wombat_socho

Probably the best thing that's happened lately is that my weight has been dropping like a rock for the last couple of weeks, interrupted briefly by me eating two entire bags of unsalted kettle chips that I found on the clearance rack at Raley's. Even so, my weight was back down to 383 and a bit this morning.

I dropped off the rent and went down to the post office this afternoon. The mail was full of goodness today: Wrongfan buttons, $5 in cash from Nielsen, and the badge makings from Avery and some u/i Chinese firm. Also an N3F renewal, which I'll drop off at the bank tomorrow. It was 100 degrees out today, so instead of going over to Raley's after the post office, I went back to the apartment. I did go to Raley's later in the day as the sun was going down and it was only 92 out, which felt a lot better than having the sun beat down at 100. Got some potatoes, grapes, cottage cheese, bread, yogurt, and tea, which were all on sale except for the bread. 

As part of my preparations for the convention, I liquidated $850 in stock from Fidelity and $300 worth of I-bonds; the latter will be replaced over time and at higher interest rates; as for the former, this too will be replaced, though hopefully sooner. I also got reimbursed by the VA for my travel to the NW PCC last month, though like the May & June appointments, they only paid for my mileage and ignored the hotel & meal expense. I'll be calling travel about that tomorrow after talking to accounting today about what I thought were missing payments. 

Over the weekend I fixed a mess of ham & pasta salad, which turned out OK except I think I could have used more mayo. For Independence Day, I grilled up a bunch of brats on the George Foreman and consumed them with the aforementioned chips & tea. I skipped doing laundry Sunday because I'm trying not to spend money before the con. 

Last but not least, while digging through various boxes in search of Filthy Pierre's MicroFilk, I found an HP monitor I'd forgotten I had. This will be replacing the Samsung Smart TV, which I think will be relocating to the bedroom where I'll hook it up to the Dell laptop and actually use it as a TV. 

Nothing much has been going on. Went out Sunday to do laundry and eat out, again on Tuesday to pick up some groceries, and the last couple of days I've just been idling....reading, playing Civicrack, and doing some cooking. 

Paid for the T-shirts, which DNA Designs will be shipping here. Haven't gone out to the post office or the bank; basically just saving money and hanging out on X. Hoping the VA gets around to paying my travel reimbursements from April and early May.

Talked to James on Sunday, He seems to be doing okay. I registered for Anime Fusion tonight to lock in the $40 rate., and I guess I'll hold off on the hotel until I see what the cash flow looks like in October.  

There hasn't been much going on these last couple of weeks. My weight has been slowly decreasing since I returned from the DC area, and I've been doing my best to avoid spending money on Kickstarters or stuff from Amazon that I really don't need, although I did order volume 15 of La Vie Electronique. Still no reply to the note I dropped Mr. Ylst about Coaldale. Speaking of fat, I had my monthly consult with Doc Lisa on Monday, and she says my labs and home numbers look good, and my A1c went down to 6.5, huzzah. 

Spent a lot on groceries over the last couple of weeks and been cooking at home for the most part except for the Sunday afternoon laundry dinners. Today I finally got around to making the ham & pasta salad I'd been jonesing for, although instead of honey turkey ham I used regular honey ham from Hormel, which happened to be on sale at Raley's. It was a lot easier to chop up that way. Boiled a pound of rotini, dumped a bunch of store brand mayo in, added the ham, two kinds of onions (because I bought pearl onions by mistake once), peas, and the colby/jack shredded cheese. I was surprised to see that it all fit into the Sterilite container I bought as backup, but it was a happy surprise. I'll take it out of the fridge tomorrow and enjoy it.

Also in the grocery haul was salad, broccoli crowns (some of which got chowed on with ranch dressing today), some store brand flax meal because it was on sale, and finally, God be thanked, some cans of Arizona diet green tea, which Raley's had been out of for a couple of weeks. 

For some reason I slept in until 1430 today. Guess I must have needed it. Tomorrow I get up at a more reasonable time, drop off rent, go turn in my carry permit application, and  stop by the post office, I guess. 

I spent most of Monday with Brian, Brenda, and their grandkids, and it was good. We got caught up on stuff, talked more about politics than I might have liked, had a good home-cooked dinner, and I wound up leaving too late to do any work on the blog, so I didn't. 

Tuesday I rose early, packed everything up, and was halfway down the stairs when I realized that I'd left my suitcase in the room. Threw the backpack in the car, went to breakfast at the Waffle House, had breakfast with Brian and his granddaughter Donna, and then went to the front desk to get a spare key so I could retrieve my suitcase. This having been done, I headed off up 270 to US-15, then down Leesburg Pike to 28, refueled the Chevy at the Sheetz just north of Dulles, and went to drop it off. The dropoff guy didn't seem too concerned about the scraped bumper, so I stopped worrying about it; the guy who claimed I did all kinds of damage to his car hadn't replied to my offer to reimburse him, so I'm not worrying about that part of it either.

Once the shuttle dropped me off at Dulles, I checked my suitcase and arranged for pre-boarding, then headed for the gate. Had no problems with TSA (although there was a very cute K-gal TSA officer on my line that I wouldn't have minded being harassed by) and made it to my gate before the preboarders (there were about 30 of them) were done boarding. Napped through most of the flight to Denver, was suitably grateful that the arrival gate wasn't all the way on the other side of the airport, had time to grab a chicken salad sandwich, and actually relax a bit before boarding. I still napped most of the way to Las Vegas anyway. Took a taxi to the Strat, which was a mistake because the driver took the 15 to Charleston (because there was a wreck closing the Sahara exit) and back down Industrial. Decided not to fuss at him over the flat rate, but I didn't tip him, either. I ordered Indian food through Uber Eats and the lamb seekh kabob was almost too hot to eat, even with rice and naan to buffer it. I managed to eat the lamb part of it. 

Slept until 0830 (woke up twice to pee) and hit the alarm for another hour. Managed to get dressed and packed and out well before 11, and was happy to see the Kia sitting right where I left it. Ordered breakfast from the Dunkin' on Lake Mead, and after thinking about it eschewed the nearby Maverik for the familiar one on Tropical, where I topped off the Kia with E85, got the obligatory XXL Fresca, two bottles of Sprite Zero, a muffin, a cinnamon roll, and the obligatory pork bun, which was free. Then it was down the 215 to 95 north, and except for a brief stop at the Test Site portal, I just hauled ass all the way home. Arrived a little after four, dragged my stuff inside, and farted around until 6, when I lost two of three to the Angels, the last one being an agonizing 24-inning 5-3 defeat. I probably would have won if I'd brought Joe Coleman in as a reliever, but nah. There's always a game tomorrow. 

I did get caught up on blogging, did retrieve a bunch of stuff from the post office (including the replacement $100 gift card) and did pick up a few things at Raley's with it. That was Thursday.

Friday I stayed in, played some FNV and got my head handed to me by the Royals. I had the misfortune of facing Roger Nelson and Bert Blyleven, and while the hitters made it happen against Bert, Reggie and the bullpen just couldn't get it done against Dom's hitters, who have entirely too much power. We'll see how I do against Atlanta Monday or Wednesday. 

I went out to do laundry today and had breakfast for dinner at the Stage Stop, which means I have about $30 left on the gift card. Did the FMJRA, ordered Volume 14 of Ralts' Behold! Humanity! series, and ripped the latest Klaus Schulze La Vie Electronique volume (also #14). Unfortunately the first disc of the latter is mostly annoying pseudo-operatic stuff, which I'm not really in the mood for. Speaking of books, I also got the Makarov guide in the mail, and while I think it goes into excessive detail about things that have nothing to do with the care and feeding of Masha, it will do as a cleaning guide, if nothing else. 

Think I'll leave the packing of the suitcase, pill pack (plus a couple of snack baggies' worth of pills) and backpack for tomorrow and go to bed relatively early. Not sure if I should pack the electric razor or not, though if I do I will probably be able to find some LectricShave in a Walmart or CVS out there. 

Despite having procrastinated since my last bandage change, the wounds were a bit smelly but improved. The nurses did the ABD/Kerlix/Coban/Spandagrip dressing combo, and I'll see them next month after I'm back from DC. I didn't manage to grab a pulmonary appointment today, but they had an opening next Tuesday...and then I have a lymphedema clinic appointment on the Monday after that, which is to say the day before I fly out to Dulles. 

Met up with Ty and Jay and Dan and some other folks Wednesday night and it went well. Ty was pretty adamant about the necessity of setting up a Facebook page for the convention, and as much as I loathe Fecesbook, there seems no way around it if we're going to get the 250+ people we need. So I guess I'll set it up and make Ty Speaker to Facebook. 

Was too tired when I got back to the Cannery to blog, didn't sleep well, and wound up sleeping in until 1000, so no blogging got done in the morning either. I did pick up some Claritin-D and other OTC meds at Sam's Club after doing breakfast at Dunkin and second breakfast at Circle K, where I had to reload the app since I hadn't used it in forever. Took me a while to get out of the VA, but eventually I did, accosted a Trek fan in the parking lot and exchanged a flyer for her business card, and then motored off to the Arby's by Aliante for a gyro and roast beef before finally heading home. Stopped in Indian Springs for more fluids, in Goldfield for fluid disposal, and here and there along the way to do Ingress, which I hadn't in a while. They have upgraded the app and added daily bounties, which will help as I get back in the habit of trashing Blackwasp's stuff and rebuilding my own fields. 

Tomorrow I'll go clear the post office box before finding out where Kathy is holding the CHP class, which I suspect will cost more than $100 because I'm having to redo the whole thing and not just do renewals. 

Still no sign of my travel reimbursements. What a pain. The DOE reimbursement will probably drop tomorrow, and be applied to the Savor card since I need to do more damn traveling over the next few weeks before my disability pay drops. 

Tuesday turned out to be not such a big deal. I clocked in for about four hours, did two fulfillment returns, cleaned up a couple of WIP returns, and clocked out in time to take two out of three from the Cubs. 

Wednesday I packed up and headed down to Love's to tank up before heading down to Beatty. Gas was $4.05 after the $0.10 app discount; I also picked up a big cup of Diet Coke, a liter bottle of the same, and a couple of corndogs and headed down 95. It was an uneventful drive, and I checked into the Exchange Club with plenty of time to have a half-rack of ribs at Smokin' J's. The NSSAB meeting was somewhat interesting and dwelt more than usual with the sort of thing Arsen Darnay occasionally considered in his stories: how to safeguard future generations from the highly radioactive wastes generated by nuclear reactors and weapons? I'm not sure the NNSS really has that problem - most of the highly radioactive wastes have a short half-life, and the stuff that has both long half-lives and high radioactivity tends to be buried far beneath the surface. I spent part of the lunch break indirectly discussing the Coaldale Project with tribal liaison Richard Arnold, who suggested that the Duckwater, Timbisha, and Yomba Shoshone might be most interested - especially the Yomba, who are stuck out in the middle of nowhere with roads so bad that they had to use horses to bring in the votes. 

After the meeting, I went to the Rebel for Diet Sprite and a couple of Bad Things, which predictably made it hard to get to sleep, but nonetheless I got up at 0900, did drugs, shot up my insulin, got dressed, and headed over to Denny's for breakfast. The Lumberjack Slam was probably more than I should have eaten, but at least I had the sugar-free syrup on the pancakes and an extra egg. Then it was off to Goldfield, where I wound up in the Clerk's office researching their brothel ordinance, which is a poor fit for Coaldale, but I suspect it won't be hard to get it modified to be more like Nye County regarding distances from other things and less like Nye regarding other restrictions on the staff. 

I probably should have spent more time Thursday blogging, but I didn't. I did manage a post on Thursday and two on Friday despite taking time out to take two games from the A's, who are surprisingly weak despite having Reggie Jackson, Boog Powell, and a couple other sluggers and speedy guys in the lineup. 

Tomorrow I think I'll get up fairly early, have pizza for lunch, and get my stuff from the post office. Thanks to some screwup, a couple of CDs and Komi Can't Communicate #29 got sent back because Amazon insisted on sending them to my street address, which is verboten. So when my H&R Block paycheck arrived (all ~$900 of it) I put $600 into my Savor card and spent about $50 to re-order the returned items. 

Next week should be pretty leisurely, except for having to head down to the VA on Wednesday for a Thursday wound care appointment. This is good, because there's less than 90 days until Son of Silvercon and it's time to start hustling. Dan and I and maybe Jolie (plus a couple of new chums) will be getting together Wednesday night for a staff meeting, out of which I expect great things. 

I am mostly caught up from yesterday's debacle, in which I got scheduled for a bunch of returns but nobody told me they'd done so, so it wasn't until after I'd swept the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium (with a no-hitter by Pat Dobson in Game 2) that I logged in and found a bunch of unhappy clients and managers. Today I chewed away at the scheduled returns, and downloaded several returns, one of which is a monster - the guy had something I'd never seen before, namely a W2 with a million dollars in Box 1. He and his wife also had a zillion stock sales in there, so it took most of three hours to finish it...plus he needs his 2022 return done, too. Gevalt. Maybe I'll make bonus after all. On the other hand, this guy comes in with ten years of IRS transcripts and wants it all done ASAP. Blockworks doesn't play well with transcripts because they don't list the complete EIN, name, and address of the payors, so I flagged it for a manager to explain to this guy that he needs to come into the office and do his return on paper, because Blockworks won't do it, and I only do what Blockworks allows me to do.  

Did a lot of grocery shopping this week, so I have a lot of beef to grill up/fry up, potatoes and other veggies to go with them...but tonight I was super hungry after hammering on Remote Desktop (which was quitting on me every 2 minutes) for 6+ hours, so I went to the Bamboo Garden in the Banc Club and ate more than I probably should have. So I'm going to forego the blogging tonight and hit it in the morning before my noon appointment.  

Well, I had my one-on-one with Anne this afternoon, and the bad news was that her boss threw a fit over the travel costs of having me in Dayton for first peak, so I won't be going up the road for second peak. I was hoping that a week at Damonte Ranch would punch up my returns to the point where I might actually make bonus this year, but I guess that won't be happening. Instead I'll be sitting home waiting to see what fulfillment returns and drop-offs find their way to me and playing a lot of Civicrack. 

So since I'm going to be here for the next couple of weeks before I head down to Beatty for the NSSAB meeting there on the 17th, I went out and got some peas and onions so I can whip up some ham & cheese & pasta salad to graze on. Also got more plastic wrap since my old roll seems to have disappeared, some store-brand mayo for the salad, eggs, and some other stuff, which came to almost $90 because I forgot to ask for my senior citizens discount. (O, the irony.)

Hosted the Reds at RFK and lost two of three; the first two games were close, and Vicente Romo got the win in relief in Game 2, but in game 3 we got blown out 5-0.

Going to bed early so I can get up at a more normal time of day and get an early start on tax stuff. 

Well, tomorrow turned out to be more like Thursday, but I got the laundry done, finally. Had to break out the big green bag since the hamper was full, almost overflowing. 

Got swept by the Angels in the home opener series Tuesday, which sucked. Tomorrow we face the Yankees. I also somehow missed my one-on-one with Anne, which we rescheduled for next week. Looks like I'll be here in Tonopah for the first week of April, which makes me sad, but I'm hoping they pull me up to Damonte Ranch for the last two weeks of the season. 

Too tired to blog tonight. I'll just double up tomorrow, I think.