wombat_socho

So the Brotbox was good, by and large, except for the rye bread which was tough to slice, and I probably won't be re-ordering that. 

I took the week off from studying for the Oregon state exam, which turns out to be open book, but I don't think they'll allow me to take a tablet with Publication 17 and the Oregon equivalent into the test area, and the Tax Book is probably iffy too - but I'll ask. I'll have to see if I can get hardcopies of both publications before the test next month, and in the meantime call the Oregon state office in charge of the test to pay my fee and make the necessary arrangements. 

Thanksgiving dinner went all right. The breast cooked up like it was supposed to, I fixed two kinds of stuffing, scalloped potatoes, a sweet potato, butternut squash, and it was all good. Between all the food and the desserts (Tillamook vanilla ice cream & a mini Marie Callender peach pie) I put on a little less than six pounds but lost half of it on Saturday so that this morning's weight was 391.8. That will probably tick up a bit on account of dinner at the Stage Stop, but I'm still way under the 400+ I came back from Minnesota with. 

Finally sent out my perszine to all the friends I could find e-mail addresses for, and much to my amazement only one bounced. Actually got a few e-mail responses back. Forgot to send copies to Nic and Garth, though. 

Made a fair amount of progress on cleaning up the apartment, at least as far as bagging up garbage goes. I guess I'll spend a lot of tomorrow hauling out those bags, filling more bags, and hauling those out as well so the place is merely cluttered and not looking (too much) like a hoarder lives here. 

Somewhere along the drive from Red Wing back to Tonopah, I got a sty in my right eye that annoyed me enough that I called the VA Nurse Line last night and asked if I should go to the local urgent care. The nurse agreed that this sounded like a good plan, so today I got my ass up, ate breakfast, re-enrolled with myfitnesspal.com so I can track my face-stuffing better, and headed over to the urgent care. The doc confirmed that it was just a sty* and to apply warm compresses while I waited for Raley's to whip me up a topical antibiotic. Speaking of Raley's, I stopped by there for tea, yogurt, and Gatorade, and brought up stuff from the car that I'd left behind when unloading yesterday afternoon. 

I did finally pitch into my CE and got the ethics course done; I started Estimated Payments, but I need to reread the text because I'm not doing well on the exam questions where you need to figure out who needs to make the estimated tax payments and who doesn't. This is what I get for being sloppy and relying on Blockworks to do the thinking for me. 

Checked the USAA Amex today and found out the charges from a couple of truck stops and the Buc-ee's in Johnstown Colorado had reverted to the actual purchases, which was a relief. 

*As opposed to conjunctivitis, which cost my Uncle Joe Jaramillo an eye in Panama thanks to the Air Force. 

Compared to last year, I guess I'm doing better. I am lighter, my diabetes is mostly under control, and my financial situation is arguably better. I'm behind the curve on my CE, not having started ANY of it yet, but I am at least going to try and knock out the ethics and some other classes if I can squeeze them in between blogging and laundry and other tasks over the next couple of days.

The Dempsey Room at the Mizpah was closed for no apparent reason, so instead I went to Raley's for some tea and Vitamin D before going to the Stage Stop for my birthday steak and a slice of carrot cake. Then it was home to catch up on three disties worth of StippleAPA.  I'm done with #373, mostly done with #374, and will try to finish #375 tomorrow. Laundry will get done Saturday night along with some packing; the rest of course will be done at the last minute Sunday morning before I head out to Salt Lake City via Ely and Wendover. Also on tomorrow's to-do list: having the tires checked at Cal-Nevada, dropping off stuff at the bank, and catching up on blogging, because I skipped it today because it was my birthday, damn it. Maybe I'll fill the tank at Love's while I'm out running around. 

troika sent me a couple of Steam games: the HALO Master Chief edition along with Fate/Extella and Fate/Extella Link. If I can pry myself away from Civ5 maybe I'll actually play these in the near future. He also called and we talked for about an hour, which was nice. We agreed that we're going to get together for BBQ on Thursday when I get in, and then I suppose we'll go down to Red Wing and see his mom. I guess I'll get together with everyone else that I didn't see over the weekend on Tuesday after I bring him back from that...and after that I'll have to check the weather to see whether I can go back the way I came or if I need to go home via Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado or take an even more southerly route trough Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, though at least in that case I could see Val and her family on the way to seeing Carlos in the hospital if he's still there. 

And with that, I should get my ass to bed. Lots to do tomorrow and Saturday.

Today's haul from the post office included the keyboard/cover for the Surface Go, a Get Your Ass To Mars T-shirt, some 9x12 envelopes, a variety pack of Sonic Limeade powders, and a 2-pound can of unflavored whey protein. Also lugged up the wargames from the car and opened the box. 

Also I got more frozen fruit, ice tea, and Celsius energy drinks. All these things were on sale. Yay.

Got fully caught up on the blogging today and got a jump on tomorrow's, which since it is Good Friday will include the obligatory quotes from The Centurion and the Passion according to St. Matthew. Thus I begin the habitual depression that settles in every Good Friday. 

I couldn't resist the temptation to look at the Daily Volume Report on Amp; sure enough, four more returns cashed out. It's theoretically possible I'll actually make bonus this year, but if it's much over $20 I'll be very surprised.

I opened the box for Chaco, which now has colorful counters and a slightly more colorful map. Unfortunately, the Paraguayan OB now lacks "The Machetes of Death". Most of the mechanics and optional rules seem to be unchanged from the original; I expect Burma will be much the same. 

I did a minimal amount of Ingressing today; opened the Intel map and found where the annoying Frog-held portals are that are screwing up my linking to the town cemetery: off in the subdivision behind the courthouse, where in the five years I've lived here I have yet to go. I'll fix that tomorrow, yes I will. 

Was on the clock from 12-9 today but only put in about four hours of work because there just wasn't that much to do. I have about 33 hours logged for the week, but despite some large returns I doubt Ill be on the right side of the curve. 

Got up at 0900, got dressed, and went down to BK to get french toast sticks, a bottle of water, and a Diet Coke; they didn't have sugar-free syrup, but I did at home so I just nibbled on the hash browns until I got to the post office. 

There I had a shitload of stuff waiting for me. Mattress topper, Komi, notepads, the Roughneck Chronicles off eBay, Burma and Chaco that I'd ordered off Kickstarter, Battle Brick Road ditto (5 copies of issue #2 because I forgot I already ordered one), a couple of kolaches from Butter Maid, two more Amazon Essential pocket tees, and Stipple-APA along with a couple other pieces of mail. I managed to get it all into the car with the assistance of a helpful lady, and got it all upstairs in two trips except for the wargames. No hurry on those. I unpacked the topper and spread it out; the instructions say 48 hours, but 12 will have to do. Around 1500 a knock at the door heralded the arrival of a UPS guy with my Surface tablet, which I took a little time to set up. Apparently Office Mobile has been folded into Microsoft Copilot, which is fine with me because fuck Office 365.The Surface Go is actually a little thinner than my Samsung phone in its Otterbox, though that will probably change slightly when the keyboard/cover arrives next week. It would have been here today as well, but the shipper wouldn't send it to the PO Box, so I put the home address on it, and of course it got rejected at the PO. Amazon agreed to just ship another one to the PO Box for no charge, which is fine. 

I conformed to the Law of the Fish by taking advantage of a Subway coupon for three footlongs for $17.99, which was actually cheaper than the B2G1 deal on the app, which I couldn't get to work anyway. One of them was a garlic roast beef sub that I ate Thursday night and the other two were tuna salad subs  that I devoured today for lunch and dinner. 

Took a break in the action from today's work to sweep the Giants, which after beating Pete's Brewers 2 out of 3 on Tuesday made for a good week. Still a game behind the A's, but we have over 70 games to go, so I'm not giving up hope. Carl Morton picked up two wins, Spaceman Lee finally got his 10th win, and Bob Johnson got his 9th save. Dave Kingman went on a tear against the Giants, blasting three home runs during the series . which was nice and confirmed the wisdom of my decision to trade for Braun and stick Dave in the #9 hole as DH. 

I'm on the clock from 12-9 tomorrow, so I think I'll make my bed and get in it. 

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. 

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. 

It took most of the month to find out what was keeping me from doing the state tax certification exams in Block Academy; it turned out that Edge's built-in popup blocker was keeping link to Blockworks Online Practice Mode from working. So far I've done Arizona and California, and will do at least Colorado, Idaho, and Utah over the next couple of days. So far all I've had to do in the way of work is make a few phone calls to clients, one TPR return, Carlos' return (which I discounted to a token $1 plus tax) and my own, for which I'm still waiting on a W-2 from the county and a 1099 from the treasury. Doesn't look like I'm going to get much of a refund, since the NOL from the convention drowns out all my earned income and then some, so basically I only get my withholding back. 

Alt-Hero Q volume 1 finally showed up, after a few years of waiting on printing and shipping and stuff. I also bought the sequel to The Romanov Rescue by Kratman & Co., The Romanov Rising, which so far is entertaining. 

Jeanne sent the current issue of StippleAPA, which has some of the people I remember and several that I don't. I think I'll do my copies here and mail them to her, since I suspect it's cheaper here than there and will be less work for her. I have already completed my zine for #370, which will be collated next month.

Weight is hanging around the low 390s, with BG and BP normal. Now I'm off to do laundry and have dinner via the Raley's, where I need to get laundry detergent  and more tea with my SE bucks. Going to put on the ushanka because it's a bit chilly in the wake of the inch or so of snow we got overnight. 

The Senators were .500 this week, taking two of three from the Phillies before losing two of three to the O's. 

Ran out of Ozempic a couple weeks ago and have reduced the dosage on my Novolin R from two units every 5 mg/dl over 130 to one unit every 10 mg/dl on the advice of my clinician, and so far I'm not real happy with the results...and I haven't even been eating that much in the way of carbs. Well, okay, I had pizza yesterday as part of the Post Office run, but surely not enough to push the evening BG over 300...anyway as of today I'm going back to the 2/5 dose and tomorrow I restart the Ozempic.

Not much action on the tax front. I've had a few appointments, but they've all been phone appointments; nobody has actually sent any documents in. The timekeeping software is also being difficult and not doing a good job of retaining my out punches, so I'm going to keep track manually on the side as a backup.

On the last novel of the Spiral Arm series, which means I'll be getting into Maggie Hogarth's Shieldmatron novel this week.

I am being cheap and staying just one night in Pahrump at the Best Western, because my credit cards have become strained. So I'll have to pack everything but the nose hose Tuesday night so I can just pack the nose hose, grab my pack and my insulin, and get out the door so I can be in Pahrump by 3 PM for the intergovernment meeting before the regular meeting. Zoom. 

That was what my Aunt Maureen (my godfather's widow) said as we were talking about the death of my Aunt Pat, who passed away quietly in her sleep Saturday morning. It's true; all of my father's siblings are dead now except for Uncle John, whose mind is incomplete, though at least one of his adoptive daughters is caring for him in his twilight, so he's got that going for him. I thought I might be able to be there for the memorial and interment, but the cousins scheduled it for Black Friday, and the airfare to Manchester & back all by itself was over $1000, and I just don't have the miles, credits, and/or cash to make it. Kathy says she understands and it's okay, but I still feel bad about it, because Pat was my favorite aunt on that side of the family, the O'Malley's are my favorite cousins, and it hurts that I can't be there for them. 

In other news, I passed the AFSP exam pretty handily, but it looks like I need to knock out eight more hours of Federal CE to get AFSP certified with the IRS. Guess I'll do that this week. 

I see there's a community Thanksgiving dinner at the Convention Center. Dunno if I'll be social and go to that, or just get a small turkey from Raley's along with the usual trimmings. 

Currently reading Grandeur and Misery of Victory, which is not so much Clemenceau's memoirs as a riposte to Marshal Foch's memoirs, which apparently took some shots at the former PM. Also rereading Alliance Unbound.