Life in General

[unforth]

Well, it's a day off, at least until I leave to go to the various party type things going on today (first to squishymeister's to play some Guitar Hero and rock out, then later to d_c_m's for some patriotic goodness). But before that, I've got some time to do a general update, which I've not done since before I left for D.C.


Well, I wrote a bit about the Changeling game before. It was a good game, though very different from some others. It was one of the first games where I've spent an extended amount of time in rounds rather than in RP, since I spent probably 2/3 of the sessions in the combat type area....I wouldn't have done so, since I really didn't belong there, but first Dino was there, and I wasn't gonna leave him, and then they needed a healer, stupid Heather Balm getting me in danger. I went through over 20 glamour and dross, which was fricken nuts. I had a lot of fun, though - I was very glad that the session got extended, that helped a lot, I think I would have been a lot less happy with the game if it hadn't gone an hour over. I'm also glad that I got to go to Chili's afterwards (there had been some talk of sapphohestia and I leaving right after the game) because I actually got a lot done there, spent most of it IC.

I'm looking forward to the Conchordia game, though I'm getting worried about having time for costume creation. With the amount I work, I just don't have that much time. It could be a big problem. :( Here's hopin'...



The trip east was a lot of fun. sapphohestia first went to Athens, Ohio, then headed to Washington D.C., then north to New York City, and back to Bloomington with a short stop in Columbus, Ohio.
Highlights of the trip include:

• Getting lost every day: We did in fact manage to get lost literally every day of the trip. I generally consider myself a good navigator, but somehow when we were in the car together, we couldn't seem to get any where without things going wrong. I partially blame this on Washington D.C.'s absolutely terrible signage; there were a lot of times that either: 1. there wasn't a sign, or 2. the signs were actually wrong. It was annoying to say the least. There was also at least one time that bad directions given to us is to blame - typically, one gets told which way to turn onto a road, not just to get onto it. And telling someone "east" or "west" is pretty much useless. However, that doesn't even account for every time we got lost - most of them were just our own ingenuity, go us. :)


• The trip to Athens: We magically turned a 5 hour trip into a 7 hour trip, thanks to downed trees, car accidents, getting lost in Cincinatti, and seeing a wild turkey. I blame the turkey. It's partially our faults, I guess, waiting to head out until like midnight after the Changeling game, but, well, Changeling game! So we arrived at Athens at 7 AM and got very little sleep. :)


• Washington D.C.: Well, I've not gotten to spend much time in D.C., but my impressions of it from previous visits had been very negative, but this time I felt a lot better about it. I guess it's just where I've been before, but now I actually think that it's pretty nice. We looked at a lot of spiffy places, and I think we found a good one for sapphohestia, though she's still waiting to hear back from them. I got to meet sarcariad's father and his wife, who were nice, though a bit distant (understandably, we were basically two strangers staying at their house) and Debbie, a very nice lady who is a friend of Sappho's family, and who had a round cat. Literally. We didn't get to do any sight seeing, but I figure that just means I have an excuse to visit again - I really want to see the zoo (panda's!) and the National Gallery.


• Driving: I did a lot of the driving for the trip, including my first time driving in New York City. Not that I had to do much of that, but I did have to do a bit of it. It wasn't half as scary as I feared - my brother tells me this is typical, because you work yourself up to such expectations of how awful it'll be that there is no way it can be as bad as all that. :) I also had the surreal experience of having the Henry Hudson Parkway be almost completely empty. It was nuts. And it wasn't even that late, it was like 2 AM.


• New York City: Had a nice couple days in New York. Got to meet Sappho's sister, who was very nice even if she was completely not a geek, visit my mom, get some yummy food, and generally had a nice time. We visited a few geek stores, I try to make sure all geeks who visit New York with me get to see Jim Hanley's Universe and The Compleat Strategist, because they are pretty spiffy, and less than a block apart, and are well combined with seeing the Empire State Building, which is across the street from them. I also took Sappho to M&J Trim, because it is totally fricken sweet and makes me hate Joann's with a passion, but I didn't get the time to show her B&J Fabric (whose webpage I can't find), which is an amazing fabric store. Also went to FAO Shwartz, walked in the park, and stuff like that. It was nice. Mom seemed to be glad we visited, too, which was good, she'd been down a lot.


• The Drive Back: This is the first time I've not done the drive from NYC to Indiana straight up; we stopped for the night in Pennsylvania. It was a good call, really, we'd have been exhausted otherwise, but still it was sort of weird.


• Sour Cream Coffee Cake of the Gods: It's really yummy, and I have the recipe. That is all. :)


• Columbus: We stopped briefly in Columbus (but not without getting lost) and met up with Sappho's mom and my brother to pick up Sappho's new cat Smudge (who is oh-so-cute) and get some food. My brother was sort of a late addition, but when I realized how close we were to his place, I thought it'd be nice to see him, and Sappho didn't mind. We went to this German restaurant which is apparent famous, and I had a yummy sausage and their apparently famous cream puff, which was damn tasty.

All in all, it was a great trip and I had a lot of fun. We spent a huge amount of time talking about all manner of things (though the longest conversation by far was our planning for the zombie apocalypse; we spent five hours figuring out who we'd want with us, what we'd do, where we'd hide, etc. Unfortunately, our friends not in Bloomington didn't fare too well, since that was where we started, and we suspected that most of our non-Bloomington acquaintances would have been killed before we could ever get to rescue them. Sorry guys...). We also started talking through my slowly forming plans to take a trip around the country, and now those plans are a bit more solid and a lot more complex - I'll post about this later, when I get a bit more time to plan it out.



The weekend was way busy. Friday night, heading over to buzzermccain's game about an hour after we returned from our trip. It was a lot of fun, I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out how "robot-y" to be, but it wasn't too bad, really. I got the distinct pleasure of deciding that I needed to shoot my own boss, who I though of like a sister, to stop her from destroying a lot of stuff - I didn't know IC that she was possessed at the time, though I strongly suspected it, and knew that she was acting way weird. :) It went fairly well; I'm hoping for a Pirate's game even more now. :)

Then on Saturday night, it was BHSS time, girl's night out. I had fun with that, too, though I was so tired that I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted - I dozed off once it got late. :) Damned fae!

Sunday was dyrecorn and miraeko's vow renewal. I met up with Sappho early and we baked three tea breads, oatmeal cookies, Sour Cream coffee cake, and scones, plus made Deviled Eggs, all in about three hours, it was nuts. The food went over well, though, which made me happy - I'd been slightly concerned, but it ended up okay, though everything was slightly burned. The vow renewal itself was very, very nice. The rain held off for the most part, and the location was beautiful. I have lots of pictures, I'll try to get them up on the net at some point relatively soon. Miraeko's dress was very nice, and none of us apparently blew it with dyrecorn's parents, which was a bit tough. :)

After that, I headed over to Aberrant, which was tough cause I was sooo tired, but I still managed to get a lot done. Constant...fricken...plotting. :)



I've been pretty busy in general between the internship and work. I'm working a full schedule (9 - 5) at the internship, because it's pretty much the only way to get in all the hours that I need to work; I have to be done on August 8th, but I'm moving on August 7th, so it's all a mess and it rather sucks. However, I'm enjoying the internship a lot. Jim showed me how to do some basic binding; I'll be learning more on Monday I expect. I got through my first 50 phase boxes, not that this is exactly an achievement, since making phase boxes is mindless, but whatever. :) I also got to help out in building a Japanese Puzzle Table - I want one, it's so totally sweet - and getting set for an exhibit in the Ball Room at the Lilly, putting together exhibit mounts using double sided tape, thick plastic and mylar.

Meanwhile, I was also very busy with work for HEC. I got 4 proposals set for ASPIRA, and mailed them off. Here's hopin', there's 190k hanging on it. :) It took a lot longer than I thought it would, though, I was sooo tired by the time I was done. I've still got some other stuff left to do, but I'll start that tomorrow. :)



Origins was a whole lot of fun. I've pretty much written about it's highlights; I especially enjoyed spending my time painting mini's...I think the ones I did turned out really well, and the folks who looked at it seemed to agree. I played in only two games, sadly - I was in a third, but there was a bit of a family crisis, so I ended up spending well over an hour on the phone with my mom at midnight on Saturday night. My brother and his wife were very nice about taking care of my dog, and though they thought it was a bit of a wake up call, they still want to get a dog of their own, which is good, they really wanted the experience. Ben also spent a chunk of Thursday night in the hospital, which sucked ass, and I'm very glad that he's alright - he'd hurt his ankle some how, but it's feeling a lot better now. I spent a fair chunk of change, got some spiffy art, and generally had a good time. It's such a nice convention! Then, on Sunday night I took Ben and Kirsten out to dinner at a pleasant Japanese restaurant called Haiku, as a thank you for having us, taking care of the dog, and for Ben's birthday, which was yesterday (and I forgot to call, damn it all, though it's not so bad since I'd left on Wednesday).



Thourgh all of this, Jonie has been remarkably well behaved. She's growing up to be a very sweet puppy, even if she does still get car sick. :) I can't believe how patient she has been with all of the traveling and such - I feel so lucky! Her health has been good, and though she has lost a lot of her shyness, she still is generally just a good dog. :) My grandfather sent me some money with which to get her a dog bed, I need to find her a nice one. :)



After work yesterday (which was about as laid back as possible, since there were only three of us there and none of us were anyone important, so we just took our time and stuff. :) ) I headed over to the BBQ at kitsune_den's...I had thought about going to the fireworks, but I wasn't sure I was up to hours sitting on the ground and such. As it turns out, though, I sort of ended up doing that anyway, since Jonie was outside, so I was out during grilling and the like. I got so many bug bites!! :) It was fun, though - not that big a get together, but we ate some yummy hamburgers, watched a really awesome Changeling video, and went out and shot off some fire works - I've never been that close to fireworks going off before. I wanted to get some sparklers, but I couldn't find any, dang it all. Sparklers are fun! :) Anyway, it was a nice celebration of our last day as Brit's. :) I left a bit early, though (just after midnight) because I was sleepy and Jonie was too. ;)


Things are going to be settling down now, which is good. Still, life is still kind of nuts. Mom is still recovering, my grandfather had surgery on Thursday, I've got a month to finish this internship and do a bunch of other stuff besides, it's problematic. However, it's nice that I'm getting to do so much different stuff, you only have time to live like this once in your life, and that's while you're in college, so I want to do as much as I can!

Walking tally: 65 miles since I started keeping track. :)

Comments

[nekomata.livejournal.com]

I will be bringing sparklers tonight. And I -wish- we sat for hours at the fireworks. As is Dan and I left J to read and hiked to just about everywhere at Fairfax. I still feel sore. X_x

[unforth.livejournal.com]

I picked some up on the way, so there will be a bunch of fireworks. And I hope that the rest was fun. :) Were they nice fireworks?

[nekomata.livejournal.com]

Yes, this show was in many ways better than the stadium. Stupid stadium. :/

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Maybe next year I'll go to that one. :) I love fireworks!

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't know - I like to find perfect fabric, and with the superstores I find that I always have to settle. This problem is especially pronounced when it comes to trim. And I consider B&J and M&J Trim to be the highlights of the area, though the rest is totally awesome too...there's this one place, which has all these brocades, I don't even know what it's called, but it's still totally sweet. :)

Anyway, don't worry about the visit - I was only there for like a day and a half, and my cell phone battery was dead, so coordinating stuff proved basically impossible. :)

[fallenrose.livejournal.com]

I want that scone recipe. :)

[unforth.livejournal.com]

I'll post it!

[gollumgollum.livejournal.com]

I met up with Sappho early and we baked three tea breads, oatmeal cookies, Sour Cream coffee cake, and scones, plus made Deviled Eggs, all in about three hours, it was nuts.

BOGGAN DEATH MATCH.

[kniedzw.livejournal.com]

I shall defeat you both! My baking-fu is mighty!

[teleidoplex]

You scare me.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

It was awesome. If she'd had a bigger stove (her stove was tiny!) there would have been cupcakes too, and I was prevented from making the fourth tea bread because there wasn't enough lavender blossoms (the recipe called for fresh lavender. :) ). It was fun - I want to do it again, I can't bake in my apartment at present because when the stove is on the fire alarm goes off, it's sad. :(

We must have a baking battle some time. ;) It'd be awesome. Or very silly. Or something. :)