Cold. Car. Compressor.

01.15.2013

The first cold of 2012 is mostly over - I've still got a couple more days of antibiotics to take, but I'm about as well as I'm going to get (nagging cough notwithstanding). The antibiotic knocks me out about an hour after I take it. It's a once-a-day antibiotic, so I'm assuming my nap an hour after taking it is a side effect.

I tried to go to work today but didn't make it. Oddly enough it had nothing do to with being sick (or recovering). Last week I was running errands and the car made a funny noise between the Athens Lowe's and Staples. These are across the highway from each other, and it was a chilly day so I was trying to chalk it up to the car not warming up enough before turning it off. The sound was that of a fan rattling. I'm not sure what switches I was hitting, but by the time I made it to Gina's house to ask her opinion everything was sounding back to normal - hence the "maybe the car hadn't warmed up enough" diagnosis.

This morning as I made my way to work that sound popped up again as I turned on the defogger/defroster. I generate enough heat on a cold day that I fog up the windows. I heard a rattling fan and figured it had something to do with that defogger button, since the sound went away when I turned the defogger off. The only problem here was that the window was fogging up so bad I couldn't see out. I made it as far as Publix (roughly 4 miles) before I turned around and made it back home, taking only twice as long as normal. Every time I would wipe the inside of the windshield, I would work up enough heat to fog it up all over again.

Once the morning traffic dies down, I went back out and tried holding my breath as I headed toward the Athens mechanic. The windows were cracked, it's 38° outside, and I'm worried about my body heat fogging up the windows. The windows didn't get too bad by the time I got to the garage. The mechanic gave me a quick diagnosis - compressor. I figured it would be something expensive. He then spent the next hour calling around and getting parts which won't all get delivered until tomorrow. So I held my breath and headed home again.

Tomorrow I'll drop the car off to get it fixed. I don't know when Ford decided to make the compressor and important part of the defogger running. I always thought it was just a fan that blew non-compressed air. Now I know better.

I bought the car on Halloween 2009. 3¼ years I've now had:

• Flat Tire
• Broken Compressor

Usually after the 3rd problem I start looking for another car. I hope that 3rd problem can wait another 2 years.

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The first cold of 2013!

01.10.2013

I had a little cough Monday night. Tuesday I stayed home and Sudafed-ed up. Wednesday I was still coughing. Thursday I went to the doctor. I have a cold.

I wasn't worried about having the flu - well, not a lot. When I catch the flu I run a fever and have body aches. Both of these were missing. I was feeling congested enough that I knew if I didn't go to the doctor now I would just suffer all weekend and end up going Monday. Hence, try to cut out some suffering and go today.

I've mentioned before how my doctor works out of a walk-in clinic, no appointment possible. I've been going to him for close to 20 years. The only drawback to the lack of an appointment is all the waiting. I got to his office at 2:00. There were 4 people in the waiting room ahead of me. I know from experience it takes roughly 20 minutes/person before you go in the back to get your vitals taken. At 3:30 I went back. At 4:30 I was on my way to Publix to get some prescription strength cough syrup, an antibiotic, and I had gotten my first ever cortisone shot in the office.

It's now 7:00PM. I've had my shot, taken an antibiotic, and downed a few swigs of cough syrup. I'm sweating and running a 99° temp (and for me 97° is normal). I know this is good because my head doesn't feel like it's going to explode.

Now I'm going to pick out either a movie or some Star Trek episode and go wall asleep while they're playing. As such, whatever I pick to watch will be something I don't have to actually pay attention to.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Gina. I've got to figure out the proper way to celebrate, because this ain't it.

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Errand Day

01.04.2013

Today is my catch-up day. Odd that I would need a day to catch up on things after my little holiday vacation. Part of catching up is doing the things I didn't get done during said vacation.

Part of that started yesterday when I got home. I have been meaning to go out to the storage building and dig out a couple of boardgames (mainly Scene It) that I knew were out there. By the time I was through digging, I had 3 armloads of games. That's just crazy! I seem to hide these things everywhere.

Today I have a couple of errands to run in the greater Athens/Madison metropolitan area which should take no more (hopefully) than an hour and a half. Then I'm back home for... home errands? Chores?

The big thing I want to finish today is the latest revamp of the Zombie Mall rules. The big change has been switching "health" to "bandages" as it makes more sense with how it's used. That's entailed not just changing the name, but making a new graphic and changing the context in which it's used in the rules. I made changes to the Loot Cards but still need to go through the rules and update them - that's my big project for the day.

The backs of the Loot Cards have changed, too. Above, the original back is to the left. I really like those outstretched arms, but the original art is a littler better known than I thought. So I dug out Poser, found a zombie skin texture, turned the green hue up way too high and made my own version (as seen on the right). The background of the card is now color coded to match the type of counter it goes with now that I have Loot and Objective Tokens/Cards.

I ordered a small sample of replacement cards from Printer Studio. They're a little bit cheaper than ArtsCow (where I made the original deck) but I'm not sure about the size of the graphics for the card properly fitting - their layout tool didn't seem show any change when I changed the image size. So I'm spending $7 to print a sample deck with a variety of sizes to see if there really is any difference.

So that's my day. I wonder if it will go anything like I plan?

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2012 Wrap Up Show

12.31.2012

It used to be that the week between Christmas and New Years would be full of retrospectives and countdowns on tv and radio. That doesn't seem to be the case any more, or maybe I don't watch enough tv nor listen to enough radio. While sitting with Jerry last night, I decided to have my own review of 2012, not to rank the happenings but more to get an overall feel for how the year went.

This was the year of surgery. Me with my pilonidal cyst, Jer with his collarbone. Expanding that, Jim had a kidney stone and Dad was in the hospital with some prostate problems.

This was the year of not working a lot. Thanks to my post-op infection, I ended up missing roughly a month of work due to my surgery - a point I was sure to thank Jim about during my annual review at work. Although I had plenty of sick leave and vacation banked, it's nice to be able to use it without any problems from my boss. I may not care much for my day-to-day job, but I wouldn't go anywhere else to work (unless Jim gets rid of me, but we've talked about that scenario so I'm good).

It was the year Gina took care of me. Even after my surgery Gina had a couple of months of looking at my butt twice a day since I couldn't reach the right areas to change out gauze. The hardest thing for me to do is admit when I can't take care of myself, and this was one of those times. A loooong one of those times. I really don't know what I would have done without her - helps me realize how much I love that woman.

It was the year we played games. Even with mine and Jerry's overlapping surgical issues, we still got together with Keith and Joe and played more games that we have in the previous 5 years. I even played with Rynn and Alex a couple of times. I've got to get better, though, I tend to lose the majority of the time. It's still fun to play, regardless of who wins. I like that.

It was the year I started to make a board game. Looking back, I started working on Zombie Mall in July. I didn't think after 6 months I would still be working on it, especially to still be tweaking the game. After 2 play-test and various discussions I think it's almost ready for people to play without me standing there and explaining the rules. People that have seen pics and explanations, especially on Facebook, have asked about the game and if I'm planning on marketing it. Although that's an option, and one I've thought about, more than anything this is just an idea in my head that I have to get out. Plus, so far it's neat to see people play something I've made and both understand it and enjoy it.

That's the crux of my year. Bad things happen (surgery infection, longer recovery time than expected, I had a flat tire), but my day-to-day life is good. I recognize that, and I enjoy recognizing that. I wouldn't mind another year that ended up like 2012.

It would be nice to skip the month convalescing in bed this time around, though.

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2012 Widgey Awards Banquet

12.26.2012

This past week saw the end of the 2012 Widgey Season, a season in which we played a record number of games (10!). I never thought 10 games would sound like a lot to play, but when you factor in grown-ups schedules (everybody else, not me) it's more of a challenge than you would really think.

Keeping the same categories as last year, here are the 2012 standings:

	Wins & Losses					Win %			Points Rank + Win % Rank - # of Wins
	Wins	Losses	Points	Ranking		Win %	Ranking		Combined Points	Combined Ranking
Russ	3	8	28	3		27.3%	4		4	3
Jer	4	7	30	1		36.4%	3		0	2
Keith	5	5	30	1		50.0%	1		-3	1
Joe	1	4	12	4		20.0%	5		8	5
Brady	1	1	6	5		50.0%	1		5	3

The championship list is:

Wins Champion Based on total # of wins Champion with 5 wins Keith	Win % Co-Champions Based on win/loss record 50% W/L Keith & Brady	Points Champion Based on game points. Co-Champions with 30 Points Jer & Keith
	Overall Champion Lowest combined points in rankings. Champion with -3 points Keith

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our 2012 Overall Champion, Lord Ford:

What makes Keith's championship so inspriing is that this year he had a 5-5 record. His combined record for the previous 5 years was 3-16. Somebody is taking the Widgey seriously now!

This year also marks the inauguration of the official Widgey Night Champions trophy. Wil Wheaton has the TableTop Trophy of Awesome, so it was only fitting that after years fo talking about having some type of physical award we (ok, I) set out to the eBay and got one. Note that the trophy Keith is holding above is not the correct trophy. The trohpy he's holding has the wrong dude on it. A corrected picture will be forthcoming.

And now on to the battle for 2013 trophy ownership!

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