Today was a good day.  It started off with a few hours at the local game shop playing Gamma World with the guys (for the full review, check here).  The game was fun and relaxing, and I honestly didn’t want to stop when we did but several of the guys had other commitments today and it was best.  So I headed home around 5 pm and Tasha and I went to dinner then set about the business of cleaning up the house in preparation for Christmas decorations.

Decorating for Christmas this year has been a mixed bag, mostly because we are also relocating a lot of things from the upstairs room that will become the nursery, which displaces other things on the ground floor.  Usually, we would store the living room items in the guest room but since it is now housing the contents of the nursery this has become more difficult.  This whole process has seen the relocation of many of our stored items.  Tasha has had to move the remaining undisplayed portion of her basket collection to the basement in storage containers, and my prop collection has met a similar fate.  In order to make room for the Christmas tree, my two electric guitars (and amp) have been temporarily relocated to the guest bedroom.  Tasha was worried that between my prop collection and my guitars I was feeling pretty displaced, and I suppose that is partially true.

I know in one case it is for a good reason, and for another it is only temporary and it’s not that big of a deal, but I wish this house was either slightly larger, or had a finished basement so we actually had places for our hobbies.  We have enough space to live in, however it seems that some of our recreational activities are suffering due to a lack of room.  Oh well, we will make do.

The pumpkin pies are in the oven and that can mean only one thing… it’s Thanksgiving again!

This year I have a lot to be thankful for.  I have a great job (albeit sometimes frustrating) in a really cool place to live.  I am blessed to have a spectacular family, who loves me despite my being so far away.  I have great friends, near and far, that I can count on no matter what might come my way.  Most importantly, I am thankful for my wife Tasha and our upcoming baby, <name omitted>.  It really helps to put hard times at work in perspective when you’re surrounded by such a quality group of people that care so much about you.  I’m a very lucky guy.

For those of you wondering, Tasha and I are spending Thanksgiving with our good friends The Ballews, The Pallises, and some of their mutual friends.  Judging by the set of Facebook messages, I am going to be STUFFED tomorrow however I will likely be missing capelletti and quality time with my family.  Despite all that, I am looking forward to a nice long break to recharge.

I hope everyone reading this has a great Thanksgiving holiday!  More soon!

Today was a busy day!  We had church, then we went shopping at a nearby mall after lunch at Red Robin.  We came back and had a nap, followed quickly by dinner with Paul and Kara.  Next up, Rock Band 3 for the rest of the evening! 🙂

A recipe for a great Saturday!  Tasha and I grabbed lunch at Denny’s after dropping by to Black & Read so I could get the Gamma World RPG.  (I’m running a session next week, so I had to get it so I knew the rules!)  After that, it was over to the Ballews for D&D, and now I’m back home playing Rock Band 3 with the Waltons!  Not much else to report at the moment, so it’s time to get back to rockin’!

It’s Rock Band 3 night!  Can’t talk now, too busy rockin’!!

Today started with Church, followed by lunch at Denny’s because the baby demanded Tasha to get scrambled eggs.  The Church is doing a series on tithing (or giving of 1/10 of your income to Church or charity) and this has got me thinking.  I’ve wanted to begin charitable giving for awhile, hearing inspiring stories from parishioners about how it has enriched their lives has me inspired to do the same.  Tasha and I discussed it over lunch, and we agreed that once we had our emergency fund completed we would start giving more in addition to ramping up our own retirement savings.

The rest of the day was spent helping PW and Kara move some furniture for their upcoming floor staining and then cleaning up the house because they’re staying with us while the work is completed.  We had a nice dinner out at Beau Jo’s pizzeria to break up the cleaning spree, and that about calls the Sunday a wrap.  Tomorrow is going to start early with an important meeting, hopefully everything will go well.  The blog posts may be short the next few days since I will be keeping Paul and Kara entertained, but more soon!

I am pleased to report a very productive after-karate evening.  I came home and had my favorite guilty pleasure for dinner, Flavorite Beef Noodles.  Shortly thereafter, I finished a tweak to a recent side job which took about an hour and moved on to fixing my ailing Media Center thanks to a package left on my doorstep by NewEgg.  Once again that company impresses me greatly with their quick shipping and easy ordering system.

The video card was all that fried (as far as I can tell) and now I can boot it up, Remote Desktop to it, and connect via Visual Studio.  I’m going to hold off on actually testing the Media Center features until tomorrow, mostly because I have some other things I want to do before bed tonight.  Namely, I need to get the rabbit his medicine and then I’m going to surprise Tasha by doing some of her chores.  I’ve been busy and distracted this week between work and a few side projects that I have going, and she deserves a little more attention.  Since she’s sleeping, I will show my appreciation by making her day easier for tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I am going to work a flex day so I can get back to Illinois one day earlier.  We have to allow for more travel time with the pregnancy and there is a deadline looming at the office, so this works in everyone’s favor.  I’m off to do some more chores now, more soon!

Today was a very productive day at the office.  It was punctuated nicely with questions to help other team members along, breaking up at roughly two hour increments all day which granted me enough time to actually get something done for a change.  Hopefully this trend will continue as the week draws to a close.

Tonight was my first of two sessions running a D&D game at our local game shop.  The session went really well, and you can read all about it over at my roleplaying blog, StupidRanger.com.  I was pretty nervous going into the game since I haven’t really gamed with a new group since we moved out to Colorado, and this was the first time I’ve ever gamed in an actual gaming shop (I know, weird).  I’m pleased to report that things went swimmingly and the group ended up in a prime location to set up next week’s game, which is going to take things entirely to a more grand level.  It is fun doing short campaign cycles, it affords one the opportunity to affect the overall campaign in a meaningful way while having just enough time to do something interesting.

We’re starting to get snow here in Colorado, and I have had three coworkers warn me that I need to replace my tires.  They are 100% correct, they have been semi-bald for awhile but I have just continued to put it off.  Tasha’s going to call the tire place and get me some brand new all-weather tires just in time for the snowfall to begin.  This weekend appears to be the first opportunity for real accumulating snow, so it will be interesting to watch it all unfold.

That’s all for me right now!

What a zoo!  Today was another LONG day full of design meetings and hand-off for next week (I’m filling in for a coworker).  By the end of the day, between difficult technical problems and staring at a computer screen all day I had a really bad headache.  I came home late to find that Tasha had made lasagna, some food and Tylenol improved my condition considerably.

Around 8:30 pm, the baby demanded a Blizzard so we went out for some dessert.  Tasha popped in Pirates of the Caribbean on Blu-Ray and we had ourselves a cozy relaxing night in.

That’s all from me for now!

Today was my last full vacation day in Illinois, and I spent it by eating a ton of food. First, it was Olive Garden with Trent (and family), Eric, and Matt. I ate myself stupid and talked some shop with the guys.

After that it was a quick trip to the bank and then another Italian dinner at Avanti’s with my family and Tasha’s mom, who was visiting from Lincoln. Now I am wrapping up the evening by watching TV with the parents.

Tomorrow brings a trip to Saint Louis and a flight back to CO! It will be good to be home!