2/28/13

My wife fell and broke her nose this morning. I'm glad it wasn't worse. I hope that this means our annual trip to the hospital is out of the way and we don't have to go again this year.

I got to work from home today, which was nice. I solved a problem with the data warehouse, but still have another to deal with.

Person Of Interest was a rerun tonight, but it was one I had somehow missed. So it was new to me.

Quote

"It would have been grand to live then!"

"When? In days of the formation of the Empire?"

"Exactly! Every rock or bush, you perceive, might conceal an ambuscade. Every chance meeting might lead to mortal combat. Every-"

"But that is exactly what we face today," observed Piro.

"Well, that is true. But then they were building an Empire."

"How, is that not what we are doing here?"
~Paths of the Dead, by Steven Brust

2/27/13

I came home a little early today since I have some overtime accrued and I won't get paid for it.

Hit the gym with the wife. It was busy, so I didn't get to finish my entire routine. But it was something.

Did a post gaming session write up for my other blog.

2/26/13

Gaming was had. We didn't get as far as I'd hoped, but we still made progress. And I think people are still enjoying themselves.

I got the first cube (re)completed today. I also got halfway through the next. Once it's done, I should be able to knock out the next several reports pretty quickly.

My mom's starting to get the hang of Words with Friends. She was getting mad at me for beating her at it so badly. I've been trying to not kick her butt so hard, but it's been really difficult and I've been stressing about it. Now that she's getting better, I can go back to playing normally.

2/25/13

Made a change to the data warehouse today. It took much longer than I expected and I had to jump through more hoops than I wanted to, but it's done and should be easier going forward. Tick off another learning experience.

Hit the gym tonight. It was busy and I didn't get home from work until almost 7, but I got almost all the way through my routine.

While staying late at work is a pain, I've at least been working a full 40 hours a week (usually more). I don't get paid for over time, but at least I'm not burning through my vacation time.

2/24/13

Finally got around to watching MiB3. We've had it from Netflix for about 3 months. Not a bad movie. Not as zany as the other ones, but it had a pretty good plot. Josh Brolin does a great Kay impersonation.

Remember when I said I hit the gym, did my full routine, and felt pretty good? Not so much the next day. Or the day after that. We hit the gym again today and I took it a little easy. I still did the who routine, but I didn't use quite as much weight.

Also, we had Qdoba for dinner, which is good.

Missing: 2 posts

How the heck did I miss 2 days? I thought I was keeping up. Let's try to catch up.

Had a meeting with my boss on Thursday to go over some issues. While little was resolved, I felt less stress on Friday and had more direction. Though the system was down for over half the day, I was able to plan out what needs to be done next. Having that plan makes me more confident.

Friday we gamed. Matt ran the game. I was able to start being a little proactive, rather than reactive, and launched a few plans to strike at the bad guys.

We've had the fence up for a couple of months now and it's great. Tass loves it because of the freedom to roam the yard. I also think it's good for his confidence. My wife loves it because she doesn't have to get dressed in the morning to put him out. I love it for how easy it is to put him out when company's over. It's a great investment.

Saturday I fixed the electronic die that I made. One of the LEDs came loose. It took a little work to get some of the components off so I could reach other components. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it, but it seems to work well now.

We gamed that night, too. I ran the game and it seemed to go well. Low powered supers in a zombie apocalypse wasteland, fighting other low powered supers who are very much bad guys. Lots of moral dilemmas and tough decisions. Good stuff.

I'm looking forward to the next game we play (we'll hopefully finish mine up next week). It's a Call of Cthulhu game. Since I read a bunch of H.P. Lovecraft's stuff over the summer, I'm excited to play. I'm hoping that the point of reference from the books (which I never had before) will make the game really pop for me.

2/21/13

Starting to get my notes together for Saturday gaming. Not sure what the adventure is, but it'll come to me. One of the nice things I've learned is to come up with a general plot and some hooks and then wing it while I run the game. This makes designing adventures a snap.

I was *mostly* on time this morning. Assuming that my hours are roughly 9:30 to 5:30 at this point. Even at that, I'm normally late. Today was an exception. I also left *mostly* on time, rather than be stuck at work until 6. I also haven't don'e any work at home tonight, which is a nice change.

I posted a pic of Jupiter to Instagram yesterday and I've gotten some likes from people I don't know. I find it interesting that people are randomly scanning hashtags for pics. Anyway, I'm proud of the pic, so it's nice that people can actually see it.

2/20/13

Hit the gym tonight. I actually did my full workout for the first time since I got sick. That's probably about 3 weeks at this point. I did surprisingly well considering the "time off".

As I was leaving work I had an idea on how to possibly get around the latest data warehouse issues. We'll see if it works.

Had Subway for dinner. It's good and it's relatively healthy.

2/19/13

Had gaming tonight. It was a good session. No one died and there was good RP. I don't think the players have figured out what I've planned for them.

I saw my parents tonight. It's been a while. Normally I see them every Tuesday for a little while, but with me being sick, having doctor appointments, and working late at work, it's been a few weeks. We had a pleasant chat.

Watched some funny YouTube videos. Literal music videos are amusing.

2/18/13

Got some brainstorming done for the Tuesday game. I have a few ideas about what kinds of abilities I'm going to give the classes.

It was a nice night out tonight. Clear, not too cold. I don't often notice how nice it is. I also don't spend much time outside. I should do that more.

Broke out my telescope tonight and finally got to try the phone/camera mount and Barlow lens. Took some awesome pictures of Jupiter - my best to date.

2/17/13

The wife and I went out to dinner at the Macaroni Grill tonight to celebrate our dating anniversary. We didn't want to deal with the V-day crowds, so we chose to do it tonight. Dinner was good. I've never been to a Macaroni Grill before.

Walking Dead was a great episode. Shocking death. Good stuff. It looks like this season is turning out better than last season.

I spent most of today working on one of the electrical kits I bought last month - the die kit. Basically you tap it on the table and it gives you a result between 1 and 6, lighting up LEDs like the pips on a die. It took me about 4 hours, which is probably far longer than it should have. It took me a while to get back into the hand of soldering, since I have a crappy iron and I haven't soldered anything since high school. But it's together and it works!

Oil

We ran out of oil today, so the heater stopped working. I noticed at about 5:55 PM, on my way out to gaming. I called the oil company to schedule a delivery. He asked me how much I had left. I told him none. He said he'd be here in 15 minutes.

We have a great oil company. They don't charge extra for "emergency" deliveries, they prime the heater for free if you need it, they work 7 days a week, and often make deliveries as late as 2 AM.

2/16/13

Figured out my final (hopefully) problem with the data warehouse today. All should be right with the world now. I feel good about that.

I got everything together for the game tonight. Character sheets (customized for the game), a cheat-sheet, a plot (which I probably won't need yet). It's all there.

I took a look at some video (online) of the asteroid that passed by (2012 DA14). It's really interesting, but not flashy like the meteorite that hit Russia yesterday. There was some amazing footage of that. Mind boggling.

Powerful Speech

2/15/13

I made a lot of progress on the data warehouse today. I was able to solve just about all of my problems. I encountered a data issue that I'm in the process of fixing now, so hopefully that will be that. I think I now have a much greater understanding of measure groups and how they map to facts, dimensions, and other measure groups.

Hit the gym tonight. We didn't stay long, but it's better than nothing.

I'm running the game tomorrow night. While I haven't had time to prepare anything, I think I know what I'll run (Godlike) and what the setting will be (supers in a post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland). I just have to brush up on the rules. Tomorrow night will probably be all character creation, so I'll still have another week to iron out all of the kinks.

2/14/13

Today is the anniversary of when my wife and I started dating. 16 years ago. That's a good thing.

Had a nice, quiet night with my wife. Nothing fancy. Just some pizza and TV.

I'm still struggling with the data warehouse cubes at work, but I feel like I'm nearly there. If I can just figure out this last bit, I'll have everything I need to complete the project.

2/13/13

I missed yesterday. Time to catch up.

Yesterday I went to the sleep doctor. It was a pretty useless trip, though she said we may be able to try a drug normally used for narcolepsy. She's not very confident in it, but who knows.

In the mean time, I finally worked my way up to 175mg of Nuvigil. So far I'm not sick (I get nauseous and a sore throat when I take 200mg.) I'm not sure that it's having much greater effect than 150mg (which does very little at this point), but I'll keep an eye on it.

I seemed to sleep fairly well last night. While I still struggled to get up this morning, once I was up, I didn't feel too bad. That's nice, since I was up late last night.

I was up late last night because of gaming. I had fun, we actually got through an adventure with the new system I wrote without everyone dying (only 1 character died). I have some ideas for how to improve the game.

Last night I also spoke to one of my friends about the problems I'm having with the data warehouse. He suggested trying a few things, which I started, but didn't finish today. Hopefully tomorrow I'll finish the changes and I'll have a solution.

I came home from work a little earlier than I probably should have, but that means I got to spend some more time with my wife. We took a nap, then I got up and cooked some dinner, then we watched some TV. The night passed too quickly, but it was pretty relaxing.

2/11/13

Hectic day at work today. Despite that, I made some real progress on the reports that query the data warehouse.

I also fixed a report for the CFO, which is nice exposure. While I already know the CFO (he was my old boss' boss), it's nice to be able to fix stuff for the executive staff. They think I know what I'm doing.

While I put in more than my 8 hours today (which is good, since I'm usually too tired to make up the lost time from being late) I was still able to get to the gym. I only worked out for about 30 minutes, but it's better than nothing.

1 AM Snow

2/10/13

Went to the store today and bought anti-scratch spray to keep the cat from scratching the sofa. Hopefully it works.

I got a card for my wife for Valentine's day. That day's also our 15 year dating anniversary. I rarely remember to buy cards, so the fact that I remembered, and got one early, is an accomplishment.

We went to the gym for the first time in about a week. I'm feeling much better at this point (not 100%, but better), so I felt like I could workout.

2/9/13

I've noticed that a lot of my "good things" seem to involve stuff. That's not what I originally intended. But at the same time, since I've been sick and tired, I don't have a whole lot in the way of accomplishments. I need to work on that. Anyway, on to the good things...

I installed the new webcam and wireless adapter my brother got me for Christmas. I don't know if the adapter is going to fix any of the problems I've been having with network speed, but the webcam is a definite improvement.

Comcast showed up today to troubleshoot our TV issues. I also talked a little about the poor internet speeds (usually around 12 Mb/s, sometimes as low as 0.2 Mb/s). He seemed to think the whole problem was with my old RF converter, but I doubt that. Regardless, he said there was some kind of voltage running back through the splitter in the basement, which is a bad thing. He ended up trading out several of the splitters in the house, disconnected the cable through the rest of the house (we're not currently using it anyway), gave me new coaxial cables, and some composite cable. The composite cables allowed me to get rid of the RF converter and keep all of our components hooked up. Now the TV doesn't freeze and I'm getting about 17 Mb/s.

Also, more gaming tonight. Skyping in since I'm still sick.

2/9/13

Cards Against Humanity came back into stock a few days ago. I jumped on it and ordered a deck. They showed up today. I hope to get to play a game soon.

I got my Christmas presents from my brother today. He hasn't been around much since he's arguing with my parents. Anyway, I got some nice stuff.

Gaming was tonight. I had fun. Then we went to Friday's. They closed because of the impending snow, so we headed to Chili's.

2/7/13

I'm still sick today, but I went into work anyway. I hate to call out more than one day. Anyway, my boss told me to work from home, so that's what I'll probably do tomorrow. I'm lucky to have a job that allows me to do that. Granted, he also told me to go home today when he saw I was sick, but I didn't get out of there until  well after 6.

I got my Dungeon World book today. It's not quite what I expected, but I'm excited to delve into it. It also came with 3 booklets, which look interesting.

Spent some nice time with my wife cuddling and watching TV.

2/6/13

Ug. Sick today. Apparently my side effects from the Nuvigil morphed into a head cold.

I took that day off to try to recuperate. So yay for sick time.

I finished up the changes to the data warehouse, so hopefully I'll be ready to go building cubes tomorrow morning (I took the day off today, right?)

Had some good interactions on G+ today.

2/5/13

I increased my dose of Nuvigil yesterday and consequently I'm very sick today. Sore throat and nausea. I called out of gaming, came home, loaded up on Pepto and throat spreay, and took a nap. I feel better now, so yay for feeling better.

Cards Against Humanity came back in stock yesterday, so I bought a deck. I'm looking forward to playing it.

I had a good breakfast at Wawa this morning, complements of my wife (she gave me gift cards for my birthday.)

2/4/13

Got the results from my blood work today. One of the Lyme disease antibodies came back positive, though it says I don't have Lyme. Hopefully this will be a pointer to some type of solution to my fatigue.

I made an appointment with a rheumatologist, so hopefully he can help. The appointment's not until March though.

Had some trouble building cubes for the data warehouse. I came to the realization that I need a few more fields and to restructure the warehouse. While this is more work, it should fix the problems and I'm learning more about this thing.

Three-fer

I've only been home (awake) for about 5 hours in the past 3 days, so I haven't been able to post. So I'll try to catch up.

2/1/13
Went to Mick and Rachel's to celebrate Rachel's birthday. Had a good time. Their friends seem to be mostly good people. We laughed a lot.

Finished all of the bugs in the data warehouse at work. Now it's on to making cubes.

Spent a little time at work socializing with people that I don't see much now that I'm in IT.

2/2/13
Went and test drove some cars. We're looking for a car that's more fuel efficient than my truck. I was (mostly) pleased with what we tried. My wife wasn't.

Gaming with the Saturday crew. Had fun.

My wife and Kiley (my niece) went to the movies last night. They don't get to hang out very often. It seemed to go well. I think Kendra is a good role model for Kiley, so I'm hoping they get to do it again.

2/3/13
Had a good breakfast (omelet with cheese, artichoke, black olives, and mushrooms).

Got my new powerbag all charged up. It regularly sells for $140, I got it for $40. I transferred my electronics over, but my gaming stuff won't fit right. Not sure what to do about that.

Mostly lazy day today. I could use the rest.