all that yesterday that I ate, I did manage to loose a little weight. I am attempting to loose a fair bit of weight, and I can't seem to break that 200 barrier ... floating around 202 on a good day now, which, is better than the 215-220 I was a couple weeks ago. I can't exactly exercise like I would need / like to do as my back problems prevent me from doing that.

Apparently on my last visit to my VA doc, well, I should say my next / new VA doc (they say he'll stay around so I should get shuffled to another doc again...we'll see), anyway, he stated that my last MRI I had gotten was reported to have the herniation that I already knew about, and that it is also torn. He also stated that some chemical levels in my system were out of whack and I need to see some urologist to find out if I've got a blocking kidney stone or something like that. Seeing as he's not sure as to what it is, I was instructed to stop taking any meds for pain, and only take extra strength Tylenol ... which I don't have any of, but he'll be sending me some higher strength stuff that he wants me to take. I'm still waiting for the appointment to see a neurosurgeon about possibly attempting to fix my back.

Oh, and it does seem that Bright House does read the blog, either that or they've got a filter checking thing to watch for any complaints, as I did get a comment yesterday from someone. I'll e-mail them as requested sometime later, possibly today, possibly tomorrow.

The happenings for yesterday somewhat

So, we're getting some foodstuffs ready for the family reunion tomorrow. It'll be a hectic night as well when my wife gets home.

Yesterday my brother had stated that that was his 5th day in a row for his ISP to be out at his house with multiple techs and maint people trying to figure out where his problem was... Apparently a couple poles down the road the signal was fine, so they're trying to figure out where the problem is. Seems simple enough to me... something between two poles down and his house, is a faulty line... replace from that pole to the one next closer to his house ... if that doesn't fix it, do the next one as well. If that still doesn't fix it, well, something's wrong with the node / junction at that pole or the next one.

He also stated that he's got a blog on here as well and he posts his little rants... apparently within 12 hours of him posting a rant about his connection, corporate office called him trying to figure out what to do. The big problem that he's got over there is the fact that his wife works from home, and requires a reliable internet connection to handle customer's issues. Not to mention that the phone calls that are routed to her go through the internet as well...

Of course, I've not bitched about my internet connection at all, so I'm not sure if Bright House watches where I go or what I post (well, I'm sure they watch something but meh)... Would be kind of interesting to post up some random rant about my connection (that has had issues at least once a month for the entire 6 years I've been in this house) or my TV reception (that has digital static here and there) the entire time I decided to start having the TV services .... 'course I still have to laugh at their ads "Home of FREE HD" ... yea, but you have to pay extra for the HD cable box so that you can get HD quality on those FREE HD channels.

I decided to use an OLLLLLLD E-mail to sign up for EverQuest 2 trial period of 14 days thing ... they've apparently got a little 'challenge' going on where if you start up a trial account, and get to level 20, you get some "knight" title ... woopie I say ... I mean I only played for like 4-5 hours yesterday and already have gotten level 14.

What can I say about EQ2? Well, it is a pretty world, I've not gotten some of the nice things out of it that may be possible, but I haven't really looked either. There is no 'bag sort' thing to sort your bags so that you can organize things into equipment, consumables, gathered stuff, etc etc. I think there's addons or something like that as they have a specialty map thing available through them. Guess I'll look that up later.

I would like to stick to this one for a while, but of course, being that it would take me $40 to buy the package game with all the expansions and adventure packs, then the $15 a month for the MRC's ... I don't think I'll be able to for a while, unless one of my readers wants to get it for me...oh, and pay for the monthlies up until I can get a job and pay for it on my own... perhaps I can ask one of my friends in the UK to do that LOL...

A break recently = what exactly?

Well, a few months ago I was dealing with a fraud issue wherein some random company I had never heard of, charged my account on two different days in two different months not even close to each other... the amount they stole? almost $600 ... I contacted the bank to be able to try to fix things up and get my money back.

Everything was going great, or so I thought. They sent me paperwork to be able to sign, date, and state that I didn't know this company that charged me. I sent it back via the snail mail as per the method they sent it to me... I got contacted a bit later stating that they hadn't received the paperwork, and they would send me out some replacements to fill out and return again. I got that paperwork, re-filled it out, and re-sent it the same day again.

Well, apparently they didn't get that paperwork again, and instead of calling me about it or anything, they reversed the charges on the account they had given to me via their 'provisional' credit means... this put my account under it's balance yet again, and incurred some nonsufficient charges onto the account. When I contacted the fraud department, they stated that they had given me more than enough time to return the paperwork, and therefore they are not responsible for the NSF charges that came to be when they took the provisional credit off the account.

I went down to the bank and spoke with one person who stated that the fraud department has had issues with not getting the paperwork. So, we printed off the paperwork, filled it out, she also signed it, and she faxed it off to the fraud department. This was done the day we were going to go to Disney without the kids :) . A few days later a credit was applied to the account, but only for a part of the fraud issue at hand. I went back down to the bank and spoke with another person. They stated that the fraud department would have to investigate deeper into the second part of the refund. The rep stated that it usually takes them 24 to 48 hours to finish an investigation.

48 hours later, nothing was applied to my account, not even a provisional credit... so we'd been sitting for almost a whole week with a negative amount in the bank account, and thus, unable to purchase anything. This time I took my wife in with me to see a supervisor ... They got in contact with the fraud department, and stated that things needed to be worked upon to get our money back, seeing as they'd given us half of what was stolen. She got the supervisor's name in the fraud department that would be put in charge of the investigation as things were taking entirely too long. This supervisor at the bank contacted me later that day stating she hadn't gotten to talk to the supervisor in the fraud side of things and she'd try again the next day. So the next day she calls me in the afternoon, apparently the second part of the fraud was "too far gone" in means of the date of the original charge on my account to that date. We would have to wait on the company that originally took my money to give that money back to the bank...that could take up to 20 days apparently.

Well, finally around a week ago, they put on a provisional credit on the account for the other part of the fraud thing. And just today, I got a letter in the mail stating that the provisional credit issued to my account would now be final. So there we go, the fraud issue is complete, we've got our money back from the thieves... Now to get back in contact with the people at the bank itself to work on getting my NSF fees returned to us...yea, almost $300 worth of NSF that was caused by the fraud department.

In the mean time, what have I been playing? ... Monster Hunter 3! So, I've beaten the offline game ... at least the main storyline of it. All I have left is some 'urgent' quests that come up after beating the end elder dragon of the offline game. These are all slaying of two boss creatures that are present in the map at the same time ... sometimes both visiting you at the same time. The online portion, well I'm in my 5* difficulty portion and currently mainly am gathering materials and stuff to upgrade my armours and weaponry.

Well, for the rest of what's going on in my life? Well, Saturday is a family reunion on my wife's side of the family. We are tasked with bringing the deserts. This reunion is going to be for 40+ people! Some individuals are on diets, or are diabetic, so we have made a red velvet layered cake that is sugar free! We are also making a couple of cheese cakes that are a family recipe of sorts (well, it's in a cook book that's been passed down through her family...). We are also going to be making some tiramisu or however it's spelled.. only it's not going to be in single serve cups, we're actually going to use a large Pyrex container to put it in. We hope that what we're bringing will be enough to serve to everyone. The reunion is happening about 2 hours drive away from our place, so Friday we'll be picking up some dry ice to keep the goods cold for the entire trip.

Of course, all this stuff that needs to be done still, means that I've got LOTS to do around the house to make sure that we can prep everything in time. This is hard seeing as my wife still has to be at work, and she works evenings, not getting home until midnight or later. Of course, that'll be hard on both of us seeing as Friday night or Saturday morning is when we will be making the tiramisu, and I'll be driving at like 6:00 AM on Saturday to start on our way to the reunion... sleep? Over-rated, as the Marine corps and other hard-core gamers would state.