Wandering into Wealth, Water and Weekend Adventure

The word of the week is gallant.

March 4 - Missing Out

How different things could be...

Here's an example of what I might be doing right now, if my finances were all in order and the rest of my life was exactly the same: I'd have 'disposable income' that I can spend on things like vacations, a house of my own...

Or collectibles, like this magnificent beast:

Length: 49.35" Width: 14.64" Height (to top of sails): 17.01" Weight: 13.89 lbs

Now, at a whopping $499.99 USD, it's a LOT to swallow, but as THIS article shows, for the most part collectibles are proving to be sound investments for the future. Obviously, any that Fictional Financially-Soluble Me might get would be removed from box at least once and put on display... if not surreptitiously played with once or twice - for testing purposes, of course.

However, in the case of the above-mentioned Sail Barge, it looks like things have stalled at the halfway mark, with only 2468 of the 5000 backers necessary to bring the barge from prototype into full production.

Which is a shame, as it's the one toy that I'd always wished Hasbro( or Kenner, at the time )had released. It would have cost $200 in 1982 dollars, which compared to the $47.99 cost of the most expensive Star Wars toy at the time, the AT-AT( which I always wanted but never received )there's no way that the Sail Barge could have been released in the 1980's for anything approaching affordable prices.

It would be gratifying to see the Sail Barge make it into production this year, but even if it does, there's no way I'll be able to afford one... either now, or when they inevitably hit eBay for resale. 

Besides, I'd need a house with a third room just to display it in!

March 5 - The Lucky Rich?

Well, then: I don't feel so bad... about being 'smart' that is: apparently, it's jsut not enough to garner success all that often.

A new scientific study shows that the difference between failure and success for the most part comes down to luck, in taking opportunities as they present themselves... which is kind of depressing, as it jives with another article I read recently which comes to much the same conclusion.

What my takeaway from both articles is that the successful person has to be ready to recognize opportunities as they present themselves AND act upon them saliently: hindsight does you no good whatsoever when it comes to success.

So for me, 2018 is about the preparation: getting my hard work done, while keeping a weather eye out for any opportunities that present themselves. In the main, I think that will apply to a better GVT position, but who knows?

I might get lucky.

March 6 - Dreaming...

My dreams are boring.

As I've mentioned before, my imagination seems to run a kind of 'recharge cycle' at night, where instead of visiting fantastic worlds and spaceships, I wander around a mishmash of images of houses, shopping malls and the like.

It's weird, but that's my brain: doing the unexpected, all the time.

However, if it means that my daytime conscious-thought imagination is free to wander the wide spectrum of the universe, I'll take the trade-off. Dreaming of far-off worlds and futures is what I hope to make my bread-and-butter, sooner rather than later, and it means that my dreams are boring, then so be it.

Part of my future also doubles financial stability, and today I came across this excellent guide on how artists( especially writers! )can set themselves up to be self-supporting. In combination with this excellent article about writers finding financial success while balancing day jobs, I'm continuing to add to my working knowledge of how to make a living through the written word instead of working for somebody else...

That's the future I want to make real, instead of just dreaming about it.

March 7 - Blackadder

This week, I decided to laugh.

For various reasons, I was feeling down, so I searched through YouTube for something to watch at work while doing my usual paper-pushing... and I found the perfect solution: Blackadder!

I'd watched some of the original broadcasts on PBS and a few reruns here and there since( my parents were big British Humour fans )but I'd never sat down to watch the entire series through... which wasn't a huge task, seeing as there were only 6 episodes in each of the four seasons.

So that's what I did this week: I laughed my way through work.

Blackadder's a show that touts the triumph of wit above all else, even if it's only to lament the lousy luck that the titular antagonist finds himself at the mercy of time and again. Yet the highlight of Blackadder for me has always been the insults, which are some of the best and most memorable of any comedic creation - enjoy!

March 8 - New Neverwinter!!!

As mentioned briefly in a blog post last November, a new NWN update is coming!

What I didn't know until today is just how GOOD it's going to look:

As I mentioned back in November, I don't expect to have much time to go poking around again in NWN for a good part of 2018, but it's something I would like to do again before the end of the year. The enhanced graphics will go a long way to making the game feel less dated, and the online community will likely grow strong again with a single, integrated platform designed to foster connections between players and servers. That there's going to be some fun places to explore again, once various servers get their systems updated to work with the new Enhanced Edition, and I'm excited to go exploring again out there.

Neverwinter Nights is, after all, the best online adaptation of Dungeons And Dragons ever made! The question is though...

From 2011... and I stopped playing her in October of 2010. Retired, really.

Will Nich ever go home again?

March 9 - Dehydration Tension?

More water seems to have eased my troubles this week.

In looking at why I was getting such burning pains in my left leg, I wondered if I was still not getting enough water. I usually drink about a liter and a half of water from dawn to dark in the course of a day, but on Monday I checked on how much I might actually need, given my own individual variables.

I went to H4Initiative.com and plugged everything in, with this result:

As it turns out, I needed to almost double the amount of water I'm taking in, so I added another 750ml bottle to my day bag to take along. I resolved to finish the first bottle by lunch, and the second by dinner, following up with a couple glasses of water after dinner for good measure... but not much after 8pm, so I won't have to get up more than once during the night.

Five days later, it seems to have worked: the burning pain in my left leg muscles haven't returned, and I feel a little more... balanced, if that's the word? Going to an emergency massage session Monday night likely helped as well, but I'm going to keep up my water-doubling for the future to see if that helps ease my muscle tension even further.

It's odd how I thought I was drinking enough water each day, but as it turns out, I wasn't paying close enough attention and wasn't. Add it to my List Of Daily Things To Do and move on...

March 10 - Adventure Time!

Today was a welcome break from the regular march of time...

My lovely girlfriend surprised me by taking us on a day trip up-Island, driving out of Victoria in the late morning under incredibly sunny skies: perfect day trip weather!

We headed up the Malahat Highway, wending our way higher and higher up the sides of the steep hills among the towering stands of Douglas fir and stopping twice at look at points to get some incredible pictures:

We stopped at Merridale Cidery & Distillery in Cobble Hill for lunch, less than an hour's drive later. We arrived just in the nick of time, as the place went from mostly empty to completely full within 10 minutes of our choosing a table by the front door. We enjoyed a 'sampler pack' of half a dozen ciders before our food arrived, finding that only one was really not to either of our tastes. We lingered somewhat over our meal, as it was fairly easy to talk inside compared to the quite-loud enclosed deck. We then took a quick look around the grounds, and it looks like a place we could spend more time exploring in the future:

A short distance up the road later, we found ourselves at Shawnigan Lake, and took up a stout table at Shawnigan Coffee to enjoy some post-lunch beverages and chocolate truffles! I also picked up two wonderfully-large banana walnut muffins to take home, each of which was bigger than my fist:

The trip back was a lovely wind-down( literally, in the last parts )to the day, and I'm deeply grateful to my lady for suggesting we adventured today, as it's one of the most relaxing things I've done in at least a year...

March 11 - Kindness

As I was leaving brunch today with my lady, the subject of kindness came up, one that I've been thinking about this week, as it happens.

Why be kind?

This is an interesting and salient topic to me, in that I view myself as a giving person, rather than one who is more self-interested. Over the years, I've come to see human social interaction as one of the cornerstones of our rise from barbarism, despite our violent tendencies. It's our ability to give of ourselves and to put others first that allows us to work together to achieve greatness.

While it's long been know that being kind is also good for you, science has only recently been able to quantify some of the reasons why... and they're good ones, unsurprisingly. I believe that in life, it's the little things that count: they add up, in ways that you might be totally unaware of yet profoundly affect the lives of others:

Now, go on out there and be kind to one another! 

The sunshine, time change and warmer weather will go a long way towards getting my energy back in the next few weeks, I think. I can already feel a change in the air! Also, writing tonight's blog took a little longer, as I did it all from scratch with no copy/pasting... which seems to have done the trick, as it looks precisely the way it should with NO after-edits needed due to rogue code. Sweet!