wombat_socho

 I didn't do anything special for the 4th, just cooked a whole package of beer brats on the grill and ate half a bowl of baked beans. Got wiped out by the O's at RFK, which meant the Senators were 1-5 on the week. Just two games out of the cellar with three games to play.

Saturday I went to the post office and retrieved the mail, which had my Rollerball DVD, a copy of John Thiel's zine Pablo Lennis, the badge holders for the con, and the flyers I sent to Jolie at Libertycon. Also got a check from the treasury refunding me $26 in insurance premiums. I need to look around to find some alternative life insurance so the kids won't have to dig into their pockets to have me created and interred at the Family Plot. 
After the post office I went home, screwed around with the Iroquois on the Planet of the Aztecs and Mongols, went out to Raley's for avocados, corn chips, tea, dairy stuff, and fig bars, made guacamole for dinner, did the FMJRA, and went to bed.

Today I spent most of the afternoon working on my zine for N'APA since it's due on the 15th along with sundry N3F reports. Went out, did laundry, had dinner, came back, and did Rule 5 Sunday. Unlike some previous weeks, there hasn't been a lot of Substackery this weekend, so no need for an extra linkagery post.

This week is going to be somewhat busy since I have to drive down to Pahrump on the 8th and from there to the NNSS for the expedition to Pahute Mesa on the short bus. (It's actually a minibus but I couldn't resist the joke.) I'm thinking of stopping by the Walmart in Pahrump on the way back, but I probably won't since I expect to be pretty tired after the trip to and from the mesa. 

I have some thoughts regarding Elon Musk launching the America Party but I think I'll save that for the Substack. 

Well, since I got back from the Not-Balticon Excursion, there really hasn't been a lot going on. I put on a lot of weight while I was out there and have been struggling to get it off, and over the last week or so I've been making good progress on that. I may even be under 390 by the time the convention rolls around next month. BP and BG have mostly been good. 

Speaking of which, we've had a trickle of memberships come in, a couple of T-shirt orders, some ideas for programming, and as usual no response from DoE or various nuclear industry folks. We'll just have to do without them, I guess. 

Speaking of doing without things, it is with great displeasure that I discovered the Pahrump Valley Times had closed their Tonopah office and with it the only copy shop for a couple hundred miles. Good thing I'm going to Las Vegas this week for an NSSAB meeting, because not only do I need to mail out con flyers to Jolie at Libertycon but my zine for StippleAPA to Jeanne. Well, I should have plenty of time before the meeting on Wednesday and on my way out of town Thursday to attend to those matters. 

I've been Ingressing a little but mostly just recharging things from the recliner; been doing my dailies and picking away at the current FGO event, and attempting to win a Planet of the Mongols setup in Civ5. Also continuing to reread Behold! Humanity! while also slogging through Mimi & Toutou Go Forth as well as the Fate: Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya manga omnibus. The former may convince me to give Conrad's Heart of Darkness another go. 

troika called me this morning for Father's Day and we hung out on the phone for about an hour talking about stuff. It was good. 
 

After three days, a fair amount of sleep, and occasional ibuprofen, the pain in my lower back around my right hip is mostly gone. It might have to do with weight loss, too, though my scale is still telling me I'm too fat. I can believe it. 

Management never did come around to inspect the apartment, but that's OK; I needed to bag up a bunch of garbage anyway. Tomorrow I'll chuck it in the bins before I head for the post office to see what's waiting for me besides junk mail. 

Am continuing to make my way through the Spiral Arm novels and currently I'm beginning On The Razor's Edge. I'm also browsing through Travis Corcoran's Escape From The City, which despite being aimed (seemingly) at people moving to New Hampshire or other states with lots of woods has a lot of useful advice regarding septic tanks/fields and other necessities of rural life. 

N'APA 276 arrived today; I skimmed through it, and the amount of political BS has reached the annoying level. I shall have some harsh words for a few folks and moderate corrections for others. On the positive side, apparently there is now a Las Vegas APA in existence. I'll have to reach out to them and offer Son of Silvercon as a meetup & collation space, maybe even join up, although three APA might be stretching it. Speaking of which, I converted my zine for StippleAPA to a PDF and sent it to Jeanne. Have to write her a check when I get some money. 

Making progress in Lostbelt 6.5. I've decided to just abandon Azur Lane. I have enough 2d boobs to stare at without it. 

Thanks to a scheduling screwup on my part, I booked one night too many at the Stratosphere, and will try to talk them into giving me credit for it when I come back from DC next Monday. I booked my rooms for Chantilly for Tuesday through Friday morning, and will be getting together with the Wrights and Mark Taylor on Wednesday; Thursday will be the day of wings, and Friday will be spent going around/through DC to reach Columbia and do an early dinner with Trish. Haven't heard from Rob Hansen; RS is out of town, as is Stacy McCain; Smitty asked if there was going to be A Thing, and I replied that there wasn't, especially since Stacy is out of town. Maybe we'll do lunch Thursday or something. Also haven't heard from Brian; I guess I'll call him when I get into Dulles and see what's up. 

For now, I need to pack my pills, throw some clothes in the suitcase, and get ready to leave very very early to Las Vegas so that I can drop by the lab & pharmacy at the VA hospital (thus getting paid and picking up essential drugs) before my 1430 video appointment with Doc Julie. The car is fueled, the laundry is done, and I want to have things set up so that all I have to do in the morning is pack my nose hose, do the morning drugs, and get the hell out of Dodge. 

Saturday after I got whupped by the Yankees the power went out to the desktop, and when I'd made sure the wall wart and power strip were okay, it wouldn't power back on. As if I wasn't miserable enough on account of Good Friday. So I threw up my hands, hauled Homeko out of my backpack, and set it up with the help of the USB strip I'd been mostly ignoring for a while because I didn't need it. This is all I really need for blogging, e-mail, occasional searches and whatnot, and the lack of Office has been remedied by the Surface Go, which has Office Mobile built into Copilot, after a fashion. So I am tracking my fatness on the Surface Go, doing everything else on Homeko, and when I drop down to Las Vegas next week for my pulmonary appointment, I'll lug the box with me, and have them install an extra 1TB SSD drive while they're replacing the PSU.

Speaking of travel, I booked my flight to Dulles for next month, along with a car from Avis, and also ordered a couple of Southwest gift cards for Caitlin and Maggie. I had been thinking of skipping the trip this year, but Mark sounds like he's in a bad way, and I want to spend some time boosting his morale. 

Wednesday was mostly spent getting up at a godawful hour of the morning for the National Security Site Advisory Board chairs meeting, which was on Teams instead of in meatspace as it was originally intended. Most of it was okay; we heard from some of the senior bureaucrats at EM, and got updates on what's happening at the other sites. We got to pound our chests a bit over how we're almost done here at N2S2 and how we don't have a problem recruiting board members, which I gather has been a problem for some of the other boards. Unfortunately the last 45 minutes (or so it seemed) was taken up with painstaking editing of a welcome letter to the (as yet unconfirmed) incoming head of environmental management at Energy. I signed off as soon as I could, went out to BK and ate too much, did some Ingressing, then came home and napped for a couple of hours before getting up and doing an abbreviated link post before going back to bed. 

Today I did some research on the Coaldale Project and have a couple of calls in to the DEP and the EPA. Weirdly, the online resources for the EPA were more informative than what was on the DEP website, but now I have a much better idea of what needs to be done, if not the scope of it, and also where the funding might come from for the cleanup. (Not out of my pocket, that's for damn sure.) Also looked at a custom embroidered NNSS shirt, which at first blush is hideously expensive mostly due to setup and UPS shipping. I'll look around some more before I actually spend money on that.  

 Punched out at 2100 after not doing much of anything since 1800. I have a bunch of returns that have been uploaded and paid for but not approved, and some that have been uploaded but not paid for. Some of those will hopefully convert over the next few hours, but I'm not going to worry about it. Either way, I finished over 100 returns, which is not as much as I'd hoped, but considering I wasn't in an office and the Fulfilment Network didn't have shit in it for most of the season, is better than nothing. 

Played my series against California and wiped out; didn't win a single game, though they were all pretty close. Which only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear weapons. 

Tomorrow, assuming I don't get called in for a few hours, I'm going to pick up a bunch of stuff at the post office, maybe get some burgers at BK, and then chill out until it's time for the NSSAB meeting at 1600.

Think I'll have a cup of ramen and some yogurt before bedtime. 

The drive down to Las Vegas last Thursday was uneventful; I stopped in Beatty very briefly to do a little Ingress, in Amargosa Springs to drop off the two bags of trash that had accumulated, and then headed straight for Boulder Station, whose wifi worked okay for the phone but not the laptop. So I didn't do the Thursday night blogging. I did hit up Tacos El Pastor in the new food court and got a couple of excellent burritos which were HUEG LIKE XBOX; I ate the saudero burrito that night and stuck the al pastor in the fridge to be eaten Saturday. 

Friday I stopped at Dunkin for a bagel & cream cheese, coffee and a doughnut since it was Friday, and made it to my wound care appointment in plenty of time. Dr. Lal was very happy with the progress. So they wrapped me up and I headed back to Boulder Station because I had sleepily left my wallet in the room. From there I went to Sonic for fluids and a pretzel, thence to Jimmy John's for a tuna sub by way of lunch, Maverik on Tropical for gas and more fluids, and finally to Sam's Club, where I bought a bunch of (OTC) drugs, sushi, a cooling body pillow (that'll come in handy in a couple months) and a shrimp tray. Since CFA doesn't sell fish, I headed out of town and got home just in time to lose a two-game series to the Royals. 

Saturday I fixed peach smoothies but forgot the cream, and later I ate both the shrimp tray and the leftover al pastor burrito. Got called in to do a TPR and caught up on messages. 

Sunday I was on the clock from 12-5 but clocked out at 3 because I ran out of work. Went to the Banc Club for some Chinese but the Chinese joint was permanently closed, so instead I went to El Marques and had the usual nachos & chimichanga. 

Today I was on the clock from 3-9 but punched out at 7 due to lack of work. I did snag a juicy military return, though.   

Tomorrow I'm off the clock. I think I'll take the opportunity to stock up on groceries, take advantage of the senior discount. 

Not sure where it came from, but some evil bacterium or virus laid me low for most of this week, starting on Monday and lasting for most of the work week. I'm guessing it was a bacterial infection of some sort, since the leftover/expired doxycycline I had laying around seems to be taking care of the problem. Still, I've been tired and weak and in no mood to pick up all the packages waiting for me at the post office. 

Fortunately there hasn't been that much to deal with in the tax mines. I haven't had any new returns until today, and that was an easy one; mostly I'm waiting for clients to sign stuff, or send me documents.  I only have 80 returns done so far; Anne assures me that my TPR returns are in there, which really just makes things worse. Hoping things will be different once the death march to April 15 starts and fearing they won't. 

Next week I have a wound care appointment on Friday, which means driving down Thursday afternoon. I'm not staying at the Stratosphere for once; the rooms at Boulder Station were cheaper and all have refrigerators. I'm not even sure it's any farther away. 

As usual after conventions, I am feeling a bit lonely and depressed tonight. The long drive from Las Vegas home (interrupted by a victorious series against the Hated Yankees, which I did on the phone at Lida Junction) didn't help, of course. It never does.

I caught a couple of panels that Glenn Reynolds was on, and he was every bit as good a guest as I thought he would be. Insisted on taking him out for a drink on Saturday night by way of a gesture of thanks for all he and his readers did to support me during the months I was struggling with homelessness and related problems in 2019-2020, and we had a good chat over wine. I didn't attend any other panels, because I wasn't interested in them, and skipped the Baen Roadshow due to inertia on Saturday afternoon. Also didn't buy anything in the Dealer's room, because I thought I could pick a couple of things up Sunday, but by the time I managed to get downstairs around noon, both the dealer's room and consuite were packed up, Mike and his extended family were off to the range with friends, and the convention was basically over. Mike is going to do a second print run of C6 shirts after the con, so I will have one after all, and we discussed sharpening kits, so I'll have a couple more things to owe him money for.

I did spend a little money at the Walmart: needed to get a USB C/C cable for the rental Corolla, some yogurt, some cream, and I also grabbed a liter of Diet Coke. Saturday night I went to Publix to get a sub for dinner and got more liters of Diet Coke there as well. So now I have the Publix and Circle K apps on the phone.

Monday I slept in a bit, checked out at noon and refueled the Corolla at Circle K (only got a $0.03 discount because the Easy Pay was being a pain in the ass to set up), then stopped at the Publix for another sub. Hung around BNO for an hour after dropping the car off before losing patience and asking if I could go home sooner via Space-A, which it turns out I could. The flight to Phoenix was crowded, but I managed to sleep through most of it, and then just about everyone got off there which meant the flight to Vegas was nearly empty. Got my suitcase, paid for parking, stopped by the McD's on Paradise for a couple of Big Macs, and checked into the Strat, where I barely managed to get the nose hose set up before falling into bed.

Slept in again, checked out at noon, got breakfast and coffee at Dunkin; gas, Danish, and fluids at Maverik, more fluids at Sonic on Decatur, and a couple of subs (one free) at Jimmy John's, and then headed home. Stopped at Indian Springs for more fluids and pooping, Lida Junction for baseball, and Goldfield for pissing. Did catchup blogging when I got everything unpacked (except the suitcase which I'll retrieve from the trunk tomorrow) and now I'm going to bed.

Oh yeah: got an email over the weekend from Anime Fusion about their commitment to DEI and exit from X in favor of Blue Sky. Despite objections from troika I have ordered a T-shirt with the symbol and slogan of 17 SS-Panzergrenadier Division "Goetz von Berlichingen", which almost nobody at AF will recognize, but I think it's an appropriately silly response to silly virtue signaling. 

I spent most of the week driving to and from Las Vegas for the NSSAB meeting, but at least I got a couple nights of good sleep at the Stratosphere. Next week I'm headed back there again en route to Nashville for Confinement VI, but this time I have to stay at the Alexis Park because for some reason every hotel anywhere near the Strip is hella expensive. Hopefully on the way back the Stratosphere will be more reasonable. 

Need to take some time tomorrow or Sunday and pick up some of the garbage in here. I've got at least three large bags and some smaller ones that need to go. 

Missing three days out of the work week and clocking in late today has put me behind the curve in a bad way. I'll have to kick some ass over the weekend so I can download some more easy returns and/or get some TPRs...speaking of which, I need to get cracking on some of those state qualification exams. I can do some of those while I'm on the road, which is good because the deadline is 2/28 and I can't do any work on the road. 

Took two out of three from the Bravos, but then Pete's Brewers came to RFK and took two of three; the sole winner in that series was (of all people) Jim Kaat who won a 2-1 squeaker with a lot of help from the bullpen. 

Well, if I'm going to get up early and do all this stuff, I better go to bed right about now.