wombat_socho

Well, I saw almost everybody I wanted to see, probably ate more than I should have (daily breakfasts at Dunkin probably didn't help) and spent more than I should have. So I'm pretty much broke until the travel reimbursement for last Monday's lab visit shows up. I did get a surprise deposit from H&R Block on Friday, so I guess I did make bonus after all. Weehu. The only things that went wrong on the trip were booking an extra day at the Strat (they refunded me the resort fee, bless them, because they got it right back with an upgrade yesterday), booking the Red Roof Inn near Fort Meade instead of a Days Inn, which meant I had to dicker with the housekeepers for the refrigerator because the front desk guy was some kind of West African whose English was no muy bueno. Also I forgot my jacket and neck pillow in the Jeep when I dropped it off at Dulles. Also also (this is actually funny) I left my phone and blood sugar meter in the men's room at Safeway before I had dinner with Mark, and when I went back there the phone had been turned in but not the meter. Weird! So I went to Walmart and now I have *three* emergency backup meters. 

The Jeep was a Grand Cherokee, and good God, it was enormous. I felt like I was driving a deuce-and-a-half, though the fuel consumption was better. I think. Considering the alternative was a Tesla or Spark, I think I made out okay. 

On the way back, I didn't have to hang around Dulles all afternoon waiting for my flight; Southwest was kind enough to rebook me on an earlier flight to Denver and a largely empty flight from Denver to Vegas. So I got into Vegas and picked up the Kia from long-term parking, grabbed some burgers and egg rolls at Jack in The Box, and after checking into the Strat I ate dinner, took ibuprofen and crashed for about ten hours. My back felt better in the morning, and cinching up the shoulder straps on the backpack helped a lot. Stopped at the bank downtown to deposit cash, Dunkin on Lake Mead for breakfast, Maverik ditto for fuel & fluids & Bad Things, and finally Sonic on the other end of Lake Mead for more fluids and some non-sugary munchies. Only had to stop at Indian Springs and Goldfield, though I did flip the Frog portal at the Test Site and claimed a couple of portals at the Goldfield rest stop. Made it home in time for baseball but alas, Minnesota was not online and the software reset to tomorrow at 1700. Bah. 

I had ordered a USB-C hub for the Surface, which I picked up after getting the Jeep from Avis, and it helped make the Surface an excellent little blogging machine. I also ordered Dave Butler's Politically Incorrect Guide to SF, which caused me to circumnavigate DC Saturday night via the BW Parkway, 295, 395, US-29, 66 and 495 since it arrived too late on Friday for me to grab it en route to College Park and an extended conversation with Doug over tacos. 

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.  

 Last week I got my leg wounds looked at and pronounced Improved, which was good news; this week I went to the eye clinic and was told I wasn't going blind in the near future, but I did have a problem with dry eyes, for which I was prescribed the aforementioned artificial tears. Next week I go back down to Vegas for the NSSAB meeting, and the week after that I drive back down to catch a flight from McCarran to Nashville for Confinement. March's calendar is much less full of things, so I can sit home and work on tax returns.

Speaking of which I had a good one-on-one with my new boss Lindsey. Apparently I'm doing okay with 22 returns in the book, which is less than last year, but then I'm not spending eight hours a day in the Dayton office. We aren't sure how many TPR returns I've done since apparently it's not tracked in NICE, but I know I've done a shitload, and Lindsey wants me to spend some time getting qualified on more states since the other WFA pro she has only has limited availability, so even though she has all 46 states qualified, she just can't handle very many returns. So I gotta buckle down and do some more state qualification tests in my copious free time.

My Senators are still sucking. Last week we lost 2 of 3 to the Twins in Met Stadium, but bounced back to take 2 of 3 from the Expos in Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately, we then got wiped out in three games against the Tribe, and barely hung on to split two games with the Royals at RFK. So now we're eight games back of the Red Sox and two behind the A's. 

I was forced to upgrade to a Samsung S 25 Ultra when my S22 Ultra went for a swim in my toilet right before I went down to Vegas for the eye appointment. The S22 lasted until I got checked in at the Stratosphere, at which point the screen turned a disgusting shade of brown. The folks at the T-Mobile shop off Craig & Losee let me in a little early, and I got all the hassles attendant on buying a new phone dealt with in about half an hour, after which I went back to the hotel and retrieved my Kindle, which I had forgotten. 

I celebrated finally finishing my pre-season training by sleeping in until after 1300 today, going down to BK for some burgers and O-rings, and then proceeding to the Post Awful to send off the box of Kerlix and related items to Ralts. Much to my annoyance, the postage on the 8-pound box was almost $70, but at least it'll be there in a couple of days because it was too big to go by ground mail. The postman at the window kindly advised me to grab a few of the large priority mail boxes and pack them full of Kerlix instead of sending hueg boxes through the mail for 3x the price. This I then do, which will help clear a couple of boxes out of the bedroom, hallway, and trunk. In the meantime, I have to go back to the post office and get whatever waits for me in the parcel locker, which I was too burdened to pick up today. 

Meanwhile, Amazon sent me a bunch of stuff that wasn't supposed to be here until tonight, but the local USPS folks are efficient and it was all ready for pickup TODAY. This included a copy of The Burning Mountain, which is a horror story disguised as an alt-history war novel, two new/reconditioned headsets from Koss, a pile of lebkuchen, and most importantly a new HP kibo to replace the awkwardly sized Onn kibo that got pressed into service when the previous HP kibo's left-shift key died and it started having other weird problems. New kibo has the home/end, insert/delete, and page up/page down keys arranged weirdly, but I suppose I'll get used to it. 

Went out Tuesday to Raley's and bought a bunch of dairy products as well as salt, baking soda, and some other staples, because I intend to make some Irish cake over the holidays. And some normal bread, too. Since store-bought bread is approaching $3.50/loaf even when it's on sale, it behooves me to save a little money and put the bread robot to work. 

Carlos finally got approved for VA disability, just in tie for Christmas. Still going to send him the biltong on general principles. Also sent gifts to James & the ex as well as Kathy & Patsy, and will soon be sending a few other things out to deserving people. 

 That HP monitor I found while digging through boxes turned out to be so old it uses a VGA video cable. Welp. Probably going to wind up using it with one or another of the several laptops I have lying around the place. 

So I set up the printer, got the desktop to see it, but unfortunately I can't find any of the paper I was sure I had in the tub next to the desk. Well, at least I can print the badges. I'll just have to make sure the program book and registration forms are on my phone before I head over to the print shop tomorrow. I'll pick up a couple reams of paper on the way home from Las Vegas next week, and shelve the plan to offer Battletech CCG to the masses. until next year. 

Looks like Caitlin and one of the folks from Maggie's Discord can't make it, which at least saves the convention a couple nights' worth of room costs. On the other hand, there's a fantasy author who'll be spending most of the weekend at SDCC who's going to drop by Sunday to check us out. I'm going to try real hard to sell him on the notion of having us be his local con, where fans who can't make it to SDCC will nonethless be able to meet and hang out with him a bit.

Managed to get laundry done yesterday, but today's plans to be productive were spoiled by an early wakeup followed by a midday nap followed by baseball (lost 2 of 3 to Pittsburgh) and then there was nothing to do but play a little Civicrack, make various bacon-based sammiches, run the dishwasher, and finally get around to the daily blogging. Lord, so many posts about the attempted assassination. 

Tomorrow I need to get up early and pack, get my hair cut, get stuff done at the print shop, fuel up, and head down the road to the Strat, where I'll be staying tomorrow and Wednesday nights before moving to the Plaza on Thursday. So I better wrap this up, finish with the badges and reg forms, and get my ass to bed. 

The drive to Las Vegas was uneventful; I stopped in Beatty for fluids and snacks, and found they had several flavors of Reed's for sale. I got the cinnamon in memory of Dad's struggle to quit smoking, especially since I had dreamed about him a few nights ago*. Got to the Cannery, checked in, went back out to China A Go Go for dinner and Sonic for fluids & the chocolate covered strawberry shake, ate dinner and promptly fell asleep after setting up the nose hose. Woke up around 0400 for about an hour, went back to sleep until 0930. Shaved, got dressed, checked out, got receipts for my last couple of stays (unfortunately they only reflect resort fees and tax since I reserved the rooms through Priceline) and headed off to Maverik for fuel via Dunkin, where I got a lot of protein with my doughnut and coffee. After fueling up the Kia, I went to the VA and hung around for an hour splitting my attention between X and Blade, which was showing on the Podiatry waiting area's TV, before I got my claws and calluses dealt with.  

I think I finally straightened out the travel pay issue. Apparently they still had my home address as USVets, which I corrected, and turned in my reimbursement forms for my last two appointments. After that I hit the road for Sonic for more fluids, because I was horribly thirsty, and then went to the Walmart on Decatur for a temporary keyboard, bottle brush, and large lid for the tea jars. From there I barreled up 95 to Beatty, where I stopped for more fluids and a cookie. These having been purchased (and the bathroom used) it was back on the road; finally got home around 1930 and once I had the new keyboard plugged in spent about an hour dealing with various returns before doing a short link post. The new Onn keyboard is laid out a little oddly, but it'll do until I pick up the new Logitech tomorrow at the post office along with the electric kettle and drugs. 

Needless to say, the heat still hasn't been fixed. Going to call the Rural Housing Authority in the morning, because this is ridiculous. 

*We were both in Air Force uniforms, but I was wearing the old-fashioned cadet S/Sgt stripes on my sleeves, without the CAP nameplate & ribbons. 

Well, I cleared enough space on the desktop to set up the other monitor, but as luck would have it the two DP ports on the Optiplex are disabled with the Radeon, which only has a vacant DVI port. So after calling CRLV to confirm that I couldn't use the mainboard's DP ports, I ordered a DP/DVI cable which will replace the current DP cable on the HP monitor. (sigh) Nonetheless, I started a couple of returns, updated some others by sending messages/emails/making phone calls, and that was about all I could do. 

Thought about going out and doing laundry but decided against it. It's not like I have a shortage of T-shirts, and I can always wash out the two(?) dirty Confinement shirts while I'm en route or after I get there. I have plenty of socks and undies and other shirts I can wear. 

Still tired today - guess I haven't gotten my wind back yet - but I did manage to do a lot of cleaning in the kitchen. Bathroom will have to wait until I get back. 

Weight was down to 398 this morning; BG was on the very high side of nominal, but it came down to normal before I nuked a bowl of soup for dinner and stuck the frozen meatloaf in the oven. It looked a little weird under the plastic, and this turned out to be because it wasn't one big loaf but rather six smaller ones, about the size of hot dog rolls. I ate all of them, but didn't do anything with the gravy. Couldn't be arsed to make some instant mashed potatoes. Maybe I'll save it for when I come back. 

Usually when I check into the Rio, it's no muss, no fuss - I check in with the self-service kiosks, get my keys, and head up to my room. Not this time. For some reason the kiosk told me I'd have to see the front desk people, which required waiting in a really long line. Fortunately it moved fast enough that my legs didn't have a chance to fail me. After putting stuff away in my room, I went down to the Korean BBQ in house and had bulgogi with fried rice and a couple of fried dumplings. It was good, and helped me nod off in a timely fashion. Couldn't do the blogging since I'd forgotten part of Homeko's power cord at home, and it was late enough that all I could do was pick one up on Amazon and take advantage of free next-day delivery. 

Unfortunately I woke up at 0430 and couldn't get back to sleep. Fussed around with my phone, showered, and eventually went down to the valet to get my wheels after ordering breakfast at Einstein Brothers, which was offering me a free breakfast sammich. I took it, along with a buttered Ancient Grains bagel and a large coffee. 

Got to the clinic in Henderson in plenty of time, filled out a bunch of paperwork, and eventually they came out and got my vitals, thumped my belly with a fibroscan machine, and drew blood. I guess I am in stage I of fatty liver disease, which qualifies me for the research study, and I'll be back for the next stage of the study on the 20th, the day after my tour of the Test Site. After getting that scheduled, I went out to the car and ate my bagels, but I was still hungry. So I swung by Sonic on Warm Springs, got a half-price breakfast burrito and some broccoli cheese tots, which I actually like better than the regular tater tots. Also got a couple Route 44 Sprite Zeroes, but the drink caddy was shoddy, and one of them suicided in front of the Rio.

Played two games against Pittsburgh before the laptop ran out of zap, ran out to get dinner (at Sonic & Carl's Jr.) and the cord (which showed up at 2100) before coming back, plugging in, and losing the third game. Marichal probably would have won one of the three games, but he was on the DL. Only one of the games was close, so I'm a little irked. Did the blogging, finished my grocery order at Walmart for pickup tomorrow, and I guess I'll get up early tomorrow, go to CFA by Palace Station for breakfast since I have a free biscuit coming, drop off my remaining paper at the NSSAB office, then gas up at Murphy before getting my groceries and heading home. That's the plan, but we'll see how reality deals with it. 

At least my blood sugar was normal or nominal for the day. 

Got up, shaved, packed up my stuff and checked out of the Stratosphere around 0900, headed over to the Omelet House for a massive breakfast (38 Special with broccoli) and coffee before going to NSSAB to fill out forms. I still have the direct deposit form to send in, because I didn't remember to being the NSB checkbook, but that's no biggie. Then I went to Las Vegas Computer Repair on Losee, where unfortunately the guy I swapped emails with was gone, but the young fellow behind the counter slapped together the Optiplex for me in about 45 minutes, so I was only a few minutes late to my appointment with Dr. K. That went well; he seemed pleased with how things were going with me, and booked the next appointment for this time next year. Had blood drawn on my way out and headed for Sonic, where I botched the order by forgetting one of the two Route 44 Sprite Zeroes I normally order.

Topped off at the Murphy, where with my 10-cent discount it was only $4.23 (fuck Joe Biden) and then decided the hell with grocery shopping. I got on 95 and kept going with only a few brief stops, mostly for Ingressing. Well, I did stop at Indian Springs for more fluids and a chicken salad croissant because it was too hot to even think about eating the two chili dogs I got at Sonic. Got home around 1900, hit the can, and then went back down to the car to lug everything upstairs. At this point I found that none of the video ports on the back of the Optiplex accepted the HDMI cable from the Samsung, and I suspect I'm going to have to get a Dell DisplayPort/HDMI adapter. Either that, or shave down one side of the HDMI plug so it fits the cramped space on the video card. I'll call them tomorrow and bitch about that. 

Ate the chili dogs, finished the Sprite Zero, and cracked a can of tea. Think I'll call it a night after I have a bowl of yogurt, or maybe just one of the FAGE cups I picked up last week. Tomorrow, catch-up blogging plus the regular daily blog, and some aggressive Ingress work to make up for the damage Blackwasp did while I was gone. 

Weight was down, BP normal, and BG almost so. Had Irish Cake, yogurt, & coffee for breakfast; been waking up ravenously hungry the last few days, so I think I'll go back to having a bedtime snack. 

Was surprised to see that the frogs had covered Tonopah in a big-ass field whose apices were one of the portals on Mt. Montezuma, the Test Range, and the Manhattan historical marker. Since it had been raining on & off all day, I decided against making the dirt road trek to the waterworks on the mountain and instead went to the post office to pick up packages and a check for the N3F before heading out to flip the Test Range and leave a junkstar at Manhattan after blowing up the L7 portal there - which took a bunch of links and fields with it. Went down to the airfield and claimed the Water Tank and the Red Stack, threw lots of links and fields, and now the zone score is 306-80, while the last checkpoint was 241-25. The BAFs seem to be Slidewaze's work, not Blackwasp's, though the latter did knock out some unimportant portals downtown and tried to trash the SDA Church portal. 

One of the packages was a new tube of Ozempic from the VA and the other had my new HP keyboard, which is not as good as the old one but on the other hand it's not sticky and difficult. It also has some funky function keys which I guess I'll have to look up because it's not obvious from the icons.