Ben's Busy Blog

Well, today is the last predictable regular update of the busy blog, as I'm about to depart on my honeymoon. When I get internet service on our trip, I hope to write some things in, but unfortunately, I'm not exactly holding out hope. Either way, I'll keep a log of the trip somewhere. Anyway, today was spent running errands and preparing for the trip. So far, it's all going as well as could be expected. I'll keep my fingers crossed that things will remain sane.

I cleaned the hell out of the house today. We also ran a few errands. It's a little tense here with the trip almost upon us, but I think things will work out okay.

For the better part of the day, I took today off. I did some useful errands with Natty, which took up several hours, but mostly I just chilled out.

Well, it's only four days until the honeymoon. Wow. I think I'm caught in a sort of lull, where everything seems unimportant since I'm about to embark on the trip.

Today we went and saw Grandma. Yesterday we'd been forced to cancel our trip due to the torrential rains that hit the Pittsburgh area. We'd called her from the car to cancel the visit. During the call, Grandma had been coughing and a little hoarse, but I wasn't worried. She said she wasn't feeling well, so she wasn't really feeling up for a visit anyway.

Then this morning I got a worrisome email this morning from my sister. Apparently she had received a call later that night from the rest home. Grandma was still coughing and was running a slight fever. They wanted official permission to give her antibiotics. This was worrisome... and to be selfish, it was also a bit annoying because I thought I'd been named the first point of contact for any issues with Grandma, but this makes it seem like my mother doesn't trust me. Anyway, we made certain to get out to see her today. She was actually doing quite well when we got there. In fact we talked for over an hour with her. She can still talk up a storm if you get her going. Also she was pretty much on the ball during the conversation and didn't show any confusion. She did try showing us some pictures that we had seen before, but that's not really anything I can particularly blame on senility, just boredom.

I don't think I really achieved too much else today. I definately blame it on this tiredness I've been feeling, and the sense of futility regarding accomplishments before the trip. Nat's been pretty nervous too, and I've been spending a lot of time with her, but I would definately say that can't be where I've lost all my time. *shrugs* On return, I vow productivity... and maybe being trapped overseas with little internet distraction will prove very useful for accomplishing some programming again. *Shrugs*

Today was a rainy day. So rainy in fact, that it washed out roads and caused mudslides. It was during all this that we happened to be in the car trying to drive up and visit Grandma. We called from the car and canceled until tomorrow.

I didn't really get anything much of interest accomplished today. I've been trying to change my sleep patterns, but so far I've just been getting up early without getting to bed earlier. This left me really tired all day. I took a nap in the late afternoon / early evening, but that seemed to leave me even more tired.

At least I got a little work done prepping the new laptop for Scotland. *shrugs*

Today was a pretty productive day. I got up (tired, so tired) and set about giving the place a good clean-up. There was a lot to do; I actually broke a sweat. I arranged, vacuumed, took out the trash and recycling, hung things up, loaded up the car's trunk with Goodwill donations... I was at it for over an hour. The place looks a lot better.

Around 1 to 2 PM the cat-sitter showed up. We've used her before, and she's good people.

I poked around with programming for a bit.

Nat had a doctor's appointment at five. She was kinda stressed about it. In general, stress levels have been pretty high around here lately, mostly due to that goddamn school cancelling on us. They totally ruined years of plans we'd already laid out. Now Nat's not only worried about what to do next, she's also stressed about what her family will think when we see them. Oh, and the flight too. This is all a pain.

Anyway, we did the doctor's appointment. Then after that we hit the mall. Nat decided to get her hair done, so I chilled out at Waldenbooks and read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. After that I sat down and took a few notes on programming thoughts. Women's hair takes forever.

We stopped at Wendy's on the way home. Later we hit the grocery store.

At the end of the night, Natty and I played LOTRO together and things seemed to be getting calmed down again. I also did a little work with the laptop, too. I installed a few programs more while playing.

We spray-painted the frame for the mirror. Actually Natty sprayed it, and I stood around making suggestions and trying to feel useful.

We went down to the Waterfront for a few things. We picked up another lightbulb for that damned lamp from Ikea, but it foiled us again. That damned thing is getting replaced. I will consider it a learning fee to not fuck with lamps from Ikea without checking what kind of stupid Euro-centric light bulb requirement they might have. We also picked up some hangers, having run out. (Where did they go during the move? I kinda don't even want to know.) We also grabbed a few other things. Nat tried to find a protective padded sleeve for her new laptop, but it seems that the industry has decided that it's only necessary to make sleeves fitted for 15 inch screens and that the rest of us can just let our equipment slide around loosely. Nat's going to check online for a better option before we relent and just take an over-sized one.

We stopped by EB Games on the way home. Nat picked up New Super Mario Bros for the DS, having discovered that she really missed it. I don't mind so much, as the mini-games in that were kinda fun.

I did a little programming, but I couldn't concentrate again. It's just been fucking tense around here and if it isn't something, it's a cat.

Anyway, I spent a bunch of time getting the new laptop up and working correctly, and now I'm typing my blog entry from it while I lie in bed. Nice, eh?

I always feel obligated to start off these entries with a review of the day. Today just feels like it was a little too complex to wrap up with a pithy statement of "meh" or "yay".

Natty had a doctor's appointment, during which I just hung out and played my DS.

After the appointment, we headed over to her mother's work place and gave her a copy of our wedding video. Apparently this went over extremely well, as Nat got a call later where found out that her mother had watched it 6 times already and was in tears every time. She then said that we had officially replaced "something's Gotta Give" in her DVD player.

After seeing her mom, we stopped by the UPMC School of Radiology in order to see whether we could get Nat set up for classes for spring at least. It doesn't look good, as she doesn't have some of the requirements lined up and there isn't much time left before the deadline. It's really rough and horrible because Nat's already completely in despair about things. I don't know what to do because she's got plenty of reason to be angry. Denying her emotions won't work as a tactic; her father ruined that vein terribly. She needs to vent, but at the same time, it's destroying any chance at productive conversation. I just don't know what's next for her now. I hate all the arguments that we're having over this. They're really draining.

We hit the grocery store. Not only did we have to wait on a prescription, but the lines were slow.

After that we went down to the FedEx depot to pick up Nat's new laptop. As I've said before, she's always on the laptop we've had, and she's gotten more than her money's worth out of it. She'll use this one well too. On the other hand, the goddamned thing is running Vista, and it was shipped with a bunch of out of date drivers. Dell has been monstrously slow to download from tonight. I've spent waaaay too much time trying to figure out what's going on with it. It's got all of these little quirks where things aren't working the way you'd want. I wish it was up to me to just wipe it and install Windows XP. It's certainly a temptation. It would be sooooooooooo much easier to deal with.

I tried programming for a bit, but I kept on getting interupted. It was bad enough already though, because I'm having trouble figuring out how to compartmentalize the production of printable on-screen stats. It needs to be able to access game object information and it needs to be able to remember what the current stats are. Maybe what I really need are two separate things. One method that takes in a game object and stat type, and then returns a string based upon that. Then I need something to dig through the object manager and pick out which particular object needs to get info published. That would then be passed to the other thing... yeah. Tomorrow.

Anyway, g'night

Today was mostly spent at home. It was a weekend day, so I didn't push myself too hard. I did program some, but I didn't get to do as much as I wanted to, because Nat needed me to spend some time with her. I hope to set and achieve goals with that daily now. *shrugs* That's enough for the night. Ta-ta

Today was the second day in a row where I felt somewhat lacking in fervor. I got a few things done. I did some good programming and I took out a massive amount of trash. Otherwise though, I felt rather... sedate. I've been trying to take it easy on the weekends, but at the same time, I'm not entirely sure whether I'm having trouble getting things done, or whether I've just been too spaced out at the end of the night to recall anything very well. *shrugs*

Ugh, I'm feeling really foggy-brained right now, so this is likely to be a poor entry.

Today I put together some furniture. Took out some trash. Got the Xbox 360 installed and back on the home network. Hooked up the PS2 also. Rearranged boxes in storage area behind entertainment center. Went for walk with Natty.

Y'know, this is all sounding poorly at this point. I think I'm going to cash in my chips for the night and get some sleep.

Today we went out to Ikea to pick up some stuff we needed: a shelf for towels in the bathroom, a chest for bedding in the bedroom, a new lamp to replace one that broke in the move, etc. I also needed to pick up some new shoes, as both of my casual shoes are taking a beating. Based upon Natty's words and demonstration, I decided that I'd see what the Doc Marten experience was like. After Ikea, we went to the mall and I found a pair that I liked. Unfortunately, I'd unleashed Natty on the mall, so this meant that we did some clothes shopping. By "we", I mean that she did some shopping while I maintained sanity by surfing news headlines on her phone.

When we got home we assembled and installed a few things. Somehow these pieces really made me feel like we're starting to really make this place our home.

I also did some good programming today. While working things out, I drew up a flowchart that really impressed Natty. My reaction was more like "What? This old thing?" Anyway, I implemented the concepts in code and did a few other touches. It's all a very tangled web now, but it's coming along nicely. With luck, I'll be able to safely forget the intricacies of all that I've done, and I'll just be able to ask and receive the bits and pieces that I need from the methods I've implemented.

Today we had a doctor's appointment. I also did some laundry. I programmed for a bit. We also stopped at Borders for an hour or two, which was nice and relaxing. For dinner, we stopped at Qdoba. 'Nuff said!

Today was a crappy day. It was improved over the previous night, where I woke myself up by kicking the concrete wall due to some mysterious dream. Today I got to wake up to my phone ringing. I was getting the call to let me know that I didn't get the job that I'd interviewed for on the Friday before last. This totally took the wind out of my sails for the morning. I did respond to a resume release request from a trusted employment agency, but that doesn't equalize things.

I tried coding, and a few other things, but my heart just wasn't in it. I couldn't concentrate. The morning was shot.

In the early afternoon, we set out to see my grandmother. I was particularly dreading it, but I had the familial responsibility to fulfill. Much to my pleasant surprise, it wasn't so bad. I sort of enjoyed listening to her. I think I've developed a bit more of an interest in hearing about my family's past, because as the years have passed, my lack of knowledge about my father has led me to place more value on these things.

The rest of the day was still a bit of a wash. I say that somewhat ironically because the guys that I had thought were finished moving out of our building... well, they were completely monopolizing the washers. I guess that they had an amount of laundry comparable to the amount of trash that they were throwing out. Really odd things have been turning up in the hallway, like a skateboard with a battered copy of Balderdash atop it, this further topped by a lone pot lid. Later a solo bowling ball just was sitting in the hallway, without advantage of even a bag. Yeah, don't think about it.

Anyway, it was a crap day at home, and oddly the dreaded trip to see Grandma turned out very pleasant.