(no subject)

I am really excited about tomorrow. A group consisting of myself, wooisme, posicat, tybis, and Kuma the 'kitums are meeting up at Posi's place at eight in the morning to drive out to Orgeon, Illinois for the harvest festival and the Stronghold Renaissance faire. After that, we're all going to go up to Rockford to meet sabrinageek for dinner. A day spent road-tripping and taking pictures with friends will be superlatively welcome. Today can't be over fast enough.

As I may have noted, I had the day off yesterday to visit my doctor. I heard surprising things. He tells me that a little bit of caffiene may be good for you (I still don't plan on consuming any) and that I might want to try taking Ibuprofen every day for a couple of weeks to see if that has any long term effect on the inflammation in my wrist. I'm a little hesitant about that too; I avoid pharmaceuticals where I can and the idea of taking one that long is very out of habit for me. I suppose I ought to give it a try though.

My appointment was at eleven thirty. I got there at eleven thirty-one. The doctor saw me at twelve thirty after I spent about fifteen minutes in the waiting room and then forty-five in the exam room reading Japanese for Dummies (日本語　for ばか?). I opened the door and poked my head out a couple times but no one was around except for the doctor who was behind a closed door with another patient, so I just went back and waited. When he finally came in, he explained that he had a lot of older folks in that day so it took longer. We talked for half an hour while he did the checkup thing, then sent me to get an x-ray for my wrist just in case.

I waited in the sitting room outside the radiography room for about forty-five minutes while reading a really interesting issue of popular science. At about quarter to two, the woman at the registration desk came back expressed great surprise that I was still there. She investigated and found that my information had somehow never made it back to radiography from the desk. Oops.

About five minutes after that I had my x-ray done and got going. I'd planned to meet my grandfather around 2:30 in Richmond, so I called him to tell him I'd be late. I went home to get my laptop and a little food, then went to the Auto Zone nearby the house to get my battery checked since the truck has been hesitant to start lately. They said that the battery was not fully charged and couldn't be tested, but the terminals were corroded enough that that might be causing the problem in itself. After a cleaning, it does seem to be a little happier.

I got to my grandparents placed around four and hooked my laptop up their thirty-something inch plasma display. Wasn't sure what the native resolution on the thing was (if plasmas even have a native resolution) but the Forevertron, the House on the Rock, the abandoned buildings in Gary and Detroit, and the other things we looked at all looked quite impressive on it. Almost, almost, makes me want one myself.

I looked at a few of his pictures too, including some that he had blown up to ten inches or so; they looked really good. I have to try that with some of mine. I also talked to him about going up to the Story Corps booth in Milwaukee with me, and about going to visit the Forevertron. I'm thinking about maybe the weekend of the 20th for going out to Baraboo. I hope it isn't too cold by then. I also have to get the courage to call Doctor Evermore sometime soon and see if he'll be around at that point.

Rush rush rush consultants to ad to our system today. We have a five day service level agreement, but they need to be done right now anyway. I've been busy with that all day and with trying to get my Vista desktop to do everything I want it to. I gave up on that; it doesn't like the additional video card so I can only have two monitors, and it won't let me do searches within our ticket tracking system. That's a no-go. I guess I'll mess with it later.

Wanna go home now. I managed to get some DDR in yesterday, and even though my knees are a little sore, I'm looking forward to trying some more after work today.

(no subject)

I finally remembered to get the five pound hand weights out of Andrea's car and, while she went off to gather ingredients for the famous pasta of love, I pulled the Cobalt Flux out from under the couch and spun up DDR Max 2 in workout mode.

I used the hand weights for the first two hundred calories of workout, and then played another hundred and fifty calories worth of songs. The results were nifty.

I stopped with the hand weights where I did 'cause I wasn't up to doing much more with them. It didn't take more than a few minutes to start accounting for their weight when balancing my movements, but just holding them wore out my arms. Since that's the idea, I'm pleased.

But even better was that after I put them down and picked up the much lighter set that I've been using in the past (I think they're only one or two pounds), not just my arms but my entire body felt strangely light. I almost felt like I was floating as I did some of the jumps, and I nailed four or five double-A ratings out of six songs or so right off. I think it's much like that effect you get when you stand in a doorway and push your arms out against it for the span of a minute and you step out and it feels like your arms are floating. I sure hope my brain doesn't learn to compensate for that extra lightness, 'cause that was a really great feeling!

Shower now!