My weekend: stay up a little late Friday night (don't even remember why). Tried to get going early, I had errands to run. But I got caught up in a discussion about which characters I could play at Hochcon. My primay RPGA Living Greyhawk character, Corporal Sr. Obedient Master Nadia Xianalannae, veteran of the Cleansing of the Oytwood & the Siege of Gorna (wow, what a string of titles), is down to 2 time units (vacation). Between her training as a junior squire, staying with the Fey king & then having a daughter, plus actually playing games, her time units have been eaten up. She's 7th level, almost 8th.

Then there's what started as my tertiary character but she's now my 2ndary: Combat Specialist Reed of the CatTails. She has 4 time units left. I've just played her a lot, and spent some time units with her clan as part of her qualifying as a clan protector (rank w/in the clan).

The other two characters are Edana Tiernan & Isolde. Edana is in the scouts; she's a 2nd level halfling rogue & has about 38 military & 11 vacation time units left, maybe more. Isolde is a human sorceress & has 39 military units left. I've only played her once.

Nadia is a half-elf bard/ranger who's a senior squire with the Knights of the Watch & Dispatch. Reed was a human cleric/fighter. Then she died & was reincarnated as a wood elf. She's still a cleric/fighter, though. All of my characters are in the Gran March military. Frankly, in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Back to what I was saying, since my two primary characters are so short of time units that meant I was probably going to play Edana. Since she's 2nd level I had to check because not all the games had APL's low enough for me to play her. So I canceled one game (Rites of Spring, a double rounder - I want to play Nadia in that one because she played in the 1st one in that series) & signed up to play one of the core modules with Edana.

All told, that took about 2 hours, including email. So I ended up driving through part of the early game day traffic at Carolina on my way to Pittsboro to pay the rent on my storage unit.

I made it to Southpoint, bought the stuff at Victoria's Secret (yeah coupons). Then I passed by The Body Shop. But I had spent more than I had planned at VS so I didn't buy anything there. After that it was into Barnes & Noble to spend my $25 gift certificate. Ran into 2 people I knew. I managed to resist Monstrous Regiment by Pratchett. It's still in hardback.

Chris & I picked up Rosemary (yeah it was out of our way but she's having brake issues) and we all went to see T3 at Blueridge. In some ways, a predictable movie but it did have 1 or 2 surprises & it was well-done. Definitely worth matinee prices so we got a real bargain. We still plan to see The Medallion & Matris Reloaded, both of which are also playing at Blue Ridge. After the movie it was Ten Ten Diner for the buffet. Yum, great buffet. But I did not like their crab rangoons. I loved their sesame balls (with red bean jelly inside).

I finished one book I'd bought that day & started another one.

Woke up Sunday with a headache. We went to Pizza Hut for their buffet & I dosed my headache with food, caffeine & an ibuprofen. They never did have a chocolate chip pizzert, much to my sorrow. I had some salad, apple pizzert & blueberry pizzert, though.

Then we went to Southpoint. Chris wanted to see how much Sears was charging for ovens. Ours took 30 minutes to heat Friday night, averaging about 10 degrees per minute. He wants (& I agree) a double oven. We looked at Maytag's Gemini but the Sears' Kenmore with the tri-use drawer (storage, warming & baking) was $200 cheaper and had a half-removable rack for cooking tall items, say a roasting pan with a lid. It had 2 double burners on the range top. It has one of those flat top ranges instead of the burners we have now but that's a common feature.

While there we also checked out dishwashers (ours is probably as old as the oven so could go any day) & small fridges for when we have the game room aka the basement done. We decided that the 4+ cu. foot was bigger than we needed. And that there are a lot of dishwasher features that we just don't like.

Then it was home to finish working on our characters for Rosemary's Forgotten Realms campaign. I had lost my character sheet & the part of my notes that had the stats I'd rolled up so I had to start over. I remembered what sword I wanted; I need to make 2 notes on my character sheet though, -1 damage on the sword & that my character reacts less-than-well to sudden bright light (part of the whole 1/2 Drow, Darkvision thing). Chris had his stats & notes, he just had to fill out his character sheet, equip & name his character.

I picked up the living room a little. Disposed of the box (recycling) from Wizards of the Coast. I kept most of the stuff they sent, other parts of it ended up in recycling too. I finished another book that I'd bought Saturday (that's 3 read plus 1 additional book: A Gentleman's Honor, to Sir Phillip, with Love, Blood Price, and Blood Trail). Was up until almost 11 between finishing that book & picking up around the living room & kitchen.

Kept waking up with nightmares all night long. Most of them were different, too. Apparently I turned off the alarm clock at some point 'cause I woke up at 6:45. Only about 45 minutes late, & I needed to weigh myself, pick out clothes & pack my lunch. It was a little close this morning & I was 10 minutes late to work. On the bright side, I've lost 2 more pounds.

Ran into Shaw again, on the bus. He lives in Cary & parks at the same P&R lot. I saw him on the bus home Friday, too. He was late for an exam in his African-American History class.

Wow, this is a long post. I'm reading one of the stories in Changer of Worlds, again. It's the 3rd of the Honor Harrington anthologies. I picked up the 1st one on Saturday. I bought 5 or 6 books. If I actually stop & think about it, I'll remember how many & what their titles were.

Now I have work to do (I've been working - I started this post at 9 am & finished at 10:15 plus 10 minutes for editing)

I did a very scary thing at lunch. I opened a new checking account. At a brand new bank. I have to close my old one anyway...long story. At since I haven't been truly happy with them since they screwed up some stuff (long time ago) I'm taking this opportunity to jump ship, so to speak.

And despite being mightily tempted, I did not buy anything at the half-price book sale today. Part of it was lack of time. It's a good 10 minute walk to my new bank and I wasn't certain how much time it would take to set up an account. It took less time than I thought but I had to wait a little, there was a line. Gee, lunchtime on a payday...& there's a line at the bank. Wonder if there's a connection (insert wry grin)

I love these thigh-high boots but they aren't made for striding/trekking across campus. I need either new insoles or thicker socks if I'm going to do that again.

And it's a beautiful Friday morning. It's crisp & sunny & cold & guess who forgot to find gloves this morning? So my fingers are finally warming up, after being at work for awhile.

Washed my hair last night (hey, nothing on tv until 8pm & I'd already eaten supper). I braided it before I went to bed; it was merely damp by that point. It's still damp this morning; I haven't taken it out of the braid yet.

Yesterday I wrote to my Aunt Lillian. Technically she's my great-aunt but she's close in age to my mother. She's married to my grandfather's youngest brother, who's 20 years younger than my grandfather. I wrote her asking for some family info. I mean, I don't even know the names of all my grandfather's siblings. In my defense, there were 11 of them. I can clearly recall meeting about only 4 or 5 of them. And I don't know the names of my paternal grandmother's sibling (6 sibs plus grandmother). My paternal grandfather only had the one brother, that makes it easy. I don't know any of the names of my maternal grandmother's siblings. I should, she didn't have that many.

Last night I did some on-line genealogy stuff. Found 3 of my great-great-grandparents in the 1880 census (& possibly one sibling of a great-grandparent). That was really cool. So now I know that gg-grandpa Veesart was a laborer. Whatever that means. I thought his wife was from Belgium but she's listed as being born in Illinois, not that the census gauranteed accurate. Her parents are listed as being born in Lorraine. I think that's Alsace-Lorraine. It did confirm that he was from Holland, as my Dad remembered.

Hmm, can you tell that genealogy fascinates me? I also found where someone has done a lot of research on my maternal's paternal line. If it's accurate (her email bounced so I can't ask her), then her family has been in NC 250 years. Wow. Of course, they used to be farther east back then, Cumberland Co.

Took another aleve. Wanna go home, head hurts! Throbbing.

On the bright side, my dad just called. He wanted to know how the reunion on Sunday went & to tell me, 'cause he didn't think that he had, that his grandfather Felix Sentiff used to play the fiddle. He played at square dances & such-like. His daughter, my grandmother, played the violin & loved classical music & opera. He also wanted to let me know that I will be getting her violin, which is currently displayed in a shadow box. That would be lovely. I have a couple of the fans from her collection & that's nice but having that violin really means a lot to me. She died of cancer when I was 12. I wish I'd known her better.

Ah crap, now I'm all teary-eyed. Gonna go do some crosswords. Or some typing, anything without emotion attached.

Lunch was pretty good (leftover oven fried chicken, corn & mixed veggies) but I'm still hungry. Wonder if low blood sugar is contributing to my headache (which I still have btw).

Read Mom's letter. She totally misunderstood a question I asked. She also threatened my health if I buy jeans that cost $55-$75. My health is safe, I'm reluctant to pay $20 for jeans. Color me 'I'd rather buy books', not cheap.

If I'm spending that much on clothes it will 1) involve leather, 2) involve gussets or lacing, 3) made of silk or 4) all of the above. I like old-fashioned clothes, like 200 years out of fashion. Though I admit that I don't care for panniers & I'm too inhibited to wear Regency fashions, in public at least.

I have such a headache! I don't know why I have it but I'm trying a 2-part cure 1) caffeine, 2) an Aleve tablet. Hopefully 1 or the other (or maybe both) will stop the pain.

I slacked this morning. I needed to read a little before going to sleep last night (& wanted to wait & say goodnight to my SO when he came home - night call, ran late) & started re-reading _Night Watch_ by Pratchett. Bedded down for sleep about 11:15. That's fine. I manage to drag myself awake this morning & made a bad decision. I picked up _Night Watch_ again. And finished it before getting ready for work. Well, I made it on time, barely, but I made it.

How boring am I? Last night, I just wrote up 3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Roleplaying Game (BtVS,tRPG) characters last night while I watched tv. I should have been tatting or writing, but I just wasn't in the mood. I did figure out Jake 2.0 at least 5 minutes before they revealed it.

Today I'm finishing a note to my mom. She was supposed to go to the family reunion with me but bailed to recover from an allergic reaction.

Favorite site of the day: http://www.hungersite.com
click it every day

Hmm, mental note: look into listening to & maybe buying ZZ Top's Mescalero & Dressy Bessy's Dressy Bessy. Just read a review in the Daily Tarheel (old edition).

My posts aren't publishing, but then I'll just continue writing them for my own enjoyment.

FYI: watching Birdcage right before bed does odd things to your dreams. That plus reading about a book with elements of Sleeping Beauty. The state fairgrounds were involved, plus fairie-style magic (sleep spell, I think) & drag queens & gay men.

Well, my first blog. Things I've done in the last 4 days: played board games at a friends' house to meet their friend with the same name, baked brownies, gotten lost in Apex, attended a family reunion, wrote up a character for a friend's game supplement (she's written it & now she's going to test the adventure in it on our gaming group), watched The Gamers, worked on a character for Buffy the Vampire Slayer the Roleplaying Game ( http://www.btvsrpg.com/about.htm ), and worked.

Plus written in my hardcopy journal & written a letter to my niece. In between those other activities I read 3 books, maybe 4.

I don't think I'll be drawing in the readers in droves, not with material like this.

However: I did see this article (the link was posted on the Lois McMaster Bujold fan list):
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/09/24/wow.tech.santa.printer/
more info I found while looking for the previous link:
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_737424.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery

I sat outside to eat lunch today (as I do almost every day that the weather is nice). The jacket was a necessity as just shirtsleeves was a bit too cool, even when sitting in the sunshine wearing black. I read a little, people watched a little & then looked through the textbooks for sale in the Pit. I bought Chan Insights & Oversights, Jambalaya: the Natural Woman's Book, & The Longman Handbook for Writers & Readers, 2nd ed. Then I bought a book at the Bullshead too. Though I managed to resist buying Call of the First Rider by K. Britain. It's still in hardback ($24.95) and I'm saving money for Christmas presents.