wombat_socho

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. 

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. 

So on the first weekend of the month, things are picking up at work. Did four returns yesterday, and another two today, so I had five hours on the clock total. I think I'll wait until mid-month to peek and see what my progress toward bonus is, since it's really too early to be sweating that kind of stuff. I also need to do better at getting to bed at a decent hour so I get enough sleep before my shift starts; both days this weekend I clocked in a lot later than my shift started, and I can't imagine my new OM is going to be happy with that continuing. On the other hand, I'm getting work done in a timely fashion, so...

The Romanov Rising is good, The War in Heaven is good, and the next volume of Komi is waiting for me at the post office. I think the final volume of Larry's Son of the Black Sword is due out this month as well. Plenty of good new reading. 

The Senators got whupped by the Cubs and swept by the A's. I am really starting to hate RFK. We're 3-8 at home, but 10-11 on the road, and we're underperforming our Pythagorean by one game (we should be 14-18 instead of 13-19), so I am hoping the bats catch fire against Minnesota, which is scoring a lot more runs but also coughing up a lot more than we are. Guess we'll see. 

Weight has been lingering in the low 390s, and probably would be better were I not eating so much cereal lately. 

This week I have a video appointment tomorrow at 1430 and an wound care appointment at 0800 Thursday. I've already booked my room at the Strat for Wednesday night. Next Thursday I have an optometry appointment, and two weeks from now an NSSAB meeting on the 19th. So I should be pretty flush with two VA reimbursements and a DOE check as well before Confinement; I paid for the SWA tickets with points, so my only expenses should be food, the rental car, and the hotel. I'll be in pretty good shape since the VA disability check drops on 2/28 and I'll also have sundry Block paychecks on the 7th & 21st. 

So Thursday I packed up my shit for Jita and headed down 95 after putting gas in the Kia and a bageldog in my belly at the Love's. Stopped in Amargosa Springs to hit the can, Indian Springs for some Zyrtec, Diet Sprite, and some munchies; stopped again at the McD's on Charleston for dinner, and checked into the Strat. After sorting out my stuff, I crashed and didn't wake up until 0800 Friday morning.

Got breakfast at the McD's in the Strat, did catchup blogging, paid the remaining bills, did some writing, and around 1300 headed out to get lunch at Jack in the Box and also to talk to the guys at MV Computer Repair about my screen issue. They didn't seem to have any better idea than HRB tech support about what was going on with my screen in Windows Remote Desktop, and didn't have any HP monitors, so I headed on up to the VA for my CAT scan. Unfortunately I got out of Radiology too late to hit the PAVE clinic and reschedule my appointment, so instead I went down to Sonic and got fluids (including a small Blood Orange Cream Slushy, which was most excellent) before heading back to the Strat. Took two games out of three from the autopiloted Giants and then went to the CFA for Hate Chikuns; came back and did a quick In The Mailbox, after which I booked an oil change at Pep Boys for Saturday morning. 

Didn't crawl out of bed until 1000, which meant I managed to miss breakfast at both the McD's and the Eureka Casino; wound up having a club sandwich and bao flight at the latter instead. In addition to the oil change, Pep Boys also reflated my tire, replaced the wipers, and did a wheel alignment, all for about $250. I headed up to the Maverik on Lake Mead and got me some E15 for under $2.50/gallon along with some badly needed fluids, then it was over to the German Bakery on Rampart and the Sonic on Cheyenne for more fluids before getting out of town. I thought briefly about stopping at the Walmart for water enhancers or the Sam's Club for Claritin-D, but instead I just headed up the road.

Stopped in Indian Springs to recycle fluids, but after that it was straight on to Goldfield where I hit the public latrine before the last push home. 
Unloaded the Kia, decided to blow off blogging for the day, had some pasta salad for dinner and called it a night. 

So I finally got in to see Dr. Kletzky around 1700 - they're really working the poor guy to death in terms of patient load - and we talked some about my kidneys (he thinks they're OK) and my complaint regarding shortness of breath when I get back to Tonopah from the flatlands. He finally agreed to prescribe me an albuterol inhaler, and we'll see how well that works. 

According to various e-mails and texts, I guess that I'm considered to be working out of Damonte Ranch (virtually) which puts me under Lindsay Desmond as MTL, and she seems confident that I'll be at least getting into the fulfillment network, which is good, because if I have to rely on dropoffs I'm not going to do jack shit this season in terms of productivity and commission. So that's good. I'll put in some time Saturday to get the AFSP done, and maybe another short course if I have any energy left after the AFSP. Lindsay also said that since I'm out here in the rurals, she won't be expecting me to show up for any in-office stuff. 

The temptation to stay at Santa Fe Station and check out Shoney's was huge, but I scored an Elite King at the Stratosphere on Priceline for a ridiculously small amount, so that's where I went. Took on fluids at Sonic and also benefitted from a BOGO deal on entrees; had a foot-long chili dog and another plain foot-long, and topped that off with a couple spicy hate chikuns and a free frosted lemonade from CFA after resting a bit in my room. 

Since I missed the Lake Mead Walmart on the way into town and was too late for the pharmacy at the one on Charleston, I headed for the Lake Mead store after grabbing brunch at the Jack & fuel at the Lake Mead Blvd. Maverik. Spent a lot more than I expected on groceries, but at least I have plenty of (cheap) English muffins, honey ham, and water additives to get me through until I pop down on the 14th for lymphedema and wound care appointments. I forgot the various dairy products I was going to get, but I did get the test strips, Claritin-D, and melatonin I needed, even if the OTC stuff was a pain in the ass since it was all locked up. Shoplifters need flogging or sentencing to the chain gang. 

After that, I got a couple more Route 44 Sprite Zeros at the Sonic on Rancho as well as a couple of corn dogs, so I was pretty well set. Made good time getting home, since I only stopped in Indian Springs and Goldfield for urination, but by the time I got stuff sorted out and scanned it was too late to do catchup blogging. 

I probably ought to fill out my ballot and drop it off at the clerk's office tomorrow or Monday. I like the local post office folks well enough, but I am not a trusting soul and prefer that my vote go straight to the ballot box. 

After re-reading Alliance Unbound, I am anxious to reread the rest of the Alliance-Union books that focus on the merchanters, but weirdly none of them are on Kindle. So I ordered used paperback copies of Finity's End, Tripoint, Hellburner, and Heavy Time; I'll wait until tomorrow when my checks drop to order dupes of Merchanter's Luck and Rimrunners.  I would have ordered the omnibus Devil To The Belt, but it's out of print and used copies are insanely expensive, so I settled for the component novels. Once I have them all together, I'll be poring over them to compose an up-to-date "history" of the Hinder Stars, and see if I can figure out if Signy Mallory is Tom Mallory's kid off the Miriam B. There are no coincidences, after all. 

Two mornings of getting up at 0600 after driving down to the Stratosphere Sunday afternoon have kicked my ass good and hard. Having to detour into Pahrump for gas, fluids, and stationery at the Walmart didn't help, and by the time I got home I was seriously tempted to punt the blogging, unpack, and crash...but the notion of having to cope with today's blogging on top of Monday's did not appeal. So I did an abbreviated post to catch up on all the Substackery and other high-priority stuff. 

Monday's trip to the VA resulted in a slight change to my prescription; apparently the astigmatism is a little worse and I'm developing cataracts, which aren't affecting my vision. Yet. Dr. Lal was happy with the progress on the wounds, and they wrapped them up good and tight. I went home by way of the Sonic where I got fluids, a chili dog, and a double cheeseburger (since both the latter were on the $1.99 menu) before heading back to the Stratosphere. My eyes were still aching from being dilated, so I went back to bed for an hour or so, after which I played a lot of Azur Lane, cashed in some of my McD's rewards points for dinner, and instead of blogging spent some time on Nationalist China in HOI4. Sun Li-Jen is so far holding out nicely in the north with his big fat square divisions, which now have artillery, engineers, and will soon have flak guns. I did attempt to hold off the Eastern Pirate Devils with diplomacy, which bought me a couple of years after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, and have actually managed to lay some mines in the Yellow Sea to make the EPD Navy suffer before they sank most of my Navy. Am now researching submarines.

Since the Angels were on autopilot I played them Monday afternoon while letting missions repeat in AL. Lost two of three, with the lone win coming in Game 3 for Jim Kaat.

Today's visit to the NNSS went pretty well, though I could have saved myself the stop at Albertson's on the way since they didn't have any chicken salad and the sub I picked up will probably last me 2-3 days because it is hueg like XBox. The RWAP observation was pretty unexciting: yes, these are the metal bars they're cutting up, yes, they're going into this container (which looks like a squared-off demo dumpster with a liner), and the people that actually work for Navarro and EM seemed happy with the related paperwork, of which there was a massive quantity. We should probably make these observations mandatory for high school kids so there's no doubt in anyone's mind that we are being super careful with even the low-level radioactive waste, never mind the highly radioactive long-lasting transuranic waste. Anyhow, we were done with all that by noon, and since I was the only one who brought lunch, we all went back to the canteen, where I had a chicken bacon & cheese sandwich and a bowl of their excellent chili. Then it was off to Pahrump, as previously mentioned. 

Think I'll spend the rest of the week doing as little as possible while preparing for the upcoming apartment inspection. So much trash to haul out.  

Slept until after noon and didn't go out for anything; it sorta looks like my Amazon order is here along with a u/i shipment from Medline and something from the pharmacy; hopefully not insulin or Ozempic since I have plenty of all that.

Talked to a dude at Cal-Nevada about my bumper and he says he'll zip-tie it back on for me, which beats paying $$ to get it clamped back on according to the shop manual. I'll stop by there tomorrow en route to the post office & bank. 

Did a belated FMJRA to make up for the one I missed doing last Saturday and did the daily blogging as well, but I was that close to blowing it off.

Changed my bandages today after I woke up and weighed myself; they weren't smelly and there was only a little bleeding from the right leg. Weight was down from ~390 yesterday to ~387 today, huzzah. Probably drop more tomorrow since I had a normal flax muffin instead of cronuts and salad for dinner.

Didn't do anything Son of Silvercon related aside from tweeting and chatting on Discord. Tomorrow I need to write the AAR, and maybe the manifesto if we have time. Also need to talk with relevant staffers about doing care packages for Caitlin and Fred, to whom we owe T-shirts and other gestures of appreciation. 

 The printer set up well enough but even though the desktop could see it, they wouldn't talk to each other. So I took the badge stock down to the print shop along with the other stuff that needed printing, and they came out okay. So did the registration forms. I wish I could say the same for the program book, which I didn't set up properly...so the covers are 8.5x11 portrait while the inner pages are 8.5x11 landscape folded. LOL. 

What with having left the packing until Tuesday afternoon, and stops at the Family Dollar in Beatty (for munchies and water additives), Amargosa Springs (for urination & trash disposal), and the CFA at Sahara & I-15, I wound up getting into the Stratosphere around 2100 or so and being assigned a room in the Select Tower that was supposed to have two beds and no fridge but in fact had only one bed and a fridge, I slept very well but only until 0400, at which point I woke up ravenously hungry, so I made use of the McD's app and got a super cheap breakfast, after which I hammered out a catchup link dump...and shortly thereafter went back to bed for a three-hour nap before hauling ass up the 15 to the VA.

Dr. Lal was very happy with my wounds, and afterward I hit up Jack in the Box for food and Sonic for (more) food and fluids before heading down for the NSSAB meeting...which went on and on interminably. On the other hand, they're going to send me to Oak Ridge in September for a week, so I can't complain too much. 

Tomorrow it's off to the Plaza, where I'll hang out with the sales people until check-in time and probably dip out to Sam's Club to pick up fluids after dinner. And then Friday, we see how it goes. 

My weight is still on the wrong side of 390, since I ate a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have while I was down in Las Vegas getting an EKG and an X-ray on Tuesday. I stayed at Santa Fe Station, since it was right up the road from the clinic, and it was kinda nice - as I commented to the desk guy, for a deposit of $150/night, it better be. The Food Court contributed to my weight gain since I ate at Panda Express and the custard place instead of eating something more reasonable, not that a couple of stops at Dunkin helped. 

Tuesday afternoon after my appointment, I picked up a couple of Route 44 Sprite Zeroes at the Sonic on Rancho, got some generic Claritin D at the Sam's Club of Tropical, went through the nearby CFA drive through for a couple of Hate Chikuns and some diet lemonade, and then hauled ass for home. I stopped in Amargosa Springs for a bathroom break and a couple more bottles of Sprite Zero, and much to my surprise drank both of them before I got home...where I stopped briefly to drop off the nose hose and the backpack before heading over to the convention center to cast my vote. 

Wednesday morning I got up early for a phone appointment with the VA social worker, who confirmed my suspicion that Medicare Part B was an expensive scam. Therefore, when I got my new Medicare card from the post office (along with issue #3 of Pigman and some Novolin R) I stuffed it in an envelope with a brief note telling them I didn't want Part B, and I will throw that in the mail tomorrow. 

Thursday I mostly stayed inside playing video games, but Friday I got up, made breakfast, and went down to the Post Office to collect all my mail. One item was a return of the note I sent Ed Ylst, who is apparently not at PO Box 60 any more. So I guess I'll have to call Esmeralda County on Monday, find out who's been paying the property taxes on Coaldale, and see if those people still want to sell the place. Friday evening, I beat the Orioles two games out of three, with hard-luck Pat Dobson taking the loss in Game 1 while Jim Kaat and Joe Coleman notched their sixth and eleventh wins respectively despite the hitters not hitting much. This brings us up to 37-42, 12.5 games out of first but apparently within striking distance of a wild card slot. Next up we're taking on 43-36 Pittsburgh, who has some nasty hitters but whose pitching doesn't look that impressive. I guess we'll see. 

We got a couple more memberships by PayPal and in the mail, but also heard that Holly, Oscar, and their kids won't be with us this year. This sucks. I hope a lot of people either send in their payments tomorrow or show up at the door, otherwise things are going to be interesting. No point in worrying about it...except that I need to talk to the local insurance agent  about an event insurance policy. 

 Crawled out of bed at 1100 Sunday, and despite a good strong mug of Guatemalan, I didn't get on the road until 1600. At that, I forgot to drop off the rent check, but Nicole was in a forgiving mood and told me to mail it in. Which I'll do once I get to DC...anyway, the drive down 95 was uneventful. Stopped at Eddie's World in Beatty for gas and a little Ingress, again at Jack in the Box on Losee for dinner, and finally checked into the Cannery around 2000. Bashed out Rule 5 Sunday and went to bed. 

Despite waking up at 0830, I barely made it to my 1000 lymphedema appointment on time, because the parking lot was full to bursting. The appointment went well; I left with a new pair of wraps for my legs. Went to the lab and got blood drawn along with a urine sample, then decided against pushing my luck (I woke up with a BG of 86) and ate lunch at the canteen before heading down the 15 to the Stratosphere. Dropped the car at the valet, dragged my bags in, and didn't have to wait long before I got checked in. I wasted the afternoon on X and rereading Ralts' new novel 4th & 10 Line, before eventually going out and getting dinner at CFA, after which I went to the Walmart for a new blender bottle, since the one I'd stuffed into the pack had disappeared somewhere between Tonopah and the Cannery. Came back to the Stratosphere, parked in the ramp on the 7th floor and made sure to talk to Security and the front desk to ensure it would still be there when I got back. After that, I was too tired to blog, so I went to bed. 

Monday I got up at 0830 again. My hopes of getting caught up on blogging were dashed by discovering that SWA had changed my flights: I now would be leaving McCarran at 1200 instead of 1400, and arriving at Dulles after midnight. Scrambled to pack my shit, shower, and take drugs before ordering a Dunkin' breakfast from the drive-through on Paradise and summoning an Uber. Got to the terminal in plenty of time, checked the suitcase, ate breakfast, and got through security without any issues. On landing in Denver, I tried in vain to get an earlier flight into Dulles, but no such luck. The departing flight, of course, was at the other end of Denver's Terminal C, so I stopped halfway and knocked out a catchup blog along with this post. On to McDonald's and Gate 24, and thence to Dulles.