I had a fantastic weekend at Dexcon. It is by far my favorite con out of the ones I have been to. It is almost exclusively a gaming con so you don’t get a whole lot of people dressing up and there aren’t lots of panels and no celebrities, just lots of fun games to play. We had 6 people in the hotel room, so the cost ended up being $40. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep, but that is part of the con experience. :)  I figure as long as I get a bed I am ok.

I managed to get in 4 rpgs and a bunch of board games, I think in all cases ones I hadn’t played before except for the Stargate game. There were two more traditional mechanic rpgs – Stargate and Witchhunter. I really like the GM for the Stargate game, he is really great and I had a blast. Witch Hunter is an organized play game, and I enjoyed it enough to maybe try it again at Connecticon. I also played in two indie storytelling based rpgs. The first one is called Prime Time Adventures, and we built a TV show episode based on fey characters. It was all story narrative with no dice at all, and very fun! The second on was called Ganakagok and we were primitive Inuit-esque people living in a world with no sun and dealing with its impending arrival.   It was very intense and a definite stretch from anything I have done before.

I helped playtest a strategy boardgame for my friend Dave, called Rampaging Titans. It was really intereseting to see more about how games are developed.  Also under boardgames I played Nefertiti, Amyitis, Buffy the Boardgame (yes, this exists) and my favorite of the con – Tayu. The last one is a two person strategy game where you are trying to connect rivers to flow to your side of the board while trying to block your opponent.  It was both mentally challenging and  it has its own zen like thing going on.  Finally I played a card game called Pit, where you try and make deals and get sets of goods. It was also fun but I was rather fried by that point.

I think I am going to try and hunt down a local boardgaming group. I really enjoy both the mental challenge of learning something new plus the social aspect.  There must be one around here somewhere…

When doing accounting entries you have to enter in the date - a lot.  Normally when the year switches over I find it difficult to enter in the new year and keep putting in the old one.  To combat this I make sure the January journal for the previous year is closed so that I can't post to it.  For some strange reason, this year I have been having trouble in the opposite direction.  I put in a bunch of December closing entries and then when I looked at my balance sheet and I didn't see any changes, I realized I put them all into 2008.  So I went in and closed the 2008 December journals as well so I won't make that mistake again.  Perhaps I am more ready for the new year this year? 

 8 years living in Atlanta turned me into a snow weenie.  I am ticked off that I missed Monday’s dance class due to a company dinner, Tuesday because of traffic (the highway was stopped dead and I tried to take a short cut and got myself totally lost) and now tonight I probably won’t be able to go because of snow.  We are getting 3-8 inches, but that is enough for me not to want to venture too far afield.  

I did end up ordering the wide dance sneakers I found.  They will arrive next week.  I hope they fit.

I am very frustrated with prepping for my audit next week.  I am totally into systems and not redoing work I have already done, so when I prep my audit reports I take the one from the year before and just move the prior year’s data forward and add the current year.  However, since my boss wanted to get the audit done before the end of the year we are doing all the reports as of November 30^th.  This means I have to go back and not only do the totals for this year but for last year as well.  This would be a whole lot easier if my accounting system didn’t suck.

It really sucks having wide feet.  All the women in my dance classes have these cute dance sneakers that make it much easier for them to do turns, slides, etc.  So I am looking online and so far I have found ONE dance sneaker that I can get in the US that comes in a wide width.  At least it is fairly cute and not hideously expensive.  I will keep looking, but I don’t have a lot of hope.

My new office faces west and I can see the sunset.  I will make sure to always take a few minutes if I am in the office at that time to watch it and try and connect with the beauty of nature.  I can get so wrapped up in all the mundane things  - it is such a shame to ignore the true gifts of life.

I got my shipment from BPAL today.  Instead of the 6 samples (besides the two main items) I ordered I got a total of 13 samples.  Tonight I tried on Blood.  I didn't really care for how it smelled in the vial, but on me I really like it.  It is so amazing how scents change when they mix with the chemistry of our skin. 

I am taking tomorrow off work since I worked both days last weekend.  I keep feeling like I need to get to bed early because it is a week day, and then I remember.  I think I will stay up for awhile.

Andrew is coming over on Saturday.  We are going for dim sum and then he will help me fix my electrical problem and hang my towel bar.  I don't know if I mentioned the electrical thing, but if you ever have the option of painting over an outlet that has a ground fault circuit interruptor, don’t do it.  I was using the microwave and toaster at the same time, tripped the outlet, and because it is painted over (by the previous tenant) I can’t push the button to reset it.  However, I am actually looking forward to trying to replace it myself (ok – with help).  I am also planning on getting a timer for the porch light that my Dad told me about.  It is smart enough to know when sunset is and adjust accordingly.  Technology can be so awesome.

Thank god my office move is finally over.  I still have a good bit of unpacking to do, but the stress is mostly lifted (until I get the call that our new conference table has arrived since that room is mostly still full of boxes waiting to be unpacked). 

Highlights of the move, not including dropping the 50 pound monitor on my leg include:

1)      The wrong color trim being put in all the offices and having to redo it on the day before we moved in.

2)      Hearing “We didn’t know you needed a 30-amp twist lock outlet in the IT room” 2 days before the move, when I had sent the power specs to the building WEEKS (if not months) ago.

3)      Following on to #2, having them ignore our IT room layout request and install the backboard for the phone system on the wrong wall.

4)      The people moving our phone system forgetting how it was wired through our rack and not being able to get a dial tone on our integrated T-1 until our tech pulled up pictures of how they had configured it in our old space (thank GOD for digital cameras).

5)      The people who moved our cubicles completely missed wiring one of the panels into the main and now they aren’t calling me back.

6)      Oh, and I guess I shouldn’t forget to mention the fact that they originally put up the walls to my office a foot and a half off. 

Moving really sucks and I am just fed up with being a glorified office admin.  Not that it isn’t an important job, but it isn’t what I want to be doing.  Even though I am good at it, I don’t like doing all this organizational office crap.  Once my audit is done in January I am totally looking for a new job that is all accounting and involves no office moves, phone answering or party planning.  I am done.

My office is moving and I am the main person organizing everything.  We have a bunch of old 21” monitors that are really heavy pieces of crap that we are getting rid of.  They are unbelievably heavy and awkward.  I decided to put them all in the conference room so they will be out of the way and easy for the disposal people to pick up.  I was arranging them on the conference table.   Here is the stupid part.  I put them all on one side of the table.  With 6 they were fine, but just now I went to put the 7^th on the table and the whole thing tipped over.  Luckily I was mostly able to get out of the way.  The monitor I was holding did drop down on my leg a bit, but other than that I was ok.  The conference table appears to be relatively undamaged and I am not worried about the damage to the monitors.  The biggest damage is to my nerves (which are now shot) and my ego.  How stupid of me not to realize that I needed to balance the weight and put some of them on the other side of the table?  I am going to have a pretty giant bruise on my right leg.

On Saturday I went to a Moroccan restaurant with Andrew (ex).  I went to see how he was progressing with putting his place together and also to deliver his last two utility bills for the old place that were still in my name.  It was a fun place with live music and a belly dancer.  After her show, she invited everyone in the place to get up and dance.  I happily got up and danced – inserting myself into a group of women from a table next to me.  Andrew wouldn’t get up and join me.  Getting up and dancing at a restaurant is the kind of thing I am losing weight for, and I would also really love to meet someone who has the self confidence and joie-de-vivre to get up and dance with me.   

It was time to upgrade the workout outfits this weekend, and since I couldn’t find any pants at Target I hit up Wal-Mart where I found some nice workout pants in XL.  I also ordered bras and tank tops online, so I will be all set for awhile.  I also indulged and bought myself a really nice yoga mat since I am now taking classes twice a week.  I have been invited to the morning intermediate class, and although I know I will still need to modify many of the moves and I won’t be able to do anything that puts too much weight on any one limb, I am pretty excited about it.

A woman who used to work for me sent me an email today about being used as a reference.  Now this person didn’t leave under the best circumstances – she basically had a falling out with her husband, went to Florida to recover emotionally and then stopped communicating with me for over a week (no-show, no-call) after which I let her go.  However we all have troubles and so I have overlooked this and still consider her a friend.  She has emailed me several times since this to see about getting together while she is in town (somehow she is always in the middle of traveling from one place to another – she just got back from Italy) but my replies to her always bounce because it says her inbox is full.  

So she writes to me this afternoon and the bottom line of it is that because of the gaps in her resume due to her traveling, she has put down that she worked with me until December 2006, except she was only here until August 2005.  She wants me to lie for her.  Even worse in my opinion, is that she didn’t check with me first but already told someone this.  I won’t do it, and now I need to respond to her and tell her I won’t, but I am trying to figure out a nice way to put it.  I really hate that she put me in this position.  I wish her all the best in her life, but that doesn’t mean that I will be blatantly dishonest for her.  If it was stretching it a month or two and she asked in advance I might do it, but that is just too much.  

I think I will wait until tomorrow to respond.

So this morning I got myself out of bed at around 6:00am so that I could take my car to the dealership to have them look at my gas cap door (you have to be there by 7am for a walk in or you won’t get seen right away).  Just for fun, as I was leaving the house I decided to try again.  Yeah – you know what is coming next.  It opened.  There are two possible explanations for this.  First, my guardian angel had to stop me from going out yesterday (since I also tried it yesterday afternoon). Second, the problem is caused by the metal heating up and expanding so the problem only happens when it is warmer out.  #2 is more rational, but I like #1 better. 

I will test my theory this afternoon after I do some errands for work.  I didn’t bother bringing it into the dealer because if I can’t reproduce the problem they will probably tell me I don’t have one.  Either way, I am going to make sure I gas up the car when I am down to ¾ empty and not on fumes, just in case this does happen again.

I had a bit of a rough night last night.  My plan was to go to the gym and then head to Target where I would do a bit of shopping for things I need in the house. Specifically I wanted to get some nice plastic bins to finally organize all my bathroom stuff.  The gym didn’t go so well because I got a really bad pain in my foot shortly into my elliptical session.  I stopped, did the treadmill for awhile and went back to the elliptical and it seemed to go away, but I was more tired than normal I think because I was compensating with my muscles to try and hold my foot in a way that it wouldn’t have that pain.

The real kicker came when I got to the gas station.  My car has a little door covering the gas cap that you are supposed to be able to just push in and it will pop open.  Well – there was tons of pushing (which turned into hitting) and I couldn’t get the thing open.  I tried for like 15 minutes.  Since it is effected by whether the car is locked or not I tried locking and unlocking the doors multiple times.  I checked the manual to see if there was an alternate method.  Nope – I was screwed.  I had to go home and cancel my plans for last night and today. I will take it to the dealership first thing on Monday morning on my way to work and hopefully they can fix it.

I think the thing that made me the most upset is really how fragile parts of our lives can feel.  Some small thing like a gas cap not opening and I felt so stranded (which is ridiculous because I can walk to all sorts of places from my home).  Part of that is being single and not having someone to call to come help me.  I ended up talking to Andrew later because he was looking for his dinging table and didn’t know where they were (how the hell I was supposed to know this I have no idea) and he offered to drive over right then to try and fix it (he now lives over an hour away).  It was a nice offer but I declined.

Upon reflection this morning I am just grateful that this happened when I was so close to home that it didn’t involve getting stranded anywhere and having to pay for a tow truck.  It could have been so much worse.  So, I’m stuck at home today, but that isn’t such a bad thing.  I can get lots done and maybe I will even walk over to town and buy myself some new perfume from Sephora, which I have been planning on doing for awhile now.

Saturday I arrived at A’s at 7:30am to go pick up the truck.  The day ended at around 11pm when I finally got home.  We packed up a 24’ truck with all his stuff – just the two of us. It took us the entire day to pack everything up, especially since there was a lot of stuff he hadn’t finished packing. It was so exhausting.  Of course he had to get a truck from a “professional” place and not just any old U-haul, which meant we had to drive out of our way (back over the Tappan Zee bridge) to get the truck.  He also had to have a lift gate truck which, in my opinion, made most of the move much more difficult.  The one item he really needed it for is his computer rack, which was a total bitch to move even though it was on wheels because it was too tall to fit through the doorway.  I have to admit I didn’t feel as sorry for him as I should have when his dressers and bookcases fell off the lift gate when we were sending it up because he tried to put too much on it (they were a bit damaged but mostly ok).  All I can say is thank god that neither of us got hurt.

Recently I started watching The 4400 on DVD (yeah Netflix!)  All I can say is wow – this is what sci-fi TV should be.  The stories are smart and interesting.  They effectively weave the self-contained show stories in with the overall series story arcs.  The acting is good.  The writing is good.  The characters are complex, believable and interesting.  In some ways I am glad that I just started watching this so that I can plow through several seasons all at once and not have to wait for new episodes every week.  I much preferred watching Lost that way rather than having to wait each week.  I still haven’t seen Heroes which I have also heard is quite good.  That will be next in my Netflix queue after The 4400 and Ugly Betty.

While I am a big fan of both Stargate and BSG, I just can’t understand why the sci-fi channel can’t make good stuff like The 4400 instead of mush like Painkiller Jane and Flash Gordon.  Speaking of which, if either of those gets a second series over the Dresden Files I will be livid (on a bit of research I just discovered that PKJ has in fact been cancelled).