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Aug. 21st, 2007 08:40 amThere has been so very much going on this past week; it's hard to know where to start. I don't usually take a lunch hour at work, but I'm using a few minutes here to catch up on things between tickets so I don't lose the memories.
Friday was the first session of Shale's D20 modern game. Despite the fact that I think D20 modern is a waste of perfectly good paper and effort (D20 in general makes me grumpy and modern particularly so), I got past that and had a really good time. It's been a very long time since I sat down to a pen and paper role-playing game and the experience was great. As nervous as it still makes me to do so, I was much more able to do actual role-playing, as opposed to just sort of being there and swinging a sword or casting combat spells. Admittely, the last time I was really involved in a campaign was probably the better part of ten years ago, so I guess that's understandable. It wasn't that I didn't want to get into acting the part of my character; it just embarrassed me. It still does a little bit; I guess that's just my nature. But it was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to next time.
We were at Shale's place until quite late; I can't remember if it was before or after midnight that we finally broke up for the night. Since Andrea's car was still in the shop and she was driving my truck, Posi was kind enough to drive me home. Since that adds a little over an hour to his trip, I'm very appreciative. It was about two o' clock when he dropped me off I think.
I got up early Saturday morning to help![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
barton_fender out with his computer. The plan had been to go over about eight o' clock. I was about half an hour after that, but I still managed to wipe and recreate the OS partition, install Windows XP (thanks again Posi!), get it patched up to date, and install a few other handy things like Ghost. Unfortunately, I realize as I'm writing this that I forgot to go back to switch to the second DVD when the first one filled up with backed up hard drive. Sorry about that!
I took a break from that around noon to go back to my house to meet someone from the LAFF list who was there to pick up hardware from me. He left with a few Dell Latitude laptops and other random stuff. I'm so happy to have significantly less old hardware sitting on the porch. I'd guess that about seventy-five pounds of hardware left my house with one person or another since the beginning of last week. Anyway, got to meet another techy-fur briefly before going back to work on my dad's machine again.
After that was all done and I got home again, Andrea and I found a little time for each other (which is getting harder to do these days) beforesabrinageek showed up to hang out and have dinner. We got food at the Chinese buffet, went shopping at Goodwill (I picked up a couple of pretties there!) and we looked at the Amiga 2000 hardware and software I had in the basement which ended up going home with her. With her to explain, since I don't know Amiga hardware that well, I found out that it had a 386 bridge board in it that will let you operate the computer as an Amiga platform or as a PC-compatible platform running DOS. That's pretty cool. The three of us got to just sit and talk for a while too, which was really pleasant. We don't get to see enough of a lot of people, and she's one of them.
Then we got to Sunday morning, wherein I significantly overslept. I was supposed to get up tomocha_mephooki's place to help her out with her computer and wireless network, but I ended up not getting out of be 'till close to eleven. I'm sorry about that! It didn't help that, on the way up, I heard on my CB radio that the 894 bypass ramp was closed down due to an accident. Turning the radio to the traffic information frequency, I confirmed the news and set about trying to find an alternate path. One of the truckers said something about taking Ryan road, so I did. I managed to only get minorly lost as I wended my way through Hale's Corners and other small towns, but I did manager to find Mocha's place around one o' clock.
It didn't take too long to drop a 10/100 NIC in her computer (no problem a'tall) and get the new router plugged in and set up. After some weirdness involving her computer not wanting to see the new network (couldn't figure out why and then it just resolved itself), I had everything up and running. Hopefully it will stay that way.
Then, the two of us went out for Chinese buffet (yes, again, I know). It was the first one I've ever been to that had the vat o' cheese that I love taking advantage of at Old Country and Golden Corral. So I took the opportunity to try cheese-slathered dim-sum, Genera Tso's Chicken, and a few other Chinese tid-bits. The result was not spectacular; at best, it was interesting.
The two of us had talked about going to the zoo, or to the Milwaukee gardens, but rain and lateness of hour kept us from both, though I do very much hope to see both of them another time. Instead, we found ourselves at American Science and Surplus. I picked up a 6" 12 volt blacklight bar for my computer, and nearly bought a set of three large (probably three inches across) ball bearings to juggle but decided against spending seven bucks a piece for them.
Instead, I found that I'd unwittingly saved my money to buy manga at the next stop, the comic book store next door. As comic shops go, it was a pretty neat one. Not quite as overstuffed and underground feeling as Rockhead's in Kenosha, but there was an impressive selection of comics, manga, animè, action figures, and gaming books. Fun place.
And, best of all, Mocha and I got to spend some time talking and getting to know each other a little better. I like her and hope for more chances to do that.
After getting back to her place, I showed her the set of pictures I'd taken on my last trip go Gary (haven't had time to edit and post any of them yet; sorry) and she showed me one that a friend of hers had taken from the roof of a building at his university. Nifty!
Around seven, Mocha and her mate were going to go out to karaoke, and she called Andrea to find out if she wanted to go. Andrea told me thatposicat and tybis were going to get dinner down in Gurnee, so, since karaoke and loud bars aren't quite my thing, we decided to switch places. She would come up for karaoke and I would go down to Gurnee.
Once I got there, Andrea was waiting for me with news. My dad had to take my dog, Scribbles, to the vet that night, and Scribbles did not come back home.
I got Scribbles from a friend of a friend when I was much younger. I don't know how long ago exactly, but it was long before I met Andrea (it's funny how certain things become de facto yardsticks for measuring your life, isn't it?). She was a little Beagle puppy, small enough to hold in one hand with room to spare. She'd been in poor health lately; she was having lots of seizures and having trouble getting up and down stairs. They'd just put her on anti-seizure medication, but she was still getting worse. On Sunday she was the worse she'd been, and they made the decision to end her suffering. I was sad but, having seen her on Saturday, I knew that, just as with Laszo it was the right choice. I'd really felt on Saturday that I was saying goodbye to her as I petted her and praised her between working on my dad's computer, and I'm glad I had the chance to. I'm grateful to my mate as well for foregoing her trip to come give me the news.
It was late again once we all got home, and I was so tired at work on Monday. I've got to start getting to bed earlier. Didn't manage to last night either; Posi and Tybis and Andrea and I all got together for a run on Gurnee Mills and then a little sitting around the apartment. Today though, I'm going to work on cleaning up the house a bit more, maybe see if running the air conditioning will get the oppressive humidity out of the air, and then go to bed early, maybe ten o' clock or so.
Friday was the first session of Shale's D20 modern game. Despite the fact that I think D20 modern is a waste of perfectly good paper and effort (D20 in general makes me grumpy and modern particularly so), I got past that and had a really good time. It's been a very long time since I sat down to a pen and paper role-playing game and the experience was great. As nervous as it still makes me to do so, I was much more able to do actual role-playing, as opposed to just sort of being there and swinging a sword or casting combat spells. Admittely, the last time I was really involved in a campaign was probably the better part of ten years ago, so I guess that's understandable. It wasn't that I didn't want to get into acting the part of my character; it just embarrassed me. It still does a little bit; I guess that's just my nature. But it was a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to next time.
We were at Shale's place until quite late; I can't remember if it was before or after midnight that we finally broke up for the night. Since Andrea's car was still in the shop and she was driving my truck, Posi was kind enough to drive me home. Since that adds a little over an hour to his trip, I'm very appreciative. It was about two o' clock when he dropped me off I think.
I got up early Saturday morning to help
barton_fender out with his computer. The plan had been to go over about eight o' clock. I was about half an hour after that, but I still managed to wipe and recreate the OS partition, install Windows XP (thanks again Posi!), get it patched up to date, and install a few other handy things like Ghost. Unfortunately, I realize as I'm writing this that I forgot to go back to switch to the second DVD when the first one filled up with backed up hard drive. Sorry about that!I took a break from that around noon to go back to my house to meet someone from the LAFF list who was there to pick up hardware from me. He left with a few Dell Latitude laptops and other random stuff. I'm so happy to have significantly less old hardware sitting on the porch. I'd guess that about seventy-five pounds of hardware left my house with one person or another since the beginning of last week. Anyway, got to meet another techy-fur briefly before going back to work on my dad's machine again.
After that was all done and I got home again, Andrea and I found a little time for each other (which is getting harder to do these days) before
sabrinageek showed up to hang out and have dinner. We got food at the Chinese buffet, went shopping at Goodwill (I picked up a couple of pretties there!) and we looked at the Amiga 2000 hardware and software I had in the basement which ended up going home with her. With her to explain, since I don't know Amiga hardware that well, I found out that it had a 386 bridge board in it that will let you operate the computer as an Amiga platform or as a PC-compatible platform running DOS. That's pretty cool. The three of us got to just sit and talk for a while too, which was really pleasant. We don't get to see enough of a lot of people, and she's one of them.Then we got to Sunday morning, wherein I significantly overslept. I was supposed to get up to
mocha_mephooki's place to help her out with her computer and wireless network, but I ended up not getting out of be 'till close to eleven. I'm sorry about that! It didn't help that, on the way up, I heard on my CB radio that the 894 bypass ramp was closed down due to an accident. Turning the radio to the traffic information frequency, I confirmed the news and set about trying to find an alternate path. One of the truckers said something about taking Ryan road, so I did. I managed to only get minorly lost as I wended my way through Hale's Corners and other small towns, but I did manager to find Mocha's place around one o' clock.It didn't take too long to drop a 10/100 NIC in her computer (no problem a'tall) and get the new router plugged in and set up. After some weirdness involving her computer not wanting to see the new network (couldn't figure out why and then it just resolved itself), I had everything up and running. Hopefully it will stay that way.
Then, the two of us went out for Chinese buffet (yes, again, I know). It was the first one I've ever been to that had the vat o' cheese that I love taking advantage of at Old Country and Golden Corral. So I took the opportunity to try cheese-slathered dim-sum, Genera Tso's Chicken, and a few other Chinese tid-bits. The result was not spectacular; at best, it was interesting.
The two of us had talked about going to the zoo, or to the Milwaukee gardens, but rain and lateness of hour kept us from both, though I do very much hope to see both of them another time. Instead, we found ourselves at American Science and Surplus. I picked up a 6" 12 volt blacklight bar for my computer, and nearly bought a set of three large (probably three inches across) ball bearings to juggle but decided against spending seven bucks a piece for them.
Instead, I found that I'd unwittingly saved my money to buy manga at the next stop, the comic book store next door. As comic shops go, it was a pretty neat one. Not quite as overstuffed and underground feeling as Rockhead's in Kenosha, but there was an impressive selection of comics, manga, animè, action figures, and gaming books. Fun place.
And, best of all, Mocha and I got to spend some time talking and getting to know each other a little better. I like her and hope for more chances to do that.
After getting back to her place, I showed her the set of pictures I'd taken on my last trip go Gary (haven't had time to edit and post any of them yet; sorry) and she showed me one that a friend of hers had taken from the roof of a building at his university. Nifty!
Around seven, Mocha and her mate were going to go out to karaoke, and she called Andrea to find out if she wanted to go. Andrea told me that
posicat and tybis were going to get dinner down in Gurnee, so, since karaoke and loud bars aren't quite my thing, we decided to switch places. She would come up for karaoke and I would go down to Gurnee.Once I got there, Andrea was waiting for me with news. My dad had to take my dog, Scribbles, to the vet that night, and Scribbles did not come back home.
I got Scribbles from a friend of a friend when I was much younger. I don't know how long ago exactly, but it was long before I met Andrea (it's funny how certain things become de facto yardsticks for measuring your life, isn't it?). She was a little Beagle puppy, small enough to hold in one hand with room to spare. She'd been in poor health lately; she was having lots of seizures and having trouble getting up and down stairs. They'd just put her on anti-seizure medication, but she was still getting worse. On Sunday she was the worse she'd been, and they made the decision to end her suffering. I was sad but, having seen her on Saturday, I knew that, just as with Laszo it was the right choice. I'd really felt on Saturday that I was saying goodbye to her as I petted her and praised her between working on my dad's computer, and I'm glad I had the chance to. I'm grateful to my mate as well for foregoing her trip to come give me the news.
It was late again once we all got home, and I was so tired at work on Monday. I've got to start getting to bed earlier. Didn't manage to last night either; Posi and Tybis and Andrea and I all got together for a run on Gurnee Mills and then a little sitting around the apartment. Today though, I'm going to work on cleaning up the house a bit more, maybe see if running the air conditioning will get the oppressive humidity out of the air, and then go to bed early, maybe ten o' clock or so.
