a normal day for me, if my life were an RPG

6:45 am: Wake up. My life points (LP) and code points (CP) are full.

6:50 am: Boss battle! Taking out the trash. Timed battle. I have to get the trash out before the trash truck comes. Succeed with time to spare.

7:30 am: Level up character (breakfast, shower, shave).

7:55 am: Board my trusty steed (my Honda). Travel to next destination: work.

8:05 am: Random battle: code error found last night. Start diagnosis of problem quickly. Enemy is a “logic bomb”. Use special move “Defusion” to win battle.

8:30 am: Code points are low as a result of last battle. Use a Cherry Coke Zero from item bag. Code points replenish.

9:15 am: Random battle: two enemies – “Deployment” and “Windows Decompression”. Enemies have technique “multi-step process” that casts “Slow”. Employ moves “batch file” and “RAR command line” to dispatch the foes. Level up – I learn new batch processing techniques.

10:55 am: Boss battle! Release deployment. Timed battle. Boss can spawn extra code error enemies, and does so in great numbers. Halfway through the battle, see that life and code points are drastically low. Eat salad and drink a Diet Dr Pepper to restore points. Win battle just before time runs out.

1:30 pm: boss battle won, but in a FMV, I and the other member of my party (my boss) are ambushed by a Feature Creep. Finished demo is obliterated, with nothing the party can do about it.

2:10 pm: recuperating with party members, figuring out a way to handle Feature Creep. But just after we get our plan together, it’s time for another…

2:45 pm: Boss Battle! “Client Demo”. I lose one party member, but pick up two different ones, a fellow coder and a tester. Boss spawns code errors and mini-feature creeps. Battle drags out longer than I would have expected.

6:00 pm: Think I’ve defeated enemy, only to realize that this is one of those battles where the boss doesn’t die. He just goes away for a little while, only to come back in a stronger form later. But for now, he’s gone, and the party strikes a victory pose.

6:05 pm: Mount steed to go home. Life points will be replenished with chicken and vegetables. Hot female mage waiting at home. Feature Creep and Client Demo are still out there, but for now, life is good.

benefits of Bible study

So I went 2-for-3 this weekend on updating the site. Hm.

I’ve been playing one of my games a lot recently. I’ll get too far into it and then stop only when I’m tired and realize that I have to work tomorrow. Not really good on a number of fronts. See, I didn’t read the chapter I was supposed to yesterday, either. I did read my Bible – the passages we read in church – but not the one that I was supposed to read for the study. So tonight I did it and the one for today.

The difference that it makes to me when I have read my Bible that day is really astounding. I’d forgotten about it. Sure, it just makes me feel good, and there’s a sense of accomplishment, but there’s also a deeper understanding of why I believe what I do. Some days I’ll read a commentary about the chapter that I’m on in addition to the chapter itself; that’s been useful as well.

So even though I “missed a day” yesterday, I’ve been happy with how this particular resolution has gone so far.

that’s a good Saturday

I started today by getting up early. Normally, this wouldn’t be that great a thing, but I went to bed early too so it evened out. This morning, I went to Wal-Mart and bought an electric blanket for Kelly. Last night, we bought a radiator from Home Depot. Between those two things, hopefully, our gas bill should go down and Kelly’s comfort level should go up.

Once Kelly got home from work, we watched the Alabama-Auburn basketball game. I don’t follow college basketball nearly as much as I used to (I know, one of my two favorite teams is two-time defending national champs…), but when the two teams play just about anything against each other and it’s televised, I’ll watch it. It was even better that Bama probably played their best game of the year and whupped some tiger tail.

After that, we went over to Ricky and Tammy’s for an early 30th birthday party for Ricky. (Already this month, he’s become an “old man”…now he’ll be an old man.) Katelyn, of course, is as cute as ever. It was a nice laid-back evening…pizza and some old Animaniacs episodes.

Add all that up, and that’s a good Saturday for me.

oops

It was bound to happen, wasn’t it?

Okay, so I missed a day. But I’ve posted twice on other days, and I’ll probably post again this evening too, so it works out, right? Right?

(crickets chirp)

Okay, it doesn’t. I got wrapped up playing a game and before I knew it, it was midnight, which means that not only did I not write a post yesterday, I didn’t get as much sleep as I should. TGIF, indeed.

prepping for a pup

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I don’t think that I’ve made an official announcement on the site yet, but we’re getting a dog. True to my desire from long ago, it will be a chocolate lab, and we’re naming it London, after Jack London.

Yes, I know some of you are asking, “Why not a husky?” Well, I love huskies, too. In fact, I’d probably put it second on my list of favorite dogs. The problem is, we live in Alabama, not Alaska. And it’s just so warm in summer. But there’s also another issue – huskies aren’t as easily trainable. I want to make sure that we can get a well-trained dog the first time around. And what better dog than a Lab for easily-trained?

There is a downside to the Lab, and it relates to size. Kelly hasn’t had a large dog before, and trying to deal with one, especially as boisterous as a Lab, can be intimidating at first. So we asked the breeder for one that’s a little more laid-back.

So we’ve got most of the basics now – a crate, toys, barriers…about the only thing that I can think of right now that we haven’t gotten are food and water bowls. We’ll be getting him in about 2 1/2 weeks, and we can’t wait!

Manah “Nah, Nah”

So I tried Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper tonight. And all I can think is, “There are 11 more in there that I have to drink.”

Seriously, next time I think about trying some weird flavor combination of a soft drink, pop me in the head.

But it’s still better than the cherry vanilla version.

Bonus points for anyone who gets where I was going with the entry title.

good flannel day

I had the day off today, and so did Kelly. What did we do? Well, for the most part, not much at all. We did put together our golf organizer, and we were going to take our recycling to the community bin, but it was already full.

Other than that, I wore my flannel, played around on the computer, watched some TV, etc. Not really anything spectacular. For the most part, just how I like days off.

snow day pictures

The backyard, just as it started to snow. You probably can’t see snowflakes in this small version of the picture (you can in the big one).

Kelly trying her hand – er, tongue – at catching snowflakes.

I try to reel in a big one.

Backyard looks a little different, doesn’t it?

Obviously, our roof isn’t normally white.

This snowball ended up on my sweatshirt about a minute after this picture was taken.

Now the snowmen look more at home, don’t they?

Our little addition to the snowman family. He lasted about an hour before toppling over the railing.

Later that day, we made our first fire in the fireplace.

Looks cozy, doesn’t it?

snow day

Oh yes, it happened. Although it didn’t start until after the morning light. I stayed up until about 2:30 and it didn’t snow. I woke up around 8:30 this morning; I think it started about 15 minutes after I got up.

We got out in the snow a little bit. We took a few pictures; those are forthcoming (we got a new digital camera, and are still learning the ins-and-outs of it). I hope that they come out nice. It was fun to see the people walking up and down the street, just enjoying the snow and the resulting scenery.

For a little bit, the flurries were pretty thick. It wasn’t Green Bay playoff weather thick, but it was a good bit of snow. I’d say that we probably got a little over an inch in total.

And only a few hours later, it was gone. Practically all evidence that it had ever snowed had melted away. But it was nice while it lasted.

This evening, Kelly and I made our first fire in our fireplace. The dying embers are glowing as I type this. We’ve enjoyed the day. I hope you’ve enjoyed yours too, gentle reader, even if you weren’t blessed with snow today.