The word of the week is VACATION!
Vacation Update: Flight's booked! I'll be in Niagara Aug 17-27th. Huzzah!
I'm finalizing a place to stay, but I should have wheels( rental car )while there.
There are no specific plans, just seeing my friends and family and relaxing. :-) Sweet!
Looking forward to seeing everyone! Please pass on the visit news... I don't want to forget anyone who'd like to grab a coffee or beer while I'm there!
July 25 - Magical Games Of Old!
Back in the day, video games were all about the gameplay; fancy graphics were for arcade consoles and not home computers. Yet things were about to get shaken up: Out Of This World was released to gamers in 1992. I remember watching the opening sequence and being just blown away by the liquid smoothness of the animation, as well as the storytelling. This was a game that would set the stage for later classics such as Half-Life( also known for its amazing cinematic intro )and of course, Neverwinter Nights( ahem ). As the article says, it was something magical, and I still today look for games to bring me that deeply into the experience - to find the magic again.
July 26 - Conventions!
I've only been to two WorldCon conventions in all my years( 1998 in Boston and 2003 in Toronto )so I feel I'm due for another one soon - overdue, in fact. I'm MUCH closer now to the city of San Diego, home of the massive ComicCon. One really fun aspect of a convention are the costumes, and this year's ComiCon2011 did not disappoint! Take a gander at the hundreds of incredible costumes that convention-goers donned in this gallery - standouts in my eyes are the She-hulk grasping a parking meter and the reverse-gender Avengers team. No sign of ten-foot tall aliens from Avatar, strangely; you'd think there'd be at least one in the crowd...? In any case, I am giving serious thought to attending FanExpo2011 in Toronto when I am in Niagara in a few weeks towards the end of my visit - lots of g33ky goodness there!
July 27 - Friendship
These last few years, I've been giving some serious thought to what true friendship is, as living in a 'friend desert' out here has naturally had me thinking on the topic. I won't go into too much detail, just to toss my more thoughtful conclusions out there - you can Google your own ideas on the subject too, I'm sure. No, one of the 'pillars' of my Self is that I consider myself to be a good friend - not the best, certainly, but one who strives to improve himself as a friend and learn from his mistakes to become a better person too. It may sound corny, but I like to think I'd make a decent chivalric knight of old: to speak the truth, to be loyal, to be kind and to follow other tenets of knighthood as best one can - without going overboard, naturally. Everyone has to find meaning in their lives, with the help of others and through self-reflection. However that meaning manifests itself( religion, politics, volunteering.. )then I want to be there for my friends - without getting tangled in religion or politics or other things. Complicated, isn't it?
July 28 – Vacation approved! FINALLY!
Out of the blue today, our new temporary DM told me that she’d approved my vacation time – probably because I’d dropped numerous hints about how the district staff were all in dire need of vacations that the previous DM had not approved. Myself at the top of the list with 230 hours of banked vacation time that I’ve not been able to use( that’s close to 6 weeks, folks! )due to lack of staff in the area. As I've mentioned, we have a few new people coming on-line this month, which I'm gratified to see... as we keep losing others, so the situation still hasn't righted itself. Of course if I go, that just makes it all the harder for the others... but I am confident that the current staff in the district can make things work without me. Mainly because I now only get a few calls a day from people wanting to know how to do things, instead of a few every hour... that can wear on you, no matter how much you want to help out.
July 29 - It Looks Good!
The new video card for my desktop PC is performing splendidly, though it is eating up quite a bit of power - about 100W when running, which is a LOT for a video card. Thankfully the heat is manageable so far, and it's kicking butt running BOINC data 24/7 when the PC's idle. I've also been feeding my DVD collection into the PC( turned into .MKV files )so I can get my collection into a digital format to watch wherever I please - and view them much more easily than having to pop discs into the DVD player for every episode. Even though we're living in the 'Post-PC era' I think there's still a place for desktop PC's: mine is where my media resides, as well as running high-end games that I can't on my Xbox or my tablet. Plus it has room to expand( again unlike my other devices )with space for another 6 hard drives... and since 'uploading to the cloud' would take weeks( or months )with all the data I plan to have, that's just not a practical option. Broadband is still not where it needs to be: speedy AND affordable! Next on my PC wishlist: The Big O ... $17K of personal desktop power!
July 30 - A Perfect Saturday - Missed!
Augh...the weather turned perfect today and I was stuck inside until after 7pm at work; at least it was made bearable by my new trainee continuing to exceed all my expectations. I understand again the old saw about a teacher's joy being a good student; when it's easy to teach someone new things and not have to repeat yourself constantly, the whole process becomes a treat for everyone. Even when I managed to overflow the sink in the kitchenette, it was funny... and I learned a few things about cleanup too. Funny as well that it's the third time that branch has flooded, but only the first time that it's been my fault. Not a big flood, mind you. In any case I eased myself into my chair at home to use my PC... and found my Win7 partition had vanished from my PC. Argh - took me the rest of the night to get it back, but again: I learned and dealt with it.
July 31 - Summer At Last!
The final day of July; I have to say it hasn't been much of a summer for me. The weather's been consistently cool and cloudy up until this weekend( with one exception )and I haven't got out much to do Outdoorsy Things. In the main thanks to massive work stress( and not finding a new job or having vacation time! )and other family considerations, it's been a rather blah month. Even today, I went into work( on my day off )for an hour to help out my 1-year CSR to deal with the massive crush of people that have descended on the branch this weekend, WELL beyond anything we'd imagined based on previous projections. She held it together though, so I didn't mind going in to get her onto an even keel again. I was still tired when I got home, but I made it through a good NWN romp where slimes and other nasties tried to ruin my day; I ruined theirs instead and it was very cathartic. Probably why I still play the same game: I started it at the same time as I started at MMart ten years ago. Coincidence? Perhaps... or just Fate telling me not to think about it too much. Hrmmm....
I'll close with this: Nathan Fillion rocks. Why? Because he named my fave movie as being the one that almost made him cry... oh, and this poem popped into my head last night with the wind:
Winds are howling outside the room tonight.
Closed shutters creak, and then all groan in fright.
What darkling shapes creep into shadowed sight?
Stop up your ears and pray for morning's light.
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