Random Updates

Our Great Explorer Returned Mostly Unscathed
Slick, returned from her conference on Friday. It was a day late. Her seat on the airplane was broken and overbooking meant that there were no available flights until the next night. She had already checked her bag. She spent the night in a crappy hotel (last one available) and flew home first class. The airline also gave her free round-trip voucher for a later date.

Que Sera Sera Update
My World of Warcraft Guild (Club) finally beat the insanely tough challenge that we've been working on for almost 2 months. One more "boss" and we'll be able to join the "elite" guilds in the hardest areas of the game. I'm relieved and admittedly a little burned out by experience of defeating Lady Vashj. Lady Vashj is known in the gaming community as the "guild killer" because of the sheer number of guilds that get to her and are so overwhelmed that they break up. Technically, there are tougher fights ahead of us. But if a guild holds on to defeat Vashj, it means that they've developed the teamwork, skill and perseverance to make it into the elite zones of the game.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
I picked up the first book of the "Wheel of Time" series. My close friend, Crash is a huge fan of the late, great Robert Jordan. He may be best known for his work on Conan the Barbarian stories. Anyway, I had to reserve it from another library branch. When I asked for it, the librarian went out of her way to remind me that I had 3 weeks and could renew. It makes Harry Potter books look like light reading. The scary thing is that he wrote 11 of these books and died before he could complete #12.

The Chieftains
Last night, we went to see the Chieftains perform at the "Belk" theater here in Charlotte last night. They are an amazing Irish musical group that's been together for over 40 years. Slick and I danced to their version of "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" at our wedding 9-1/2 years ago.

Health
I'm fatigued and in pain this week, but I'm managing. I've had "the fog" since Monday. That makes doing anything unappealing. So with the exception of last night's concert, I've been taking it easy and watching movies from Netflix & the Library.

I was also 182.5 lbs when I weighed myself this morning. I'm getting closer and closer to the 180 lb mark. I went from 224 to 190 in under 6 months, but 190 to 182.5 has taken 4 months. As Slick says, "Slow and steady wins the race."

Simplify
My great quest to simplify our lives continues. We're getting rid of a ton of stuff in the town clean-up days. (Seriously, it could amount to several hundred pounds of crap with desks, book shelves, computer parts, etc!) Imagine a town-wide dumpster-dive/swap-meet. Everyone puts their useless junk out on Sunday night. Your "neighbors" go trolling in their cars. On Monday, the town sends trucks out to collect what's left.

We gave our neighbor w/ the three kids first dibs. The oldest son took all our old golf clubs. The youngest took my basketball. And they will probably take our 13" & 19" TVs. I'm obviously keeping the HDTV but we are seriously thinking about getting rid of the 27."

We're also giving away a bunch of our "geek" stuff to our other geek friends. Some wives are not pleased, but at least there's no money involved. It's mostly books for role playing games like D&D and World of Darkness.

Next, a good-will run with clothing and a trip to the main branch of our library with books. I just need to make a list in case we need them for taxes.

I'll probably make a pile of stuff to sell at the neighborhood yard sale or online. But in the long run, it's just easier to turn my trash into another person's problem.