5/31/13

Having a rough day for no reason at all, but here goes.

I watched Hancock. It's a really good movie and I'm glad I had the time to watch it.

I got a little bit of work done on this new game thing I'm writing. But I've run up against some fairly serious design decisions. I need to work them out before I go much further.

I've been thinking about trying to publish one of these game designs, but I think that's jumping the gun far too much. But I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to publish a little throw away game before I do 3D. It would teach me a lot about publishing and what it takes to get something out there. And while there'd be a lot of work involved, it would probably be better to do it on something I'm not quite as invested in as 3D first, so when it comes time to do 3D, I do it right.

5/30/13

Relatively calm day at work today. It was nice.

I was crashing from the Ritalin around 3, so I got up and talked to some people. It was a nice break and it helps foster relationships between departments, I think.

It sounds like we'll have 4 people (myself included) working on the kitchen this Sunday. It'd be awesome if we could get it insulated and dry walled in 1 day (technically 2, since my brother's supposed to come over tomorrow night to do the spray foam). That would really get us close.

Oh, and I gave blood today. I'm apparently at my max for donations this year. I have to wait until September to give again. It's good, because I can give double donations and I'm O+, so people really want my blood.

5/29/13

I got my new dungeonmorph dice today. I was excited about them. Still am.

With the dice I got a free box of Soylent Green crackers. They taste like crap, but they're funny.

My brother finally found a lead on the spray insulation for the kitchen. We were supposed to install it today, but it wasn't available. Hopefully tomorrow we're be good to go. I hope it doesn't cost too much, but it should be cheaper than what a friend of me found. That was $1,400. Since my brother's going through a supplier, it should be cheaper.

5/27/13

How did I miss yesterday? There was so much stuff done. I:

• Cleaned the kitchen (not done yet, but we're getting close to finishing the remodel)
• Put plastic down to protect the floors when we insulate
• Weeded
• Mowed the lawn
• Took down the temporary braces in the kitchen
• Foamed the last cracks in the kitchen
• Installed the nail plates
• Hit Lowes and bought a new ladder, new fan for the kitchen, some paint, and grass seed
• Planted and watered the grass seed
• Showered and shaved
• And still managed to spend a little time with my wife

It was a good day.

5/28/13

Worked from home, which was nice. I didn't get much done though. Fighting with reporting services.

I went to the cardiologist today. He says I seem pretty healthy, but he's going to do an echo cardiogram, stress test, and test for coronary disease to verify that there's nothing wrong with the ol' ticker. That should rule out another series of possible problems, assuming the tests come back negative.

We gamed tonight. Which was nice. We didn't get very far, but we did play. Tuesdays have been tough to get people playing, so this is a good thing. And we ended on a good cliff hanger.

5/26/13

Spent the day working with my brothers on the kitchen. While I didn't help all that much, we're ready to insulate. That's a huge step. Hopefully on Wednesday we'll get the insulation in. Then next weekend we can drywall.

I spent some time after they left working on gaming related stuff. I'm glad I got the chance, since I haven't had much time for that recently. I've got some cool ideas. It seems like I've been stuck in this zombie-like haze brought on by lack of sleep and haven't been able to be creative in far too long.

Tomorrow's memorial day, so I have off. That's definitely a good thing. I hope to spend the day getting stuff done. Mow the lawn, work on gaming stuff, paint the cabinets, etc. I really hope I can get done about half the things on my list.

5/25/13

Gaming tonight was really fun. We got exactly as far as I wanted. Things are shaping up really well and I think everyone's really enjoying the adventure. I know I am.

My brother got a new truck last night, so I went up to help him transfer everything from the old truck to the new one. I offered, but he told me not to come up since it was "too far". I went up anyway, but he wasn't ready for me. I had to leave before he was ready to move all of the tools over.

I spent most of the day fixing my father's computer. For the 100th time.

5/24/13

Got to come home early today because of the holiday on Monday. That was nice. When my boss saw me walk by, he came to check on me and ensure that I was going home early. So it was also nice that it looked like I was a hard worker.

Leaving work, I saw several monster trucks in the parking lot. We share a lot with the Shriners and they're having a rally this weekend. I snapped a few pics, since it was neat.

Started the new Rifts game tonight. It sounds like a lot of fun I'm definitely excited to play.

5/23/13

Made some good progress on a report. I have a good idea of what else needs to be done with it to complete it.

I vacuumed the living room because it smelled very heavily of dog. I should probably swiffer the floor as well. We'll see how it smells tomorrow.

I made a new home screen for my phone. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think it's still missing something though.

5/22/13

Got my new Ritalin prescription last night. I haven't had a chance to refill it yet, but I should be able to do that tomorrow. Hopefully it helps.

Spent the day today watching my niece so my brothers could work on the kitchen. I did help a little, but my main job was babysitter. They got the old plumbing out, the old wiring out, some of the soffit built, and half the new wiring in. Not as much as I'd hoped, but still progress.

After they left, I did dishes, cleaned up some, and took a shower. So I did get some stuff done. Just nothing for work. I'll just take today as a vacation day. I have enough of them at this point.

5/21/13

Progress at work was slow today, but I did make some strides on the next project. There was some type of feeling of accomplishment.

Gaming tonight turned out to be a bust. But we still hung out, which was cool.

I did some grocery shopping tonight. Got some stuff we needed, and some stuff we didn't. I shouldn't go when I'm hungry.

5/20/13

Broke up some of the kitchen demo and put it into trash bags for Wednesday morning. Hopefully they take it.

Talked to my brother today. He says he'll be over tomorrow evening. He also says he'll be over Wednesday all day. Hopefully we can get some good work done on the kitchen.

My boss called me today to tell me not to ask about working from home/leaving early to work on the kitchen. I should just shoot him an email saying I'm doing it and go. It's very nice, considering I was worried about "taking advantage" of the system.

5/19/13

My brother didn't make it over today, so I went out to a late brunch with my wife, MiL, and BiL. It was nice. I originally wasn't going to make it since I had to work on the kitchen.

I made my character for Next Friday's game. It's a Rifts game where we play redneck Coalition soldiers in the vein of the show Cops. Sounds like fun.

The wife and I did some shopping. She hit Target, we both hit 5 Below, and Home Depot. I have some neat little tools/gadgets from 5 Below and we have charcoal for grilling from HD (along with some more caulk to finish up in the kitchen.)

5/18/13

Started caulking the kitchen. But I ran out of caulk. I'll get more tomorrow. Once I finish that, it'll be pretty much the end of my homework.

While caulking, I found 2 substantial holes in the kitchen that lead directly to the crawlspace. Not only is that bad for insulation, but we have a mouse problem, and that's probably easy access for them. So I sealed those up. And then spray foamed the entire perimeter of the kitchen, just to be on the safe side. In multiple places, the straw went down well below the floor level.

I started vacuuming the crawlspace. There's a whole lot of dirt piled up against the walls down there. Some if it is probably normal flake from the foundation. Some of it might be there normal "dirt floor". But it's piled fairly high and it's loose. I want to get rid of it so it won't attract bugs (or get rid of any bugs already down there). 

As a bonus, I ran the Dresden Files game tonight. People seemed to enjoy it. We'll continue with it next week. 

5/17/13

I got 2 things done on my kitchen "homework". I'm about halfway done, even though I should be all the way done at this point.

Did some experimentation with pivot tables today. I've never used them before, so it's taking me a little while to get used to them.

I did the majority of planning for the Dresden Files game we're starting tomorrow. It sounds like it'll be fun.

5/16/13

Took the night off to work on organizing my gaming PDFs. I have a lot of them and my goal it to de-dupe and organize so I can hopefully get down below 50GB. If I can do that, then I can post them all to my cloud storage and have access to them whenever and where ever.

In my weekly update to my boss, I was finally able to cross some things off my list and show progress of some kind.

Socialized a little bit at work today. It seems like now that I'm in IT I'm chained to my desk most days. It's good for me to have a little time away from my desk, and I'm a firm believer in fostering good work relationships. So I don't consider it slacking, even though I'm not coding at the moment.

5/15/13

Payday. I don't know how much of it I'll actually see, but at least the bills are paid.

As of today, I dropped below $600 on one of my credit cards. Definitely a win.

I also transferred my other card to the one above, taking advantage of a 0% APR until next April. At this rate, I should be credit card debt free in about 4 months.

5/14/13

Taking a different path today.

My wife and I already feel this way (she more than me), but it's good to have it pointed out. It's easy to overlook what's going on around you and get caught up in the "it's all about me" feeling.

Space travel is still very dangerous. It's very expensive. And it's restricted to only governments and the occasional billionaire who can buy a ride on a Soyuz rocket. But the fact that a man in space could record a music video shows how far we've come. When I was young, astronauts didn't get "free time". It was a 24/7 job to survive up there.

It's no secret that Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love haunted houses. I wish we had more attractions like this around here. Superbly done.

5/13/13

Went to the therapist again tonight. I think she's still fumbling with what to do with me. But the last session made me think that there's a choice to be made between escapism and engagement. So I'll try working on that some more. We'll see.

I visited my FiL tonight. He was just moved to a new home. I set up his TV and new (first) cell phone.

I think I'm on the verge of finishing the reports for the data warehouse. I'm working on the last one and I think the main thing holding me back was either a typo somewhere or the report got corrupted somewhere. What I have should work. It works independently as a query. I just have to get it to work in the report.

5/12/13

Finished the framing in the kitchen today. It took a lot longer than I expected. But at least everything is structurally sound now. We still need to rewire, do some plumbing, insulate, put up drywall, paint the cabinets, and put the cabinets back. At this rate it'll take all summer.

Spent way too much money, but managed to get most of the stuff we need for the next step. This project is going horribly over budget, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

Woke up this morning feeling like I had a hangover. So I guess the Ritalin was helping. Just not enough. I'll talk to the sleep doc tomorrow and see if we can get me on some extended release or something.

5/11/13

Gaming tonight. Had fun. We finished the adventure, so it sounds like I'm up next with Dresden Files. It should be fun.

My brother didn't make it over today. He didn't get his daughter until later in the day. I'm glad he gets to spend time with her. And honestly, him coming over tomorrow is probably better. We can get an earlier start, I'm not eating into his kid time, and I'm not potentially missing any nightly activities.

I had a rough day today. I had a really hard time getting going. I ended up taking a nap around 2:30. It didn't seem to help much. And then I struggled around 10 or 11 tonight while at gaming. Either this is "normal" and the Ritalin was helping, I'm going through withdraw from the Ritalin (I was only on it for a week, so hopefully not), or I'm hitting a "bad spell" and I'm just generally more tired than normal. Hopefully tomorrow will tell me if it's the Ritalin.

5/10/13

Ended up playing Redneck Life instead of gaming tonight. Neat game, but I think it's values are reversed. The best redneck (winner) should be the one in the most debt with the least amount of teeth, not the other way around.

Today was movie day at work. They keep telling me we normally do it once every 2-3 months, but it's more like once a year. Not that I'm complaining. I get paid to eat pizza and watch movies that day, which is really nice. Even though I ended up working through half of each movie because I'm o far behind schedule.

Saw my brother, Wes, tonight. We plan to work more on the kitchen tomorrow. And I told him I fixed his computer (and put in a new hard drive). And I showed him how to use the GPS on his phone.

5/9/13

Made some good progress at work. I didn't complete anything, but I did make some good progress. I'm really hoping that by the end of next week I'll have these data warehouse reports done.

Tired again today, but I tracked it and it didn't necessarily seem to coincide with when I took the Ritalin. Tomorrow I'll take a full dose each and every time and see if there's more of a reaction.

Made a new home screen for my phone. I like it, but of course I now want to make a new one. I'm never satisfied.

5/8/13

I think the Ritalin is making my more tired. I need a few more days to verify this, but drowsiness is a known side effect. Otherwise I'm not having any real side effects from it. No headaches, nausea, dizziness, or irritability. So in a way, that's good. Even if it's not taking care of my problem. At least I'm not an @$$hole.

I managed to bring my lunch in to work today. We still don't have a working kitchen, so food costs are pretty high. Any chance to minimize that is a good thing.

In the same vein, I was able to microwave one of the bagged meals I normally make in a skillet, so that was a nice change for dinner (yay, vegetables!)

5/7/13

Gaming tonight. We didn't get a whole lot done, but we did get together and at least BS some.

I called the neurologist for my test results. They wanted me to go up and pick them up in person, but that's a 2 hour round trip. I convinced them to mail them to me, even though they were cranky about HIPAA rules. It's my info, I can release it to anyone I want, including me. Deal with it, people.

I saw my parents tonight. I haven't visited with them in a couple weeks because of various stuff (CAT scans, kitchen nightmares, sleep doc appointments, etc.) They seem to be doing well.

5/6/13

Went back to the neurologist today for an EMG test. It didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary, which is good. It's just something more we can check off the list of what's not wrong with me. Maybe eventually we'll figure out what is wrong with me.

I overslept today and really struggled until around 1 (when I took the second Ritalin dose.) I was ok after that until around 4 or so. I took my third dose at 5 and felt better around 6. So maybe it's helping. But then again, maybe I'm just having an "up swing". Time will tell.

Since I had the test at 10:30 and didn't get home until 1, I decided to take the day off. It was relaxing. I read some stuff online, made a list of things to do, and took it easy.

5/5/13

This was the first full day of Ritalin. I took all 3 doses. I was all over the place today. I woke up groggy, started feeling better around noon, napped around 4, up after 5. I don't know if it corresponded to when the Ritalin hit me or not, but I wasn't a fan.

Still, I managed to rearrange the garage, mow the lawn, vacuum the kitchen, bring stuff in from the car, put in the screen in the bathroom window, and wash dishes. That's more than 3 things.

5/4/13

I spent a good amount of the day fixing my brother's laptop. The new hard drive is in and cloned. I just need to repair Windows. Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow.

I ran the Dresden Files short stories adventures tonight. It took people a little while to get used to the amount of authoritative control I gave them over the story and their characters. Most of them eventually warmed up to it.

Started the Ritalin today, but I forgot my second 2 doses. Regardless, I was fairly awake today, so that's a win.

5/3/13

Had trouble adding a new dimension to the cube at work. Then I realized I didn't need one. Simple fix.

Took a nap with my wife when I got home from work. It was much needed.

I ordered a hard drive enclosure from Amazon and didn't read the description closely enough. I ordered IDE when I needed a SATA. I returned it and they said not to bother. They just game me my money back and told me to keep the enclosure. Not sure what I'll do with it, or if I even have an IDE hard drive.

5/2/13

Left with a little early because I was dead tired. I'm glad I had the option.

I did some more demo on the kitchen, even though my brother didn't show to finish the framing.

In the mean time, I took off all of the cabinet doors and restacked the cabinets so we can get to the other side of the dining room.

5/1/13

How did it get to be May already?

I worked from home/took the day off last minute to work on the kitchen. I'm glad my boss allows me to do this. I had asked him if I could leave work early each day this week to work on the kitchen. However, I was at work an hour late on Monday and only left 5 minutes early yesterday for a doctor appointment. So I guess today makes up for it.

We got about half the kitchen framed today. We also took out one of the radiators (temporarily) so we can get to the walls. Not as much as I'd hoped, but it is progress. I hope that maybe Sunday we'll be in the place we should have been Monday. We'll see.

While working on the house, I found a few of the nails original to the house. 113 year old cut nails. They're neat and I want to save any that I can. Maybe we'll do some kind of little display or something.