Of course, by the time I finish writing this it will probably be mid afternoon. Not sure why but when I sit down to write a post while I am at work, these people keep coming up to me and ask me to do stuff. It’s so very annoying. Not too much been going on this last week. Just your typical running around and being busy with work. Tonight we leave for a “mini” vacation up to Baltimore to attend Farpoint. This is an annual convention that happens in mid-February. This is also Andrew’s first convention. I know he is really looking forward to going, but he has no idea how close he came to not being able to.

13 year olds have no brain. I am convinced of this. I would really like to know when they get this brain back. We have been scrambling to get some of the packing and cleaning done through out the week so when Friday came along, we could just get in the truck and take off after work. Part of the big chores is the laundry. I had thrown a load in Thursday morning and needed it put into the dryer, (they were jeans, those take a long time to dry). So when Andrew got home, I kindly asked him if he could take the clothes from the washer to the dryer. After that, I didn’t think anything of it. That is, until I got home and checked the dryer. The clothes were in there but still soaking wet.

“Andrew, did you do what I asked with the laundry?”

“Yup”

“Umm, Did it occur to you that when I asked you to put the clothes in the dryer, that I might like for you to START THE DRYER!!”

“Oh, ummm, no”

It’s not like I even asked him to put more clothes in the washer, so there shouldn’t have been much confusion.

1: Open washer
2: Open dryer
3: Take clothes out of washer
4: Put clothes taken from washer into dryer
5: Close Washer
6: Close Dryer
7: START DRYER!

Later that evening, I walk into his room to find him laughing at a video he downloaded. I ask him to clean up his room a bit because there is a pile of clothes lying on the ground and he knows he is not supposed to throw dirty clothes on the floor.

Wait a sec, Those are all jeans.

Those are the jeans I took out of the laundry Yesterday!

ON THE FLOOR!!

This would be the part where my head very nearly exploded. He couldn’t even explain why the clean jeans that I had put on his bed for him to fold were just thrown on the ground. Not but 2 months ago we had a discussion about this same topic because he had taken the clean clothes off his bed and put them in his chair. He got in trouble then too. I was an Inch away from saying that the convention was canceled.

So, when does he get is brain back?

How did we get to the second month of the year already? Well I know one thing that sucked almost 2 weeks of my life away, I got sick. I know I have posted that I have been sick before but holy cow, did I get sick. Apparently there is a stomach bug that has been going around the office and the rest of the world. Somehow it landed square on me. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time too. All last week I was scheduled for a class downtown for Microsoft SMS training. I made it to the class but wow was I still sick. My body decided that what ever I had put inside it, it didn’t want any more and was going to get rid of it by any and every means. This process used every known muscle (and some I didn’t know about) and pushed them to the extreme. After all this was done, I collapsed in a pile of smelly squishy goo and stayed there for about 4 days. I managed to make it through class in somewhat of a haze, I think I remember most of what was taught. Now I am just left exhausted. When I try and do too much of anything I get tired quickly. It sucks.

Some minor news from the home front. It’s tax time. If you remember http://www.wizzer.org/2005/02/well-crappity-crap-crap.html last tax time was the suckiest suck that ever sucked. I ended up owing a ton of money and it hit at a bad time. But I lived and made it through. This year I am proud to say that I DON’T OWE THEM CRAP! I’m not getting the hugest of returns, but I am happy not to owe. This means that I might be able to afford the new computer I want too. It’s about time to upgrade, and by upgrade I mean buy me a whole new computer. Mine is just getting too damn old and it’s gotten a little to picky on how it runs. I should have an update about that sometime in the next few weeks.

Speaking of computers, on the gaming front there have been a few changes. I have been playing World of Warcraft for just over a year. I am starting to wonder if it’s time for a switch. I have my level 60 Character and I love him to death. I have enjoyed the game the whole time I have played it……but…. This last week while I was sick I really started to realize that it’s a HUGE time sink. To do anything with my character I really have to log in for hours at a time. Usually that time is spent running through dungeons that I have been through about 20 times before searching for loot that might or might not drop and the rolling for loot that I might or might not win. Again, it’s not that I am getting bored with the game. I still have a lot of fun. I have a few alt characters that I have been leveling up and trying something new is cool. I just think maybe I need a break.

This leads us to the transition tie in. I am trying out a new game, but it’s an old game. Really old actually. Eve Online came out in May of 2003. They are running a 14 day free trial so I thought “what the heck, lets give it a whirl.” All I have to say is:

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the drug store, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
– Douglas N Adams (or DNA), The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy

This is so true in Eve. The game is space based. Take the good parts of the space game in Star Wars Galaxies, and the good parts of game play from World of Warcraft, and you have Eve. Your character is in a pod in a ship and you run missions for different corporations. You can start a corporation of your own, you can go fight, you can mine, trade, build, etc. And the graphics are 1000 times better than galaxies ever was. It’s amazing that this didn’t become a bigger hit when it came out. I highly suggest checking it out, it’s 14 days free so why not! There’s only one server to log into but it’s so huge that you never have to worry about finding other people. If you log in, look for Wizzer in the Rens system.

Aside from all that things have been going slow. Work has kept me very busy lately and that’s a good thing. Upcoming events are, of course, Farpoint (happens every year). This will be Andrews first big convention. Depending on how that goes we will see about taking him to DragonCon this year. We also have rumors floating around about maybe going to Vegas. I’ll leave it at this, Amy is excited about the trip. So until next post….