dmoonfire

My last class is finally over. That last little essay (got a bit cocky though) got finished somewhere in the middle of the week. I’m already approved for graduation, and I got a 98% score according to the online course. So, that should give me a 3.9 GPA for my master’s program.

Given that, and ignoring my irrational fear that I somehow missed a class, I’m completely done with college. I probably won’t go on to the doctorate program at all. Instead, I’m going to focus on something more enjoyable.

Like fiction writing.

Haven’t gotten much of it in the last few days though. Work is winding up for a deadline next Friday and hopefully there won’t be any overtime this time. We also had a pretty impressive snow storm and a nastier set of confusion. The snow removal guy never showed up, so I had to shovel the 20-30 inches worth of snow myself.

Yeah, whine, whine. Still did it and I wasn’t even that sore for more than a day. We are also watching one of Fluffy’s co-workers Lab puppy for the week. It has been… interesting. I keep forgetting that some dogs consider horking up a tug rope as a sign of affection.

I’m still working on that website design probably for the rest of the weekend. Fluffy is working on her own designs since she needs to brush up on her skills. And, for some reason, I really struggle to teach her programming; we live well together, but we don’t exactly work well together.

I’m also hoping this means the three people who read this will actually see more posts.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

’tis the season for lots of change.

I finished my final paper for my masters on Sunday. While I hate it with a passion–it isn’t my best work–the instructor seemed pretty happy with it in the draft a week before. I have one last short paragraph to write and I should finally be done with college. I even paid my tuition last week, so I could actually graduate.

Looking forward to starting new projects soon. I decided to hold off on the programming for a little bit and just work on novels for the rest of the year. Yeah, those plans will last. But, I’m looking forward to just… writing.

And a little web design since I’m trying to make a little site for a friend. It isn’t perfect, but I’m liking how it turns out so far. Haven’t gotten much feedback on it, to be honest, so I’m going to just assume it is awesome and let people quietly snigger behind my back.

Yesterday, I finally got back to the .NET user group meeting that my co-worker runs. Got a chance to see some pretty little libraries out there and won book in the raffle. Always fun.

On Thursday, I’m going to try out the local writer’s group and see if it would fit my personality. Once a month, but if I want to be a good writer, I need to take myself a bit more seriously.

Finally, Fluffy got her Christmas/holiday gift last week. It was down to a year subscription of People magazine or me going to the gym with her twice a week for a few months. I bet you can guess which one she got? Yeah, her subscription star… never mind. Tonight is session four at the gym. It isn’t a habit and I feel so pathetic since I can’t keep up, but I’m persistent so I’ll get it sooner or later. It works out since my co-workers pretty much stopped walking with me at lunch.

I won’t get under 136 kg pounds by the end of the year like I hoped. I should be within 5 kg pounds of it though. According to Weight Watchers last night, I’m at 140 kg, so I’m within that goal. Going to try making that different as small as possible in the next few weeks.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Some years ago, I was dancing at my cousin Andy’s wedding with a woman I didn’t really know besides her near-obsession with cows and the fact she dances to “Earl Must Die” at her own wedding (best wedding song I’ve heard). It was one of those “pay to dance with the bride” things which I didn’t really knew existed and didn’t know what to do. Fortunately, I’m a fairly decent dancer (I used to love ballroom dancing).

But, we talked briefly about things, then something came up.

When I saw your RSVP, I didn’t know who it was at first. Then Andy remembered, you are the ‘lost cousin’.

Lost cousin. That hit me in a lot of ways. I don’t call people often. I have trouble sending emails or letters. I don’t give out Christmas cards or birthday cards. I’ve gotten a lot of flak over the years about that but it wasn’t anything I really felt the need to change.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Did a bit of tech support today for a family member. I tried to get their virus protection working, they fed me waffles. Very productive overall, but not nearly as much as I wanted it to be. I still need to work on a few websites, but I’m still exited that I got my main website looking a bit niftier than before.

I’m enjoying the posting for Oile, but I have the usual doubts when writing in the dark. It doesn’t quite have the feel I”m hoping to find and it is pointing out how much I need to work on world development for Fedran. Oh well, even if no one comments on it, I’m still going to enjoy the world-building.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

My planned vacation of heading up to the cabin for the weekend has taken a few hits over the last few weeks. Fluffy couldn’t make it because of work, exhaustion, and other factors. I figured this was okay, my dad is up there and I’ll just spend the weekend reading, writing, and walking.

Last night, found out my laptop won’t boot. And I can’t comfortably write by hand anymore, so if I can’t recover it in the next hour or so, it’s going to be a weekend of reading and walking. Which is a bummer, because I really was looking forward to writing.

But, I’m planning on having fun anyways. I’m sure I’m completely unprepared for this, it has been a few years since I went up to the cabin, but if I can’t write, I do have a ton of books I can bring.

It will also be weird not having Fluffy along. I know she has to work, and she hurt herself today, but I also know that my dad is really looking forward to seeing me. I did consider buying a laptop, but I really shouldn’t and I would spend more time here in Iowa trying to get it installed “properly” than actually driving.

Oh well, have a fun weekend!

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I’m excited and worried at the same time. My weigh-in for Weight Watchers was… good. Actually, a bit too good so I’m worried that I won’t be able to lose weight tomorrow because of some quirk. Came out to almost 3 kg in a week. This reverses the weight gain in the two weeks before and then some, but I’ll have to be extra focused on walking fast, getting some excercise, and eating healthy. I’m 0.45 kg from my next star and 0.91 kg from losing 5% of my initial weight at Weight Watchers.

Fluffy is out of town for a few days, so I get to enjoy obsessing at home. This week, I’m planning on working on my third college petition feedback and then the commission due in a week or so. The commissioner is anxious to get it and I really want to see how the story turns out. It is probably one of the largest ones I’ve done from someone else’s idea, so this is going to be a challenge. While I can write fifteen thousand word stories, I do better with less than that.

My “sweet spot” for short stories is five to ten thousand words. That is where at least 90% of everything I write for myself falls into. Naturally, it is larger than most of the places looking for short stories which makes it harder to find places to submit.

Not that schedules impact writing at all *cough*, but the ten thousand mark is also the largest story I can reasonably write in a single evening. I have to be really into the story, dreaming and thinking about it constantly, but sitting down after work until bed time, I get just under four hours. Naturally, that times goes into Fluffy, animals, and housework also, but when she’s out of town, I write more.

Imagine that.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

(I know I said I’d talk about Glorious Saber and artwork, but I decided it sounded too whining so I just canned it.)

My mother came into town this weekend on her way up to teach a class. I was hoping it was for her other company, but… oh well, it is here life. Nice visit though, mainly talking about random things while plate after plate of sushi showed up at our table. She ordered about 30 pieces too many for the group of four, including Fluffy. I try not to over-order on sushi, mainly because the flavor changes so much overnight and my contribution to the order ended up being exactly what I could eat. Except there was only one sushi chef and they were swamped. So service took three hours for our food to show up. That gave us a chance to talk.

Nothing really meaningful, but she made a joke that actually got me worried. She’s been falling a lot. She didn’t come out and say it, but she jokes about a few nasty falls and Fluffy said that a friend of ours (who works for her) said that she is falling more often. It isn’t normal of her to keep secrets like that but in other ways, I’m not sure how much I’m going to really worry about it. I’m trying to pull away from her to get a clear head, but it is something I’m going to keep an eye on. You never know if falling turns into something worse.

In more cheerful news, I got a 93% or A on my college course. Only two more to go, including the capstone project, and I should have my masters by the end of the year. I’m still hoping to get my petition out by the end of the weekend, but I suspect the MfGames CIL release won’t be until next weekend. It is all those documentation steps I want to get done before I finish.

Technical writing is an interesting best. It is far different than writing fiction and very different from my non-fiction writing. I have a separate voice for all three types of writing, just as I have a fourth for academic writing. It is hard, actually, to write documentation for libraries like this. Mainly because it is done last, but also because it sometimes is really hard to explain why you did something that works well in code. “Just because” is a horrible thing to write in documentation. For some, I reverted to just explaining how to use it, but for others, I explained why I use it, so people understand the decisions behind what I wrote.

So, programming and writing and school this week.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

There are days when I hate to walk alone.

Yesterday became one of those days. I didn’t bring Inigo out on a walk because of the temperature. Keeshonds are absolutely adorable dogs, but they also have huge furry coats and can suffer from heat exhaustion. The last time I walked Inigo, alone which means about half again faster than Fluffy, he got so hot that I saw drool pouring out of his mouth. When he got home, he pretty much collapsed. When it gets hotter, I can’t walk with him, not and feel that he will be safe.

Fortunately, Fluffy walks him in the morning, where it is cooler.

Unfortunately, Inigo doesn’t understand the connection between so hot that he almost collapses and walking outside. So, five minutes after staggering home, he is ready to go again. Pretty, but not so bright.

That means I walked alone.

It gives me a chance let my mind wander. Which usually means thinking about some story I’d really like to write if I wasn’t walking. Actually, it was nice, I got to work out the entire plot and realize that, somewhere around chapter 15, I simply couldn’t get it to work. That is the nice part of walking, getting to work out those story ideas and filter out the ones that won’t.

The hard part is when I get a story I want to write. Like Flight of the Scions, Peg and Sue, and everything else. Ideas get ironed out faster than I can write them. Then again, I always had that problem, so I can’t honestly blame college, exercising, or anything else. In fact, it just seems to be who I am.

I have a busy weekend planned. I’m late on my major homework and I need to compress 38+ pages down to 20 or so, plus include my own work. I also need to do all that icky lawn stuff, get more boxes out of the garage, repair the electrical on two outlets, and finish my commission. It is also the weekend we are celebrating our anniversary.

I really, really need to finish that commission.

What else does a boy need?

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Doesn’t quite sound as good as “tradition”, one of my favorite songs, but I had a very productive weekend so far. One of the main things is that I finally cut over the new theme to Moonfire Games. The theme is growing on me, though I don’t have the extra flair stuff, I do have all but one thing up and running. I still need to migrate the online Map of Creation but that is going to take a bit more than a few hours to get that running. Apparently, it broke badly in the last year and no one told me until recently.

I’m also changing my formula for petitions. I haven’t sent out any, but if I count the answered questions and the ones I’m looking for supporting documentation, I’m much further than 20% done. So, I just came up with one point for answering the question, one point for evidence, and one point to submit to come up with the new formula. Sadly, at nearly 70%, I really, really need to get off my ass and finish them. I’m going to send one out tomorrow, at least that is the plan.

Mowed the lawn… sort of. It’s a free lawn mower, so you can’t expect much. If I keep up with it, I’ll be able to do it on two charges, but right now it should take me a few more days to finish up. The charge on the mower only lasts about a half hour with the tall grass and an hour and some with the short grass. Obviously, it will inspire me to actually keep up with the lawn work.

Gave up on getting subtitles to work with the movies. Just too hard at this point, but I do have a nice copy of While You Were Sleeping for Fluffy sitting on the MythTV box. I’ll rip a few more movies, like Princess Bride and Juno.

Except for a walk, which I haven’t done in three days due to being sick, I’m pretty much just going to blow the rest of the day on Fluffy, writing, and maybe programming.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

We changed our weigh-in day to Mondays and, I’m very happy to say, I managed to lose another 0.6 kg. That puts me at 16.3% of my goal of 14.7 kg, which is making me rather happy since I’m still heading in the right direction.

Today is also the first day that Fluffy won’t be home when I get there. I have to actually go out on that walk with my own willpower instead of looking forward to spending an hour talking with her.

I’m hoping to get to programming or writing this week. I have been happily distracting myself with working on the new Moonfire Games site and I’m planning on getting all the projects and everything mapped over. This uses Doku Wiki for the CMS and I’m enjoying it pretty well. Needs a bit of love on the fonts, but that is, relatively speaking, a minor thing.

Later this week, I’m going to start working on my commission and hopefully the petitions. And, mowing the lawn for the first time in ten years.

Joys!

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Got my official weigh-in yesterday and it wasn’t the prettiest thing the world. Actually, it was barely a weight loss at 0.1 kg, which is the smallest amount they measure. Well, 0.2 pounds, but I don’t like that system. There were a few things I did wrong. Fluffy seems to think that me not eating enough is contributing to the slow weight loss, and she might be right. I have been struggling all week to actually eat my full points. Normally, I’m shy 5-15 points a day out of my 44. I just get obsessed with work and, well, forget to eat. That and we took the new guy out for chicken wings about three hours before I weighed in.

So, this next week, I’m going to behave much better. I swear! We are also moving our weigh-in day to Mondays, not because of the chicken wings, but Fluffy’s new job starts Tuesday nights. Actually, it looks like she’s basically on second shift for the length of this job. We are both nervous about it, but I have faith that it will work out in the end. It also means that we are going to cram “together” time on Sunday and Monday nights.

I also stayed up late last night to reformat my laptop, which always takes twice as long as I think it would. But, it now has a brand new XFS file system and will let me write stories/novels upstairs with Fluffy instead of down in my “man cave”. I need to rewrite at least three outlets to make this happen properly, a lot of two prog ones, but I’m getting nicely down the getting settled path. After that, I have a MythTV box to move up stairs, a remote to get working with videos, and moving the boxes out of the garage.

An exciting time, right now, filled with a great wide plain of opportunities. And doors. Hundreds upon thousands of doors spread out before us. I’m kind of cheerful about that.

As a side note, Fluffy reminded me to just “not be depressed”.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Another weekend has passed through my fingers. slipping away like sand and water and me without my panning bowl. It was a good weekend, filled with many good little things, but it still felt like a wash for me.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

It’s amazing. We packed and moved the entire house in Illinois in a matter of a weekend, but to move from a small apartment takes four weeks of effort. Today, I finally handed over the keys to the apartment after Fluffy and I got through our final cleaning last night.

Now, Fluffy did break her back to pack the house six months ago, but the loading of the truck, moving, and unloading still eclipsed the sheer amount of effort and took less time.

Oh well, I’m down to two residential addresses again. And this is a good thing.

I haven’t found my rut yet, but remarkably, I’m still happy. I did decide to hold off on finding a gaming group though. Unless I fall into one, I need to focus on everything else going on and it is something that I miss but can set aside for a few months or years. I’ll get my fix at GenCon this year and maybe actually be a bit less pathetic about enjoying writers.

If I can remember to pre-register for stuff.

And to finish the reviews I promised.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Got an email out of the blue last night about BooGame. It was a simple question of “can I do this”, but it also got me excited about working on the project again. Like writing, I always work better when someone is going “ooh, how pretty!” Call it vanity, but I write for audiences. It doesn’t matter if it is programming, literary, or research reports.

(Side note, I’m going to use the official Weight Watchers weigh-in on Tuesdays to update the progress bar on the top. It is there to annoy me and remind me that I have something hanging over my head.)

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Rough night, mainly because I kept thinking too much. Stupid little things that keep you up. I call it my monkey, a little chattering thing that won’t shut up so I can go to sleep. Fortunately, not everything was negative, just… loud.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

According to my latest tests, I’m one test way from officially having diabetes. This… well, this scares the hell out of me because I feel like I’m in a blind panic to prevent something that I should have seen coming for close to five years.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

I pushed it a bit too hard in this last week. Everything was going perfectly fine, loading the truck up on Saturday, unloading on Sunday. Then, Monday came. A peaceful day of relaxing, unpacking, and getting the DirecTV working. It would be perfect for heading back into work on Tuesday.

Fluffy even drove me in. Yeah, it was only for a day, which is all I can ask for her. If there is one thing she isn’t, it’s a morning person. I mean, she hisses at me if I wake her up too early. It’s cute and adorable, but hissing?

So, Thursday is here. I only have a half-working DirecTV system, an Internet that occasionally drops out, and a cold that makes me wonder if I found a variant of some new plague. We’ll call it Dylan’s Torments. It shall be a terrible disease and people will curse my name until the end of time.

Or, just a simple head cold.

And yet, I’m miserable and happy at the same time.

What is wrong with me?

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Wow, new house, new patterns. Commute is almost exactly double the length and if I catch all greens (like this morning), it takes 18 minutes to work. That means the bad days should be about 22-27 minutes.

We finally got physically moved into the place on Sunday night, except for the apartment which is going to take a few more trips to properly clean up. Somehow, a tiny little apartment takes more effort simply because we didn’t get a big truck and move it.

Moving day was hard. Fluffy had a good-bye party, which meant me and my brother packed the truck while they partied. Got a little bitter about it while doing it, but I’ve managed to let it (mostly) go by now. I also learned that while I’m good at packing trucks and cars, my brother is just that much better than me. We had almost no empty space in that thing. Note to others, when they say a 5.1 meters (17 foot) truck is for a 150 square meters (1,600 square foot) house… they lie. We left a few things behind for the next round of things (plus, we still technically live there also).

Unpacking was fun: snow and hail. We gave up taking things into the basement and just loaded up the garage. Over the next month or so, we’ll get the garage cleared out and usable by the cars.

I got hurt pretty much every day of the move. From the three scratches that look like a cat, but really was a file cabinet, to the bruised foot from where I feel at the gas station (dignity survived simply because no one could see on the other side of the truck). I’m walking with a limp, but that should be fine by the end of the week.

I also realized I’m stronger than I thought. I know that I packed some of the boxes heavily, at least when Fluffy called me some months ago complaining that she put one of my “heavy” boxes on the scale and it came out over 30 kg (70 pounds). And I only had eight of those (RPG books, mostly hardcovers). Last night, even with a limp, I could easily pick up the 35 kg (76 pound) shelving unit box to toss it in the cart. We always joke that I’m stronger with an audience (cute girls or guys are worth +10 STR). But, still strange since I see myself as a wimp in general.

It’s exciting right now. Settling down, getting things working, and basically streaming right into a hopefully relaxing weekend of unpacking and being married once again.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

When we scheduled the repairs to the Saturn a few weeks ago, I didn’t really think this week would be so complicated. In hindsight, I probably should have waited another week before getting the car repaired, but I don’t like driving with a caved in corner of the car. Actually, I don’t like driving the Saturn because it is short, but that isn’t it.

As such, the current move is going a bit rough. Too many things to do in Illinois and Iowa and our only car is trying to wind its way through Illinois’ construction season to get to Iowa in time to pick up the key to the house, talk to the utilities, and start the moving process.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.

Fluffy left for Illinois today. She’s coming back in 48 hours, but somehow I’m going through the same thing I go through when she leaves for a week or a month. Completely and utter burnout. Two hours to get on the computer and just drooling on the computer for better part of an hour watching meaningless television.

Pathetic, really.

I’m hoping to move in the same 48 hours. At least my apartment into the new house. 24 hours after that, I’m going to Illinois myself to pack up the packed boxes that have been sitting in a garage for almost half a year. And then, back to Iowa. Hopefully for good.

I’m excited about it, but I’m also desperately wishing I could fast-forward through the next 5 days. I can’t though, nor is my request for a montage been approved.

I even made the request in triplicate.

Originally posted on Moonfire Thoughts. Feel free to comment here or at the site.