A Day In the Life

Some of my friends ask, "What do you do all day?" Most of those who ask are the kind of people who don't sit still and are constantly doing something.

The kind of person I used to be before getting sick.

I've been meaning to write about my typical day, but haven't because I worried that it would come out looking like so much wasted time to people with steady jobs & 1.5 kids.

I realized that my biggest fear about my condition and lifestyle changes we made to deal with it are all around fears about being judged. I don't want to be made to feel like a slacker or be treated like a drain on society.

Well, that and money.

Then I remembered that this is exactly the kind of thinking and self-loathing I swore to fight when I first got sick. This is the stuff that my wife and family told me not to worry about.

So today, I committed myself to it. Then, something odd happens. As I sat down to write, my RSS feeder refreshed to reveal that my sister just posted a day in the life of her own. I read all the stuff that she deals with and was really impressed. She's always struck me as kinda scatterbrained.... Smart, yes. Insightful, yes. Organized? Not so much.

Love you sis!

Yet, here she is running her congregation, dealing with an autistic child and just kicking butt. Now my typical day seems really pathetic. Oddly, this did not deter me. If anything I felt emboldened. I've got to talk about it!

A Day In The Life

If I try and give you an homogenized day of days, it won't work right. So instead, let me just tell you about today.

I got up around 10AM. I try to get up around 8:30-9AM, but the power was out this morning. So, I'm running a little slow. Like most mornings, I "shove" the dog outside, grab my cup of coffee, make a bowl of fruit, yogurt & granola and head upstairs for my morning computer session.

After checking my email and the headlines, I log onto World of Warcraft to make gold.

The game has a virtual economy. In order to "stay ahead" in the game, you've got to earn gold. I setup my auctions. This is like ebay. I have stuff that other people want. The market determines value much like a commodities market does. I then do "dailies." These are daily recurring quests that my character can do for gold and other in-game incentives. Slick and I have a "household" approach here. We share funds. So, when I'm making gold, I'm "working" for both of us.

Once breakfast & my gold-earning is completed, I purposefully stop playing the game. I learned early on that I can easily become caught up in the game and waste my day. It's time for exercise. Between sleeping late and the way I've been feeling the last 2 weeks, today we walked about a mile.

If things are going well, I will do 2.5 miles walking with the dog, then come home and do some additional stretching exercises based on Tai Chi. If, after about 1/2 a mile, I realize that I'm in for a rough day, I cut the walk to 1-1.5 miles and return home to relax.

Wednesday is typically a "get stuff done" day. Today is no exception. As soon as I'm done here, I'm hitting the showers and running errands. Slick needs a new wrist rest for her computer. We're almost out of coffee. Typical stuff.

As for the rest of the day? I'll make dinner, of course. Tonight is a "Raid" night. That again is World of Warcraft. This is when Slick and I get together online with 23 other people and tackle a big "end-game" challenge.

We typically raid 2-4 nights a week. It's a requirement for membership to our guild to participate 2 nights a week. If I'm feeling well, I'll go for 3 or 4.

Well, there you have it. That's Wednesday. It's a fairly typical day for me actually: Goof off all morning, try to accomplish something* (anything) in the afternoon, make dinner, play World of Warcraft with my friends in the evening. Exciting? No. Fulfilling? Eh, I can live with it for now.

* More words on trying to accomplish something: This is where my day really varies. On a really good day, this could mean some serious projects like cleaning or working in the yard. On a bad day, it could mean surviving the day. On most days it means getting a chore done, doing online stuff like my blogs, expanding my knowledge or yes...sometimes caving in and playing World of Warcraft.

Barack Obama's Response to the State of the Union

A Little Prospective Before I Rest

I was watching an old movie on Netflix Online "Watch Now" while reading some economy blogs. This got me thinking about where I've been and where I'm going with my health. Seeing how I won't sleep unless I get these thoughts out of my head, I'd thought I would do a quick post on the subject.

I know I've mentioned that I haven't been feeling great of late. Let's set the record straight on that front. I've been functioning at about 80% since the busy Christmas holiday. The sudden "cold snap" we had around here last week didn't help much either. No, I'm not getting "soft" from living in the south...well, maybe a little. Rather, it's these unusual and extreme shifts in temperature. One day it's in the 70's then wham it's in the 20's, only to return to the 50's yesterday & today. Cold literally hurts to begin with, but these massive shifts just make me uncomfortable.

So, I'm uncomfortable and I'm sluggish. More than anything, I'm nervous about the start of February.

February marks the beginning of the worst cycle of the year for me. Things that historically trigger my fibromyalgia are at their peak for the next 2-3 months. My doctor has medical records to prove it!

Anyway, I started going through my old journal notes and posts in this blog for a little prospective. Thankfully, I found a very reassuring post.

Back in March of last year I wrote a post called Understanding My Symptoms. In it I took all my major symptoms and rated them on a scale of 1-10. Comparing them to how I feel today gave me a lot of hope that I'm doing better and I will get through the winter! Let me show you what I mean by comparing my worst symptoms during March of 2007 to my worst symptoms this month.

Symptoms - March 07 VS Now
0 = No symptoms; 10 = Debilitating symptoms

Fatigue
March: 10 ---> Now: 5
Fog
March: 10 ---> Now: 4
Headaches
March: 10 ---> Now: 4
Muscle Pain
March: 6 ---> Now: 2
Body Aches
March: 8 ---> Now: 4
Insomnia
March: 8 ---> Now: 2
Irritable bowel
March: 6 ---> Now: 0
Multiple Reoccurring Sinus Infections
March: 8 ---> Now: 0

Everything is down compared to March last year. Sure, I don't have data for January, but my journal suggests that it was just as bad. Admittedly, several of those numbers -- headaches, pain & aches -- are from yesterday & today. And admittedly, anything in the 4+ range is very uncomfortable. I don't like that! On the other hand, nothing over 5 is awesome. And zero sinus infections (in 7 months) is downright cause for celebration since the sinus infections have been my #1 cause of bad flair-ups & headaches.

It's a welcome reminder that I've got to keep on keeping on. Or to put it another way, "Stay on target!"

Night all!

Readership...ACK!

I've been writing in this blog steadily for several months now. I like it. I've got a small following of mostly friends and family. I have some other "regulars" too. I also get occasional cross-traffic from my sister's blog. Beyond that, almost all my extended traffic comes from people doing Google searches that hit on my wide variety of topics. That's about it. I expect roughly 20-30 regulars who check my site 4-5 times a week and another 10-30 hits from searches. I occasionally hit on a topic that gives me 100+ views, but that's only when I comment on "in the news" stuff.

In other words, it's small, it's personal and it's everything I want it to be.

On the other hand, I've had my World of Warcraft blog, Beroth the Hunter up for a few weeks now. I finally got around to adding a site meter to it over the weekend and boom. Today alone, I got this site's weekly average in views. Most of my traffic appears to be coming from a fellow player's blog and from other players Googling my tips. From the comments and a dozen or so emails, people like what I'm doing. Last night I even posted my first response to an actual reader question.

This makes me glad that I took NothingKnew's advice to not put a link for this blog on that one. I'm not ready for that.

So, what now? Well, the first thing is to not over-react. It's really not a lot of traffic compared to the traffic at other WoW Blogs. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I suppose, however, that if it continues to go well, I'll consider NothingKnew's other suggestion and post some simple ads just for fun. Eh, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I'm just having fun! If I can write stuff that people want to read (and not just because they are family & friends) then I'm moving in the right direction with this whole writing thing.

TTFN!

See, I Told You He Gets It

NothingKnew got it with his response to my post about the economic stimulus package. He and I are both really circling around the same thing here: This stimulus package is a joke and one more bad move by bad leadership. We just look at it from different prospectives. I see it as a feeble attempt to infuse the economy with consumer spending. His take is that it's "for the corporations to keep making money, the economy be damned." Either way it's more crap being tossed into a bad system.

Anyway, make sure you read it, because he's sharing truth.

Finally, Someone Gets Rambo

OK, you all know that I have a love-hate relationship with all things 80's. You also know that I've commented on Sly more than most actors. I think Sly is one of those people that epitomizes everything I both loath & miss about the 80's.

Amazingly enough, Empress Eve over at Geeks of Doom gets Rambo the way I get Rambo.

Rambo: Still Buff, Bandannaed & Badass

The Rambo franchise was not initially made to father on the RoboCop, Predator, Total Recall bandwagon, but it did so in spades. After the first film, it certainly didn't try to even truly prove a point. Yet, here's my confession...

Would you be surprised to know that many of those stupid 80's action movies drove teenage males like myself to ask questions about war & violence? Seriously, they did. Think about it. I was a product of a really lousy public school system. We didn't have the history channel growing up. And frankly, I hated to read.

Movies like Rambo II made me ask questions like "What is Vietnam?" Utter wastes of film like Chuck Norris in Missing in Action opened my eyes to the P.O.W. problem. Watching John Wayne WWII & Vietnam propaganda films in high school got me interested enough in history to take enough electives in college to nearly declare it as a minor. Dude, I'm almost embarrassed by how many times I've stopped flipping the channels to watch George C Scott in Patton.

No, I don't take Rambo seriously, but neither should anyone dismiss such cinematic works at face value.

Do I plan to run out and see Rambo in the theaters? No! I do play to rent it from Netflix as soon as it's available. Call it nostalgia. Call it bad taste. Call it whatever you like. Just don't dismiss the power of -- dare I call it -- art to shape and inform.

Understanding the Economic Stimulus Package

My good friend NothingKnew posted about the whole tax rebate thing the other day and I wanted to add my voice to the conversation.

Now, I'm not trying to turn this into a debate, but he's missed the point with his rant. Actually knowing him, he knows the point. He simply didn't want to muddy his point with a tangent.

These rebates are not for us. They are for the economy. They are not intended to "give something back." Any politician who tells you this is a liar. (Which is all of them.) The goal is to keep the machine moving and stimulate consumer spending. NothingKnew knows this. He's smart like that.

Don't get me wrong. My friend's disdain for the package is completely justified. The stimulus package is too little and too late. It's just a band aid. Or to quote Robert Reich, "Stimulus Shtimulus."

Why isn't it the "answer?" Several reasons.

The poor need this extra money and safety it can provide the most, but they are also the most likely to spend this money. Unfortunately, their spending power will not be sufficient to make a dent in the situation. No, we need the middle class to spend their money.

Specifically, the government is hoping that middle-class, middle-income families in their 30's & 40's will spend it all. Don't count on it! You've already heard what NothingKnew will do.

I love his comments about wanting to not spend the rebate as...

"our little F-You to the corporations who are just chomping at the bit for these ‘found money’ people who will rush to the big box stores the moment the check comes..."

It illustrates his point and helps me to illustrate mine: This will only work if we take this found money and spend it. And he's gonna screw it up!

Guess what! He's not alone.

Slick and I will be using it to shore-up the defenses for a downturn. We would only put it back into the economy at this time if we absolutely needed a major appliance or home-repair. Since, -- knock on wood -- we don't need either, we will not be doing our part to stimulate consumer spending.

This leaves us the very rich. No amount of "rebate" will change the spending habits of the very rich. Shaq is going to spend $23,000 a month filling his gas tanks no matter what kind of government kickback he gets. So, no help there either.

Let's be frank. The "downturn" is here. It's not just the pendants and doom-sayers who are using the word recession. I believe that an actual recession can still be avoided, but this stimulus package is not the answer. It's misguided political smoke and mirrors made to make us feel good.

Oddly, there's something to be said for feeling good. The major markets move more on feeling than on facts. I've watched markets climb and fall more on impulse and emotion more than anything else. In the end, however, it takes more than consumer confidence figures to right a ship. A bad economy can still flourish in a good situation, but only a sound economy will survive a bad one.

I think we're about to find out how good or bad our economic foundation really is!

Bleh

Slick and I have both been a bit under the weather. We've got chills and general run-down feeling. She even called out from work. So I turned up the heat and I made homemade ham & lentil soup from a ham-bone we've had sitting in the deep freeze. It was damned tasty and really simple. We even dusted off the bread maker and made some homemade pretzels to go with it.

Anyway, that's why I've not had a lot of posts. Aside from a little World of Warcraft, we've mostly been taking it easy. The soup really hit the spot, but we're both still acting really sluggish. Nothing inspiring to write about this week. You would think that the man who can be inspired to write about such inane things as tea pots can find something to write about.

Let's look at my available topics:

The Presidential race is local right now. There's also the shocking death of Heath Ledger. Let's not forget the weird shit between the Online Hacker Community vs Scientology. I've even got "rant-worthy" stuff. I'm sitting here fighting with Windows Update and iTunes. How can I pass up a chance to rant about Windblows?!?

Alas, I'm utterly uninspired to write about any of it.

So, I tell you about Ham & Lentil soup, -- Mmmm good! -- I "rant" about not feeling like ranting and I contemplate crawling into bed. Perhaps tomorrow I will be inspired.

Don't hold your breath!

Some Updates to My Favorite Links

Every now and then I find "new" to me stuff. After having them in my rotation for a while, I'm sharing with you. Here's a few sites to add to your rotation.

ExtraLife - This is the home of Scott Johnson. Scott's little enterprise includes a great little webcomic and the Instance (WoW) podcast. He's also the creator of the awesomely-fantastic 56-Geeks poster.

WWdN: In Exile - Will Wheaton finally embraced his inner Wesley Crusher and successfully evolved beyond it. His blog and website have really been an amazing window into how an actor, writer, and "personality" makes a living & stays an all-around cool guy that any geek would want to hang with.

Robert Reich's Blog - Economist, Professor & NPR commentator, Robert Reich offers his political and economic opinions for us to consider. I don't always agree with him, but I always find him insightful and thought-provoking.

Also, here's something I'm taking off the rotation.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs - I read and enjoyed this blog long after Fake Steve Jobs was revealed. He had a really good "swan song" several weeks ago when he dropped character and pretended that Apple was trying to buy his silence. Alas, it was going down-hill long before that. He's lost his Mojo and I'm not hanging around to see if he gets it back. I'm so unimpressed with his work of late, that I'm not even going to give him a link.

A Little Teapot

When I first wrote this post, it was long. Too long. It was this whole thing about my fibromyalgia, related reflux issues, beverage choices...on and on. It struck me as interesting but useless data. Perhaps another turning point in my writing? Who knows. But I digress...

This post is about Tea!

As you may know, I gave up soda and pretty much all things soft-drink a few years back...

This is where I went on about my reflux and you marveled at all the shit that's wrong with me and are grateful for your generally healthy metabolism.

I like Tea! And you know me, in for a penny...

Then there was the lengthy blah, blah, blah about NPR, TreeHugger, biodegradability & the lack of quality from a teabag.

So, when my supplies of Earl Grey started to run out, I stopped buying new bags.

Next came a completely pointless tangent about Captain Pickard, Star Trek, Earl Grey & my general geekiness.

I bought a tin of loose leaf. I had sticker shock at first. Then I did the math and realized that I was actually getting the same (if not more) cups of tea per Oz of leaves. The flavor (when brewed right) really is superior to my bagged tea. The trick is to give the leaves room to expand while infusing. The best cup of tea came when I simply chucked the leaves in an actual tea pot. This, however, is messy. I disliked cleaning the tea pot.

My moment of enlightenment had arrived! This is why the world moved to teabags. Tea is OK in bags and there's a lot less mess. DUH!

Let's be honest, I'm lazy by nature. If something is easy to maintain, I'll clean it. If it's a pain in the ass, it sits there. That's why the teapot sat on my counter for a day before I washed it and put it away. Man, it did taste better! But shit, I don't want to clean that pot again. There's got to be a way to have my tea and clean it too!

I then researched (this is me after all) the best ways to deal with loose tea. My research kept returning to French Presses. Eventually, I found out that Bodum makes a line of tea presses. I got the 2-Cup Assam. It's easy to clean and makes just enough tea for me. I love the internet!

Now the other issue. I drink more than 1 kind of tea. The grocery store carries a gazillion types of bagged tea, but very little loose tea. Again, the internet helped. Adagio Teas makes a huge selection of loose teas. They even list the average price per cup of tea. Not sure what I really wanted, I got two of their sample packs.

My tea arrived this morning. I want to dive in, but I can't decide which I want most. Then there's the excitement of mixing.

Final tangent about being overly excited about mixing tea-flavors and needing to get out more.

Anyway, I'm not going to tell you to run out and buy loose tea. That's a personal choice. I can tell you that the Earl Grey & Green teas I've had loose have been really, REALLY good. If the smells from my sample packs are any indication, the rest will be too. So, come visit and I'll make tea.

How almost British of me.

Stupid, Moronic, Dumbass...

I was writing a post on Beroth the Hunter and was discussing having multiple goals. I decided to use the plural of the word focus. What's the plural of focus? Don't ask blogger! For your amusement, I'm reprinting the rant that I put at the bottom of that post.

Foci is the plural of Focus. Stupid blogger doesn't know that. It wants me to use "focuses." I acknowledge that somewhere along the line general stupidity won over and made focuses acceptable. I don't have to like it, but I accept it. Still, for the spell check to not recognize foci...Arrrgghhh!!

Now, I can go back and point out the numerous grammatical corners I regularly cut in this and other blogs. I think it's part of the nature of blogging. Sometimes, I purposefully cheat to maintain a conversational tone. I admit to an insufficient level of editing. I often catch really ugly mistakes days or weeks later. That's all part of blogging.

All that said, it still bothers me that the English language is becoming such a wasteland of inarticulate, dumb-speak.

Note: Slick and I have family working for Google. He's got a journalism degree and as written for actual newspapers. In other words, he's a professional wordsmith. I'm going to email him and give him shit.

Walk Every Day...except today!

OK, on the list of rules for my getting and staying healthy is the rule about walking the dog every day. There's not supposed to be any exceptions to this rule. If I feel really crappy or if the weather is really bad, I just make it a shorter walk. Today, I add a clause to that rule. Here it is:

No walking in weather like this

I know, I know...I've become a real wuss since I moved south. It's not the cold. It's not the wind chill. It's not even the rain. It's the cold with the wind chill & then rain! So, I say, "Screw this!"

I'm making another cup of coffee or maybe some hot coco! Mmmm...chocolate!

Note: It did, in fact, snow last night. It must be our annual day of snow. It's still on the ground. It may be the longest I've ever seen snow on the ground since we've moved here.

Heaven When We're Home or I got your Shuffle right here!

Disclaimer: I do this thing because I love my sister. She owes me for making me do it! You have no idea how odd a complete "shuffle" can turn out on myiPod . What's interesting is the number of artists that got "multiple" plays on this. For fun, I've added a line from each song. It really makes this work...frighteningly so...

The rules:
1. Put your music player on Shuffle
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT. (This is in capital letters, so it is very serious.)
4. Add editorial comments in parenthesis after most song names.

(I changed the rules a little, but you'll figure it out.)

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
"Times like these you learn to love again"
Times Like These by Foo Fighters

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"Reach out and touch me...you can call me a sinner and you can call me a saint"
Madonna vs Depeche Mode "Like Jesus or Not" by Apollo Zero Brothers (This is a mash-up)
Damn, that's good...almost deep!

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Tonight, we'll leave our troubles behind"
Tonight by Kate Walsh

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"I'm a dreamin' man, yes that's my problem"
Dreamin' Man by Neil Young
Well, that explains a lot!

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
"I've no need for anger with intimate strangers"
Reunion by Indigo Girls
Tru dat!

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"I seek conclusion to all this confusion"
Be Here to Love Me by Norah Jones

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Desperate for changing, starving for truth"
Hanging By A Moment by Lifehouse

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
"Everyone in the stands knew that he had won"
Kenesaw Mountain Landis by Jonathan Coulton
This was the only one I really couldn't make fit.

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Hold me now! Warm my hearth. Stay with me!"
Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins) by General Store
Every time I think of Slick!

10. WHAT IS 2+2?
"I never seem to have the time."
Toes by Norah Jones

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"How should I feel? Tell me how does it feel, to treat me like you do?"
Blue Monday (remix) by Orgy
ROTFLMAO!

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Fill me up 'cause you're all that I've got and I've traveled a long, long way."
Fill Me Up by Shawn Colvin

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Chill out!"
Complicated by Avril Lavigne

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"If you need me, I'll be downstairs with the Shop Vac."
Shop Vac by Jonathan Coulton
Slick almost fell out of the chair when I shared this with her, because it's true!

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Code Monkey think maybe manager wanna write G*d damn logon page himself..."
Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton
Slick did fall out of her chair because that's how she felt today!

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"The sound of me singing with you. Helping each other to make it through."
One Voice by the Wailin' Jennys

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"If you believe what's right is right, then you will always have to fight! Guess I am a soldier afterall"
Soldier After All by John Gorka
We actually danced to "Have I told you lately that I love you?" sung by Van Morrison & the Chieftains.

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"Things have been ok for me, except that I'm a Zombie now."
Re: Your Brain by Jonathan Coulton
Seriously, I didn't make this up. That's what came on!

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Jerusalem, my happy home, oh how I long for thee."
Jerusalem, My Happy Home by Ralph Stanley

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Little mountain church house where friends and family gathered for the Lord."
Little Mountain Church House by the Nitty Gritty Dirty Band
Not sure this is a "secret," but it's certainly a warm fuzzy personal feeling.

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"You're so easily confused."
Faded by Ben Harper

22. WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
"Something tells me there must be something better than all this."
Heaven When We're Home by the Wailin' Jennys
But, I'm working on it!

Unbox Pt 2

Having worked in a "service" industry, I value customer feedback. So, I did send a note to Amazon. The response was prompt "canned" reply. The solution was to essentially blame Vista and provide a work-around:

1. Locate the Unbox program files by using Windows Explorer (My
Computer).  By default the location of the files is: C:\Program
Files\Amazon\Amazon Unbox Video.  The program files names are
"ADVWindowsClientApp.exe", "ADVWindowsClientService.exe", "Amazon
Unbox Config.exe", and "ADVWindowsClientSystemTray.exe"
2. Right-click the first program file, then choose "Properties."
3. Click on the "Compatibility" tab.
4. At the bottom of this tab should be a check box that states, "Run
as administrator."
5. Place a check-mark in this box and click on "Apply," then click on
"OK."
6. Repeat 2 - 5 for the remaining 3 files.

OK, I appreciate their prompt response, but come on people, this is the big-time. I don't have to manually make changes to iTunes, Google, Firefox, World of Warcraft or the dozens of other software programs I use. I'm also on the "upper" end of the computer skills curve. Do you really want this to be the answer for millions of clients? That's bad customer service & it's bad technical service. Thanks, but no thanks.

Tech Review - Amazon Unbox

OK, long rant about Amazon Unbox.
Short version: Nice quality, but don't use it! Read on for more...

On Monday morning I realized that I had missed the Premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on Sunday night. I immediately set my DVR to record the first Monday night episode, but was a little disappointed that I might see it without seeing the Pilot episode. So, I went online and looked around. I found it for free on the Amazon Unbox download service. All I had to do was install their player.

Now, I've been burned by proprietary software before, but I'm also admittedly a huge fan of iTunes, so I'm willing to try new stuff. Unbox has been around for over a year. I even tried them once before to watch the premiere of the new Bionic Woman. But I had uninstalled the player right after watching the download. I never "lived" with Amazon Unbox. So, given that it was Monday night and I only had a few hours before the show, I downloaded Unbox and gave it a shot.

OK first the good. Unbox downloaded my movie in under 20 minutes. It also looked great on my 20" Widescreen Samsung PC monitor. There were no commercials to bother me. In fact, I forgot that I wasn't watching a DvD. Unlike Netflix "Watch Instantly," I was also able to watch it while my wife was playing video games! More on that later. So, even though it's a proprietary player, I was happy on Monday. I was so happy that I started to really look hard at their rental prices and compare them to life with Neflix.

That feeling, however, did not continue on to Tuesday.

On Tuesday when I booted up my system, I got the...

"Windows Needs Your Attention"

...message for Unbox, TWICE. That's right, Windows Vista stopped everything to inform me that Unbox wanted to load and contact the mothership. *Sigh* No worries. Messenger services, iTunes, Google Toolbar, and a host of other applications I use allow me to set them to only turn on when I want to use them. They all still remember that this is my computer! I went into the Unbox control panel.

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

I changed the settings.

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

I closed the player.

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

I exited the taskbar item.

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

In the span of 5 minutes, I got the Vista "Screw You" message more times than when I first loaded the system software. But, at least it was turned off, right? WRONG!

After dinner, a completely different program crashed, so I decided to reboot before re-launching that program. As I was logging in...

"Windows Needs Your Attention."
"Windows Needs Your Attention."

Both messages were caused by Amazon Unbox loading. Well maybe, I thought, there was a problem because of that crash. Let me check the settings.

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

OK, those are right, let me reboot. Upon rebooting and logging back in everything looks OK until...

"Windows Needs Your Attention."
"Windows Needs Your Attention."

Now, when you get this kind of message, you can always hit "cancel" and force the application attempting to load to stop. Well, no. I canceled and 2 seconds later I got...

"Windows Needs Your Attention."

Just to see how nasty this was, I launched the windows task manager. Everytime Unbox tried to load, I forced it to quit. Two seconds later, it started again. I had no choice but to accept and load Unbox or not use MY computer.

Now personally, I've never had a virus or a Trojan infestation on my computer, but I've dealt with plenty during my days in IT. Amazon Unbox, in it's persistence was behaving just like a virus. It insisted on doing it's thing. Even when I changed the settings, it continued to load. Even when I manually tried to force the application to stop loading, it continued to load.

Thankfully, the Amazon Unbox uninstaller worked just fine and only asked for my attention once!

In spite of my recent -- still unresolved -- purchase issues with that Amazon Marketplace partner Online Sports, I'm still a fan of Amazon's online retail service in general. Thanks to their crappy "Call the Mother Ship at All Costs" software, Amazon Unbox lost my business before really getting it. It's a shame because their picture quality was good. It's a shame because right now there are only 3 "quality" viable online movie services: Netflix, iTunes & illegal Bittorrent. A 4th major-player could have the effect of making Netflix better, lowering iTunes prices & squeezing Bittorrent out of the market the right way...through competitive, free-market pricing.

Oh well, back to Netflix! Speaking of which...

More on Netflix Online Service:
Coinciding with the announcement of Apple's Online Rentals (cost in line with Unbox, BTW) Netflix sent me an email informing me that my online service is now unlimited. I can stream anything in their collection. What do I think? Eh...

I do like the service, but it's flawed. As much as Apple failed to impress me with their rental fee, Netflix's Watch Instantly service has one major drawback. It streams. They determine picture quality for the show based on your available bandwidth when it starts. So, if the wife is playing a video game or streaming radio, picture quality suffers. I basically can watch a movie OR use the internet, but not both. Someone with FiOS (or any fat pipe) will probably be fine, but standard Cable doesn't cut it. Since, I want to watch movies during prime-usage hours, Netflix's online service still doesn't cut it.

Parting Shot:
Apple's announced prices for rentals is 50% too high for me to adopt it. Mathematically, I'm still doing better renting via Netflix even with the wait. If Apple was going to charge me $2 per movie, I would be interested. But their "old" movies are $2.99 and their new stuff is $3.99. AND you have to add $1 for HD. Thanks, but no thanks Apple.

Pandora Radio

Last June I wrote a very short post about Pandora Internet Radio. I'm mentioning it again because it's hands-down my favorite way to listen to music at home.

What is Pandora?

Pandora is a FREE internet streaming music site. Pandora allows you to setup personalized "radio stations" on your computer based on artists, songs & genres. There are no radio ads, just the advertising links on the site itself. You just get a constant feed of your music. If you like a song, give it the thumbs up. If you don't like a song, you can give it the thumbs down and it goes away. The longer you play a station the better it knows your taste. You can even "QuickMix" stations to get a good variety.

OK, all that's fine, but why do I like it so much? Several reasons....

- I only have so much music in my collection. Slick and I probably have 100 CD's & I've got gigs of music on top of that, but I sometimes I grow tired of listen to the same stuff.

- I hate the constant repeats on regular radio. Today I was in the car and they played some Finger 11. The DJ commented afterwards about how we've not heard Finger 11 in a while and he was glad he was able to play it for us. I'm thinking, WFT?!? I heard the same two songs 3 or 4 times on his very radio station last week alone. I don't even listen to that radio station much. Usually it's NPR or the iPod. What a crock of shit!

- New "to me" Music. I don't have regular access to college students anymore. I don't really like most popular music to begin with. I don't want to spend my $0.99 at iTunes on something I've never heard before. So, where do I find new music? Pandora plays songs based on my personal tastes. I like something, I can either access iTunes directly from Pandora OR make a note to myself to get the song later. I've discovered over a dozen folk artists this way. I've also re-discovered solid 70-80's rock after I did a Rush mix one night.

- It's such an easy way to get variety. Here's a list of some of the artists I've used to create my current "stations:"

The Wailin' Jennys, Amos Lee, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Weezer, Foo Fighters, The Chieftains, Jonathan Coulton, Rush, Indigo Girls...

I've QuickMix'ed all the folk music. If I get tired of that I can click on the Violent Femmes to get some 80-90's punk OR Rush for some 70-80's rock. When in doubt, there's always the Foo Fighters! It's that simple.

- Closing Shots

I'm listening to Pandora right now on the Amos Lee station. I'm listening to a White Stripes song I've never heard before called "We're Going to Be Friends." It's completely different from all the other stuff I've heard from them. It's cool and it would have never gotten on the radio. That's what I like about Pandora!

PS. The RIAA are a bunch of fools. I would say that more than 50% of my CD collection came from hearing a song someone "shared" with me. I heard and like the song enough that I eventually got a whole CD. Not anymore. Since I won't file-share, I only get to hear new songs from Pandora or the radio. And now, I'm much more likely to buy 1 or 2 songs from iTunes than to risk buying a whole CD. This is not an endorsement of piracy. But it is a rebuke on the RIAA and their strong-arm tactics. They're killing themselves with their current business model.

The Value of "Real" Friends

Tonight Slick and I got to do dinner with real life friends today. Yes, REAL tangible people! We didn't just sit in front of the computers and talk to our friends over the headsets while gobbling dinner before the raid, we went out and socialized!!!

I'll call them RenFairCouple.

I worked with MrsRenFair at my last job. After getting to know her for a while and helping to train & monitor her, I asked her the most dangerous question a gamer asks normal people, "Do you Game?" She was shocked that I asked and even more shocked that I saw the spark of a D&D'er in her even with her work-face on. In fact, she and her husband didn't just play D&D, they also work at the local Renaissance Fair every year. From then on, she became one of my best "local" friends.

Oddly, my other best local friend is also a woman from that same job. Funny that.

Anyway, she left work soon after I did. She is also going through some health issues and I pray for her regularly. Unfortunately, we both live on the exact opposite sides -- putting us 1.5 hours apart --of Charlotte. So, we've seen very little of each other over the last year. Finally after months of not seeing her or her husband, we got together tonight.

It was great. They have the same interests as us. They like Science Fiction & Fantasy. They play video games together. They are liberals! They are also in their 30's w/out kids and trying to figure out what that means in the grand scheme of things.

Do you have any clue how hard it is to find couples our age who are gamers, without kids that are liberals around here? This is not a complaint about the south. Finding all three of those in a couple is tough anywhere. But it's been extra difficult since we've moved here. In fact, RenFairCouple are the online ones we know.

Needless to say, we talked non-stop for an hour through dinner. Then we talked non-stop for 2 more hours at a coffee shop.

Slick and I have a really great group of "online" friends. But it doesn't change the fact that they are SOOO far away. And it doesn't keep us from missing human contact with other geeks. It also doesn't help the fact that while there are a number of women in our guild, very few of our online friends are female. (This is important for Slick.)

Yes, lots of women play World of Warcraft. In fact, our Guildleader is a woman!

Three hours of good food and great stories made us realize that we absolutely have to get together more often. We're all busy for a few weeks, but we're hoping to get together in February to play Slick's new Arkham Horror game. If we can sting a few visits together, maybe we'll even try a real, old-school, pen & paper D&D game.

Glee!

Yup, never ignore the value of "real" friends.

My Uncle's Empty Christmas Stocking - A Saga

I'm writing today knowing full-well that the following situation is not resolved & knowing full-well that my uncle reads my blog. I've just been holding this one in for far, far too long...

My saga begins at Thanksgiving.

Slick and I went north to my parents' house. It was a long trip (15-hours driving) but we stopped at my in-laws in PA for a free bed & a hot shower.

Thanksgiving was, to say the least, wonderful. We took Princess Kitty to see Enchanted (great movie.) My sister, Cats made me a phenomenal birthday cake. My uncle drove down from Boston for the long weekend.

I said wonderful, right?

Anyway, on Friday night Cats, "Hubby," Slick & I all went to a really nice Irish Pub right off the New Haven Green. Since it was Thanksgiving weekend, the streets were empty and the place was relatively quiet. Our waiter even told us that we should relax and not rush on his account. He expected a quiet night.

After the round of Guinness arrived, we got down to a long, long discussion about Christmas presents. See, we can NEVER figure out what to get our Uncle. It's not that he's picky. Far from it. He's just a simple guy with simple tastes. He's not extravagant. He's not a pack rat. He likes to read and he likes sports.

This year was equally challenging because mom had not given us any suggestions either. So, not only did we have to figure out what to buy for our uncle, but mom "the woman with no hobbies" was also giving us trouble.

After 2.5 hours, (and a fabulous meal) we had a plan for mom and the beginnings of a plan for our uncle. Unfortunately, I was the one on the hook for his gift. I began my search for the "sports memorabilia" after I got home. And after a few days, I found a good prospect on the Amazon Marketplace. (That's where Amazon is a wholesaler for other companies.)

I emailed the others and the OK'ed it, but I wasn't satisfied. So, I sat on it and looked some more. Before I knew it, the clock was ticking to Christmas. I settled on two items that I knew he would like that still kept us in the price range. I was nervous because both would arrive "close" to Christmas and neither offered expedited shipping. OK, one did, but for some outrageous price.

That's when stuff got messy...Or as I like to say, "Blog-worthy."

The first domino was the email telling me that one of the gifts ran out of stock while my order was being filled. This was also the item that had the best delivery window. I was certain that it would arrive for Christmas. Yeah, not so much. They had already refunded my credit card. It didn't exist anymore and there weren't any suitable replacements that would arrive on time.

All our hopes rested on item #2. Now item #2 was actually the bigger-ticket item anyway. It just had a delivery range of Dec 24-27. I contemplated asking iDad to get him to hold his "little" brother down until it arrived.

Hey, my sister used to do it to me all the time!

Still, it shipped on time and by Friday, Dec 21, I was feeling really good about our chances. Heck, it was already in Maryland. I left for my own Christmas with Slick's family hoping for the best.

On Christmas day, I talked to Cats. No gift. Darn! Our Uncle would be returning to Boston to work. Double darn! But, he was coming back for the weekend. W00t!!!

I should have done some online tracking at this point, but I really didn't have much time. I was doing holiday stuff with Slick's family & then had to head to Lancaster Co for Karen's funeral. The package would have to get there on faith and the well-deserved reliability of Amazon.com.

On the 27th, my sister called. Nothing! Crap?!? Still, I had no time to deal with it. I kept moving and hoping. On Saturday, I finally looked into the matter. Wait, the package made it safely to the door?!? What door? No details. I checked my spam email account for details. That's where I found a nice email from the woman in -- yep, you guessed it -- Maryland, who got my package on Dec 24th. I shit you not.

Now, how much would you pay for this Christmas memory? Wait! Don't ask! There's more...

I used online customer support on Amazon to alert them to the error. Someone at Online Sports, the company that sold the "sports memorabilia" contacted me promptly on Monday. Of course I was traveling on Monday. They were taking prompt action. But I knew and they knew that it was New Years Eve and a short week. So, chances are that the package would not get to my sister's for another week. I decided that I would simply have to sit on my hands for a week.

One week later...

Nothing. No really. Nothing! Not a peep. In fact, I got a customer support survey from Amazon but nothing more from Online Sports. After completing a "glowing" review of Online Sports customer service, I emailed them back.

Here's what I wrote:

It is now 1/8/08. My sister has still not received this package, nor have I received any further information from your company about re-issuing my order. I expect that the item will be in her hands by week's end and/or I expect a reply from you explaining the problem. If you can not resolve this, please send me a 1-800 number for your customer service department so that I might be able to speak with someone who can.

And guess what, someone called me the next day. Good for them. Resolved? Not so much.

See, the last of my selected "sports memorabilia" IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE was apparently shipped to the nice woman in Maryland. So, the nice guy at Online Sports (notice how I keep mentioning the company name) told me that they were paying for FedEx to go to this woman's home to claim my uncle's Christmas present and then ship it to my sister's house. They are not able to ship it anywhere but the original location.

If it weren't such a complete debacle OR if I was a vindictive man, I would wait another day and cancel the purchase. But, my doctor insists that I reduce my stress level. There's nothing that can be done about this, but to wait. In Fact, I told the guy I would give them 1 more week. What else can I do? It's the last one available. Hopefully by Monday...

Damn, I hope he likes it!

Massive Re-design Pt 2

Yeah well sometimes when I'm not feeling well, I can't sleep and I need a distraction. I've converted this blog & Beroth the Hunter for 3-panels. A friends showed me a good site for templates. Terms are simple: Don't redistribute, don't redesign & don't take their name off of it. I can live with that. Unfortunately, I've noticed 2 problems: (1) Changing in the future could be a complete pain & (2) I used the exact same template as my friend. He's going to think I copied him!

Anyway, enough is enough. I need to hit the sack. Tomorrow, I need to setup a site meter & some links for the the other site. I'll also probably start a rant about illusion of "virtual" privacy. Until then, I hope you like the redesign.

Oh, and thanks to King M! Your "Kermit the Frog" quote was just what I needed today!

Beroth the Hunter

I'm going to try and launch a "sister-site" blog titled Beroth the Hunter. This will not replace my blog, but give me a place where I can talk about World of Warcraft without confusing my readers who don't care about or understand the game.

The site will be a home for my in-game screenshots, stories about end-game raiding & even some tips about hunters. So, check it out from time to time.

Feeling a Little Green Today

Sometimes I just feel like making changes. So today, the blog gets a "green" look to it. Not sure why. I've been seriously thinking about dredging out my old web-design guides and building my own site instead of relying on the Google templates. Of course, even saying this is dangerous because NothingKnew will start emailing me with resources and ideas, then get disappointed with me for not doing it. I can hear him now, "Good lord, you've got plenty of time on your hands. Why don't you learn to program while you're at it?"

*Sigh*

It's a sad, twisted world when you're more worried about disappointing your college roommate than disappointing your own Father.

...but I digress...

Actually, I felt like green because green is the color that "they" used to make mental hospitals. I feel the need for a bit of cheering up. I'm really, REALLY aching this week. It wouldn't be so bad, except when I went to walk the dog, the bottoms of my feet hurt. THE BOTTOMS OF MY FEET!!! I mean, what kind of shit is that?!? What kind of weird neurological confusion does the fibro cause to tell the bottoms of my feet to hurt.

I called my mother* -- mid-walk -- to share this new revelation. She said, "Yeah, wait until it targets one toe and all you want to do is cut it off so the pain will stop." She has a way with prospective. Actually, it was a good talk. I've been frustrated of late. My overall health has improved, but as I try to do more I've been hitting roadblocks like the laundry thing from the other week's post.

Mom was very helpful. She gave me some good tips. For example:

The other week vacuuming laid me out for days! It's vacuuming for goodness sakes! It's not like I'm working in the garage or building a deck. I'm fucking vacuuming and over the next few days I want to crawl away and die. She told me that I should "walk with the vacuum."

I wanted to say, "That's what old people do." But damn, she was right. Vacuuming killed me because my neck and shoulders went into full fibro-shock from all that arm movement.

It's funny because mom & I don't usual talk much about it. Fibro's tricky because two people (even related people) can often have completely divergent ways of dealing with it. We also tend to not like to dwell on it. My friends like to ask "How are you feeling?" I hate to disappoint them with my answers. I'd rather treat it like the elephant in the room. We all know it's there. We all know we have to deal with it. But, if there's a way to talk around it, it's preferred. Still, I know that they care and I'm glad they ask.

Anyway, that's why the site got the green face-lift today.

*My Mom also has Fibro. (But it's not hereditary....What a crock that is.) She dealt with it for all those years when doctors said it was a mental illness and insurance companies wouldn't pay for treatment. I'm simply dealing with it as a man with a mostly female condition. I have it easy!

Slick's Computer

Last year when we got the crappy HP computer, Slick inherited the "family" Dell desktop from me full-time. I should have wiped the hard drive of all the crap I had done to it, but I never did. I just kept "patching." I even continued to use it to "run stuff" during the day so I could keep using my computer: Video software, downloading stuff...the usual. I'm a real bastard that way.

Over the last few months, she's complained about system crashes at start-up and a variety of other problems. (All while I'm playing on the sweet new system I got in November.) Since virus and spy-ware scans were clean, I let go. Then a few weeks ago she started getting major lag-spikes while we were playing World of Warcraft (WoW), even though I was running fine. Seems that the auto-updater for her virus protection kept stalling and eating up processor time. I made her quit the game and force-stop the virus software. She was "mostly" fine after that. Except it kept happening. Manual updates became a must and if I missed one, it usually came back to bite her. Then weird things started to happen with her wireless keyboard, but reboots cleared that.

Enough stuff was happening that I knew that it was simply time to re-image the drive. Again, no viruses, spyware or trojans, just a fat lot of crap slowing her down, causing the occasional BSoD and a lot of headaches. And yes, all my fault. And still, I found excuses to not re-image the drive. Until Monday night...

We were doing a relatively difficult 5-player instance on WoW with our friends when her keyboard started to act up, her system got laggy and the party wiped (twice.) She got pissed and started yelling at the computer. After a short break, I was able to plug in a crappy keyboard and reboot her. Like a man who tried to clear one more exit before stopping for gas I knew I had pushed my luck too far. Time to start walking...

So today, she got a re-image. I kept it clean too. None of my shit's going back on. It's got security software, Office, WoW & Firefox. In other words, it's just her stuff and I'm not touching it except to service it.

Unfortunately, software re-install lasted longer than expected. She came home from work and it wasn't done. She came back home from choir and it wasn't done. She glared at me both times. I offered to let her use my computer but she went into the other room to *gasp* read a book. So, I might want to think about decorating her desk with flowers to go along with the re-image.

What have I learned? Well nothing...I mean...ummm...yeah, nothing. I should know better. I recognize the error of my ways. But change? Let's be honest. Even if I try to be good, I'm sure I'll screw up her stuff in other ways along down the road.

What's Old is New Again: Comic Books

I'm totally stoked about this one...

Marvel Comics Online

My favorite Christmas gift from Slick this year is my year-long subscription to Marvel Comics Online. I've been holding off writing about it because I felt rather FanBoy about the whole thing and didn't want to gush. After 3 days of reading, I'm ready to make some comments.

First the good:

Marvel has digitized a portion of their collection in an easy interactive format. It even "turns" the pages.

The collection really is extensive with lots of familiar titles spanning the entire Marvel time-line. There are a lot of #1's available and there are a lot of short-run specials. There is so much content that I've literally had trouble deciding what to read next. Thankfully, the flow of search process is intuitive and recommended titles lead you to stuff you might have missed. You can also populate a personal "must read" list that I've already filled with over 100 issues.

Here are a things from my list, just to give you an idea of what I'm reading:

Defenders (4-issue story)
Amazing Spiderman (starting at issue 509)
Ultimate Spiderman (ongoing)
Secret Wars (Original 8-part story)
Thor: Son of Asgard (New Thor title)
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse (main story)
X-Men: Kitty Pryde - Shadows & Flames (5-issue story)
X-Treme X-Men (46 issues of a new ongoing re-take)


Now for the stuff that needs improvement: (Can't bring myself to call it bad)

There are gaps. Mostly it's not a problem. They tend to whole story-arcs. Ultimate Spiderman (for example) has the first several issues where they redo his backstory, then there's a gap before it picks up another arc. However, this is not always the case. Whole sections of Marvel Civil War* are missing. You can not read the story where Captain America is killed and this is probably intentional.Marvel has already added titles (new and old) in the few days I've been a member, so there's hope.

Another frustration is the difficulty in tracking "cross-over" titles. I've already relied on a few Google searches to help me determine what (if any) issues are available for past "whole universe" events like House of M. Not surprisingly, the gaps do occasionally sync up with these cross-over events.

I also don't see a way to watch for new issues of favorite titles. Marvel is probably riding a difficult line here. They want the online service to draw readers into the print service. (Not gonna do it!) The online service clearly has specific running titles that are getting updated, but it's up to me to track them.

Closing Comments:

Overall, it's totally money well-spent. I'm still spending more time skimming titles than reading titles (sad, I know) but this is because of the choices. I've discovered that they like to publish whole 3-5 part collections of beloved lesser characters like my favorite Kitty Pryde. (Yes, bring on the Weezer song jokes.) I'm really interested to see how the service holds up after this initial burst of reading.

I love that I'm getting to read comics again. I love that it's reasonably priced and a fixed budget. I love that I'm not killing trees to do it. I love that I don't have to store the books OR worry about someone else damaging my collection. I seriously need to sell some of that damned collection but every time I take them out of the boxes to organize I get sucked in.

*Marvel Civil War: The backdrop here is a "terrorist-style" event involving superpowered people. The government passes an act saying that all superhumans must register and show their identities or be put in jail. When Captain America is told to go arrest heroes, he says that the orders infringe on civil liberties & an insult to their patriotic sacrifice and then rebels. He's later martyred. They are doing a fantastic job asking questions about civil liberties. (This is my favorite think about Marvel. They do morality plays and asking tough questions.) I admit that much of my own moral code about equality and understanding prejudice comes from such titles as the X-Men. Moses might have brought us the Ten Commandments but Stan Lee taught me about personal responsibility, integrity & always doing the right thing even when it's hard. Wow, it must be really late for me to says something like that.

The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

Real simple argument for acting to save the environment and ignoring the skeptics.

New Years Resolution? It's All About Pacing

I know I beat the "energy" topic to death sometimes, but tell me if this makes any sense...

I'm stronger than my body allows. When I'm feeling well -- heck, even when I'm not -- I'm fairly strong. I can lift, carry & do more than my body's recovery abilities allow. It's a really hard point to internalize.

I think about it like the red-line on the RPM meter in a car. You can push a car past the red-line. But, too much red-lining can cause an engine to over-heat and even break-down. Now, imagine an RPM meter that's 50% red-line on a car with a tendency to over-heat. That's me.

Christmas break reinforced the necessity of pacing. I didn't pace myself. By day 3 of our vacation I was running on empty and stayed there all week. Why? Well falling on the ice was part of it, but it's not the only reason. Too often at the beginning of the trip, I went the extra mile. I went shopping for one more gift. I packed the entire car. I drive the whole last leg instead of turning the wheel back over to Slick. At the time, I had the energy and forgot I might need to conserve it. Stupid! We were busy all week. I was forced to rest more and more during the week because I didn't build enough down-time at the beginning.

Apparently, slow and steady really does win the race...

The hardest thing for me is not doing something when I can. So, I'll do it at my same old fast "get 'er dun" pace. Then, wham, I hit the proverbial wall. And when I hit the wall, it can take days to recover the lost energy. It doesn't work.

I also do the opposite. I can get so hung up on conserving energy, that stuff doesn't get done until the last minute (and I rush to do it.) Twisted cycle!

So, I'm making my resolution to stick with it. Diet & exercise continue to go well (although Christmas hurt.) Stress management is also going fine. Routine lacks consistency. I think it's a matter of learning to do things differently.

What do you mean by doing things "differently?"

Here's an example: When I'm doing laundry, I've always piled everything up as high as it'll go and then stack the small basket on top. This is bad! I need to carry one load to the washer at a time. I need to do this even when I feel great and I know I can carry more. I simply can't waste energy and biting off more than I can chew. I burn myself out. This forces Slick to do more, not less.

New divisions of labor are also very important. On Sunday night, Slick packed the car & I packed lunches in the cooler. This enabled me to conserve energy to help with the long drive home. Even with my "modern man" attitude, it takes some effort to watch my wife do the heavy lifting while I make ham and cheese sandwiches.

I'm unlearning a life-time of behavior here. It's not easy, but I feel better and better at every step in the process. As Slick likes to say, "Whatever works." I've just got to acknowledge, move on!