Your in the grove now (or is it a rut?)

(Title curtousy of Rush – Face Up)

Back to the old routine. Programming like a madman at the moment, after having to put up with the Internet connection harfing multiple times, one short lived apparent DoS attack against us, email harfing, and various other Monday Morning shit 😛

Trajectory is going well again. Now down into the cleanup and tuning stage on a lot of the game now. Looking better and better all the time. I’ve still got to clean up the pre-game UI configuration stuff, and all sorts of other cleanup tasks to do. But the core looks solid now.

The trip to Colorado was a blast, as usual. Had fun going up a mountain in a Land Cruiser, and driving the Land Cruiser down the mountain (Pop let me drive his Land Cruiser down – which was fun for a flat lander who knows the theory of 4 wheelin’ down a mountain, but has never tried it 😉 Running around on the side of a mountain at probably just shy of 11,000 feet (and Pop made a slightly confounding statement “Well, you did better than I expected.” “Why do you say that?”, I asked “Because you are a smoker.” Yep – I smoke, but, I’m a weenie smoker. My second hand smoke is much more potent than the stuff I inhale directly. I use a seriously light menthol tobacco, most of my cigarrets are light loads (Ie – I put a lot less tobacco in them than store bought smokes), and use active charcol filters. I’ve got smoking for taste down to an art. Somehow, I like expect everyone else to realize that 😉

I also got to spend some time getting to know Morgan – I’ve spent time with Chris before in several occasions (how much I actually KNOW him would be up for debate, of course ;-), but dispite having seen her quite a few times, I’ve never actually set down and talked with her. So, multiple times while Heabo was out at the rec center, I got the opportunity to set on the back patio with her and chat. This is one of those cases where I have to admit I was wrong about someone – she now strikes me as a much more responsable adult than I original expected. I very nice suprise.

Also had the chance to set down and chat with Pop for a while about work, magiks, life, etc. However, I never got the chance to set down and talk to Darn – seemed like Heabo and Darn had teamed up as an instant support group for each other when it came to working out, which was cool to see happen 🙂 Not that I had anything in particular to talk to Darn about – just meaning generic chat. (I actually DID have two things I had hoped to talk to Pop about, both of which were covered in a 2AM discussion on the back patio – neither of which were ‘important’ really, just more along the line of curriosity about two statements he had made on the last trip that I was there.) I know it might sound a bit odd, having noticed that I didn’t chat much with Darn, but, I’m one of those people that really like to get to know the others that affect my life directly or indirectly.

And once again I come away from Loveland feelin’ a bit in debt to Darlene and Pop. It’s not nessisarily a bad thing – they helped us get the Caddy running, and bought all the parts for it. But I just hate ‘being an imposition’ on people. I’ve spent a lot of time in my life becoming very independant (though, oddly enough, I don’t feel a bit bad about the stuff I depend on Heabo for – we are a team through life now, and it’s perfectly fine for us to rely on each other!) so when someone spends time, effort, energy, or money helping me out, it feels strange. I suppose I should just get used to it, and move on. But I still make a mental tick mark beside thier names, and intend to pay it back one of these days.

At the same time I’m greatful for everything – Darn always seems to go all out trying to make us feel at home. And ya know – I do feel at home in a strange sort of way when I’m in Loveland. I would never want to live in Colorado, anywhere NEAR them – then it couldn’t be some place to escape to. But visiting – it’s just wonderful 🙂 I just wish I could visit about once ever quarter or so – preferable one of the visits be during the hottest two weeks of August 😉

On the homefront… all but one cabnet shell is hung. Everything looks pretty good, but it’s still all rough work. Trim work needs to be done, painting, all that sort of stuff. But it’s really starting to look like something. I’m impressed with Heabo and I’s work. I’ve got two more pieces to cut tonight, and I can hang the last cabnet in this series (I say that because we’ve already planned what the next set looks like after we move the deep freeze downstairs or wherever it’s final destination is.) Then in a couple of months, we’ll start looking at removing the counters, and building brand new counters. I’ve figured out how to do this a little more efficently, thus taking a little less time (it does help that next time we don’t have to do all the prep work for it – repairing the ceiling, walls, floor, moving recepticles and light switches, etc. It’s all done already!)

There’s been A LOT of work that went into this project, and I’m glad Heabo has been really patient with it. In fact, I think she’s been more patient than I have! The only real downside to this project is that the more we do on the cabnets, the more we want to tear out the counters and redo them in the new style. Heabo also found some very stylish ways to handle the counters design wise, making things look even nicer and more stylish when we actualy DO them. We need infinite cash reserves someday, just so we can go nuts and finish the house! (That’s why I say that the counters will be a few months down the line – we can’t afford to do them just yet.) Oh, and the new design is going to save us a ton of money over the butcherblock counters we planned on. We’ll save that for the next house out in the country.

What’s really impressive about the project is how clean the house has been – Heabo has done and excellent job keeping things clean while we do this. When it came time for gaming on Sat. night, I picked up my tools, swept, and mopped. That’s all it took to get ready. Cool 🙂

OK, back to real work…