Time to face the strange (Ch-ch-ch-changes…)

OK, it’s been an interesting weekend. So far this weekend I’ve framed in the new downstairs communications closet, framed the entire new laundry room, and framed half of the downstairs bathroom, rerouted part of the cabling for the house, worked out Sat. and Sunday like I should, make it to gaming on Saturday, went to the Drive-in with Heabo Friday night (go see Signs – damn it’s good. Don’t see Reign of Fire – damn it sucks), made it to the first ‘official’ Sunday Morning Breakfast Thing (at The Royal Scottish Company – good food!), and totally blew my house contruction budget at Home Depot today.

Heabo and I are on ‘The Big Push’ right now – we are prepping the house for an appraiser to show up. Right now, we’ve got a half-finished basement, and a ton of other things that need to be done. Aug 27th, the appraiser is going to show up, and I want the house to be almost DONE. As in, NOT look like a construction area. They can’t give us credit for things that are half done, or don’t at least LOOK complete. So, we are doin’ everything we can to change that – the basement is undergoing major reconstruction. This was pretty much Day 1 today, getting the materials, and getting down to business.

The materials portion of the project was a disappointment – I’m already over budget for the project, and I don’t even bloody well have DOORS for the bedroom and bathroom downstairs. Fuck. I’ve been pretty upset about it, but, Heabo assures me everything is OK. Still, though, it annoys the hell out of me – I was tryin’ to set up everything so that it came out right and on budget.

The framing work went well and fast – I started about 5 PM, and had a heck of a lot done by 9 PM, time to work out. I wasn’t QUITE as far along as I wanted to be, but, we spent more time at Home Depot, and at The Sunday Morning Breakfast Thing than I had planned on – but that’s ok, cause I really figured that somewhere along the way I’d end up with delays and planned for that 😉

I’m going to be taking a couple of days off from work (My next vacation allotment starts in December anyway, so might as well make use of part of it, since I’ve got vacation time left over 🙂 This will make things FLY when it comes to gettin’ all this work done 🙂

Workouts are going good, but, physical improvement has slowed. I’m starting a new diet based on suggestions from Heabo and Lance – my body craves food damned near full time now, so I need to start eatin’ stuff that’s high in protine, and low on fat. Picked up 6 big containers of cottage cheese (for cheap!) and plan on eatin’ ’em with Baked Doritoes (don’t make fun of Doritoes and Cottage Cheese until you try it – a lot of people look at me like I’m nuts, until they try it and get hooked!)

While the visible physical improvement has slowed down, the increase in weight and reps I do hasn’t slowed down very much – everything is still improving at a pretty good rate. I’m thinking of taking a month off from the ECDY HP Max and Synthovol 2 after I’ve ran though the set I’ve got. It will save money, bigtime, since Synthovol is only a 20 dose per container supply – if you took it twice a day like they say (1 – 2 times daily) it wouldn’t last very damned long. ECDY HP Max is also supposed to be taken twice daily, but, usually on the weekends or if I’m running really late I tend to forget to take my morning dosage. Need more money one o’ these days 🙂

I have to big complaints about my body at the moment – fact is, you can’t tell much has changed about me unless I flex up (and when I do, it’s actually pretty impressive IMHO – but compaired to some o’ the people there, well, it’s not THAT impressive ;-), and I STILL have my friggin’ gut! Yeah, there’s definition lines there, but, who the heck can see that through a shirt? I’d really like that to disappear sometime soon. Of course, it would help if I was running On Time more often (waking up at 6:15 AM) so I can do my morning ab routine religiously.

Pretty much everything in my life is changing at once (thus the quote from David Bowie) The house is changing, and becoming more finished. Because of that, Heabo and I’s financial status is going to change considerably. My body is changing (for the better ;-). My ‘success’ levels may be changing, thanks to Trajectory and the new compression routines (Which I discovered a very bad anomolie that means compression doesn’t work as well as originally expected. HOWEVER – at the same time, I know how compression systems work, inside and out, and realized there’s a way to still capitalize on the situation and the new routines, making things more efficent still thanks to some quirks about how compression works. 😉 I’ll actually set down and program that next week after the house project is done.)

And magically, I just became very active again last week after having little puzzle pieces in my mind click together just right (And, well, if the story is to be believed, I’m also doing things like getting out and about and visiting friends. I’ve got no problem believing I showed up as a dwarf – it would have fit my attitude at the time, very primal and well… hard to describe. But a pogo stick? I’m not sure where that would fit in. I was supposedly told not to remember any of the events, but, well… what little was mentioned triggers very faint ‘memory’ along the lines of “Gee – that seems somehow familiar. And I can explain what the motivation and what I would have been thinking at the time…” I’ll have to dive into this further, maybe. It’s actually not important, and isn’t the first time I’ve been claimed to show up at someone else’s house – last time it was so I could introduce someone, and then I left. Go fig.) Anyway – I litterally had to blow the dust off my black book o’ magical thoughs. It was covered – last entry was in 2000, to give you an idea how long this particular puzzle has been workin’ it’s self out, finding all the cultural hints nessisary to find the threads, then find where they lead, then find the pieces there, then figure out how they fit together.

Unluckly, I still don’t have all the pieces yet. I might talk to Pop about it the next time Heabo and I hit Colorado. Last time I talked to him, he passed me a piece I hadn’t thought of, which resulted in finding something else, which resulted in where I am now. He might have some ideas, who knows. Da’ man has some pretty interesting background, and knows a shitload more about magics in general than I know about any one specific subject. Though I do have one problem with that – the same problem I have approaching anyone who’s opinions I hold a bit above anyone else. I’m afraid to explain situations, and look like an idiot. It’s not a paralizing fear or anything, but, it does make it a bit harder to start up a conversation about something. (As with all of my little fears, it’s pretty easy to ignore it or watch it disapate when I think about it, and then proceed on.) Of course, it does mean that it would be Dec. before I could talk to him about it – oh well, so far the puzzle has lasted for two years, another 6 months or so won’t make a different. Plus, never know – I might find the last parts I’m lookin’ for, and finish the whole plan by myself. (Actually, it doesn’t matter what someone hands me for information, in the final analysis, I have to figure out how it all fits together, and make it work.)

There’s one other interesting development. See, about two years back me and some friends were playing with an Ouiji board (used to be one of my favorite ‘toys’, but I haven’t pulled it out a quite a while now. Might change that sometime soon) when we ran across something interesting. A living person who was asleep. Now, I know it’s not impossible to step onto a board – I did it once as a test. Kinda disorienting at first, but, once you figure out how it works and relax it’s an interesting experience. Heck – it also shows how well some of your friends know you. The question asked was “What’s your number?” I started for the “6” for 691-xxxx… and then realized they were refering to an old joke of a friend of mine (Richard), which meant the answer was “5”, JUST “5”. Funny how that works sometimes 😉

Anyway – so we ran into this person, a female. She had interesting things to say about me. In particular, she called me something or other (can’t remember the first word), “Self Serving Bastard.” This caused howls of laughter in everyone, including myself – my basic comment was that she knew me pretty well, and I wouldn’t deny it! (Note – when you consider that each and every letter has to be hit to spell a word, she went through a lot of effort to state her opinion of me 😉 We also found that she had some sort of tie to Seth, and that they would meet sometime soon. Well, she’s been found. Through multiple tests (I wasn’t involved) it does indeed seem to be her.

Only one thing bugs me – why did she know me that well from one visit? I suppose that I’m a pretty easy read, but there’s something here in the back of my head that makes me ‘twinge’ – a possible warning sign. Who knows – it could be ‘nothing’. But, usually that’s not the case when stuff like that goes off in my head. And the funny part of this is, I kinda thought there was something wrong with her when I met her. After Seth started talkin’, well, I realized it had been a ‘twinge’ again. Oh well – need to listen to myself more often. As usual, there are no conincidences – but there sometimes are unrelated events. I’ll figure out where this lands eventually – no mystery stands forever, and I’m pretty persistent (Hey, if I can spend 3 – 5 years working on a compression system in the back of my head tryin’ to make it work, this should be a snap to figure out.)

OK, enough babling and fillin’ up peoples ‘friends’ page – time to get some sleep, and start the next day fresh. I have a feeling that the rest of August through the begining of November is going to be a very busy time.