I mean seriously the numbness only goes down so far but the vibration from their tools penetrates much further. Plus there’s the distinctly nasty scent of burning tooth from when they drill. *shudder* And if that wasn’t bad enough, my sinuses have been acting up. Which lead to me feeling like I was choking a couple of times while the dentist was working inside my mouth. See they’ve got this mouth-spreader/suction device they shove in first but if you don’t keep your tongue in just the right place the suction doesn’t work. And keeping your tongue in that exact spot gets tiring, so you move around a bit; mere moments later you’re choking.

On the bright side, I think I only have 2 more punishments visits left to fill in cavities.  Also the dentist office appears to have over-charged me on a previous visit, so I after all the fun I got to leave without whipping out the wallet.  Yeah, I’m just skipping with joy and happiness.  *sigh*

¹ What can I say, I hate going to the dentist.
² When my dental insurance says they won’t pay anymore for the year, I have to start scheduling my suffering for the next year. My pocketbook and I can only stand so much misery before calling it quits.

Dental Heck © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• Drove past a hot air balloon that had landed on the side of the rode while coming back from a friend’s house.
• Two days later drove under a massive lightning storm coming back from the same friend’s house.¹
• Tried taking some end-of/post-flood pictures around town, but did not want to cause any problems for those working in the affected areas. So pictures were all taken from the car while driving through the affected areas and they all pretty much sucked or at best were no better than the dozens of other drive-by photos already posted to Flickr.
• Gave blood and it left me feeling wiped out for days afterwards.
• Attended Convergence with AWelkin, Bryon, Amabaku & Oyarsa Elentari.
  • Had a complete blast but also got totally worn out.
  • First night of the con, while leaving to go out to get dinner, I thought I was on the bottom step when I was still 1 step up. Walked out, didn’t feel ground underfoot and fell smack down on my ass folding my leg under me and scraping my arm. Ankle got twisted a bit and is still vaguely sore.
  • Ate a lot of good food.
  • Bought my wife a ren-faire style corset. Yum!
  • Saw many good costumes around the con. Even got a few photographed.²
  • Went to a flip-book animation panel and watched the panel-host get rather confused by all the adults at the panel. He clearly was expecting this to be almost a form of baby-sitting.
  • Drank much good coffee & tea at the con’s CoF₂E₂ cabana.
    • Especially liked the Moon over Madagascar tea (Chinese Black and Ceylon teas blended with bits of bourbon vanilla).
    • Also quite fond of the English Toffee/Vanilla Latte they made for me.
  • Watched a stunning presentation from a local raptor center.
  • Attended a panel on GMing which gave me some ideas for a game I want to run.
  • Almost played in a steampunk LARP, but the intro panel killed my interest in it.
    • It was this particular group’s first year running a LARP.
    • They based the LARP on some sort of “How to Host a Murder Mystery” thing.
    • They tried to design it to allow players to continue to enjoy the con.
    • Except the players weren’t given any sort of characters. You were expected to go around the con searching for clues.
    • You could interact with the people running the LARP as the characters they were dressed up as or as “norms”. If you tried to interact with them in-character, they said they’d respond by interacting with you based on your costume. I only rarely run around in a costume and didn’t have one for this con, so that pretty much killed my interest.
  • Painted a miniature thanks to Reaper’s demo painting. That was fun and something I haven’t tried in several years.

¹ We were cat-sitting for them.
² Several I only saw when either I or the costumer were running different directions and so I didn’t always get photos. *sigh* There was one kid in a really excellent TF2 Medic costume. Photos will be posted later, as I have to go through them all and clean them up in GIMP. Especially as my camera fritzed a few times and the image turned out all “purple-ly”.

Post Flood Update © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Some time back my wife went into the doctor’s for a check-up and found out her cholesterol was completely out of wack. Since then she’s been on a restricted diet to fix it and since she’s the better cook, I’ve been on the same diet. We’ve been doing this for roughly 2 months now and this morning when I stepped on the scale, I was quite pleased to see not only have I already shed my “winter weight“¹ but I’ve also lost about another 10 pounds.

The Bad

This winter we’ve had ~4x our normal amount of precipitation. Our soil is heavily saturated with water and we’ve been getting more rain as we move into spring. The end result is we’ve been getting water into our basement. Our basement which happens to have carpeting in it. Fortunately, the carpet was just lying down on top the concrete floor but about half the carpet has been getting soaked.

The Ugly

We never liked the carpet down there but hadn’t done anything about it; however since we’ve had so much water down there this winter. We decided we needed to get at least the wet parts of the carpet out of the basement before it got moldy had destroyed our sinuses. So this past Saturday my wife and I put on our grungiest clothes, went into the basement, chopped up the carpet and hauled it out to our garage². It was one of dirtiest, nastiest jobs I’ve ever had to do around any house. And I’ve replaced entire toilets before, so when I say it was nasty I know what I’m talking about!

¹ Every winter where I’ve weighed myself, I’ve put 5–10 pounds which I quickly shed once spring comes.
² Just until we figure out if we can have the city take it to the dump for us, or if we have to get it over there ourselves.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Sunday was a better day though. We drove out to Davenport to visit with a friend, as she invited us out for a bit of a BBQ³. The BBQ was very nice, though everybody else who’d talked to her about it cancelled on her (shame on them!). After we ate, we sat around chatting for a good, long while. Though he add to move away from her brick oven/grill as the wood was popping/crackling and spitting bits of hot ash out at us. Later we went out and caught a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End). It was a fun movie, but not good. Over the night, Michelle had multiple coughing fits and finally around 3 AM this morning I gave up trying to get any sleep. I dinked around for a while and then ended up mowing the lawn in the early hours of the morning. It wasn’t fun, but it needed to be done. On the bright side, I did make some progress on my super-secret decorating project (more on that when I finish it) this weekend, which is a very good thing.

¹ Some gardening books for her, some paints for my super-secret decorating project.
² At least it wasn’t hurting at the time.
³ And unlike other people issuing invitations to get together, she actually replied when we contacted her.

What a Weekend © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

You see, one of my all-time favorite video games was the original Team Fortress mod for Half-Life. The class choices, mayhem and fun were an unbeatable combination¹. Then as other mods were developed further; Valve announced they were going to go all out on making TF2. This was 5 years ago and was the last we heard from Valve about it. At least the last we heard until this month when they released the official trailer for TF2. The new character models are wicked cool and oddly enough something about the trailer reminds me of No One Lives Forever (another great video game).

Just wow! I cannot think of any better description of how cool this trailer looks. Go on, hit the link and watch it yourself!

¹ At least I’ve always thought so, but others have preferred that POS called Counter-Strike.

Team Fortress 2! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I was still mighty tired the next day. Every time I had turned over in my sleep; I was half awakened by pain in my back. But awake eventually I was and into the shower I went. I’d just finished my shower and was drying off when another spasm ripped through my back. This one was much worse and nearly sent me to my knees. Ariesna came back and helped me. Then she called the doctor’s office and made an appointment to get me checked out. I spent the rest of the day lying down on a heating pad.

Monday, the doctor checked me out. He prescribed some pain killers and a muscle relaxant. He also set up an appointment for me to visit a physical therapist. That appointment was earlier today. The therapist was a really nice lady. She had me describe my problem. She then had me go through a series of stretches and movements to help her figure out exactly what is wrong. She told me she believes one of the discs in my spine (in the border area between the lumbar and thoracic) has a small tear.

She immediately moved to reassure me this is not something that will require surgery. I don’t think I was looking at her nervously, so I’m not entirely sure why she leaped to get that bit of information out. Though if I were to guess, I would say most of her patients are considerably older than I am and they do not like even the hint of possible surgery.

Anyway, she instructed me in doing a couple of light exercises designed to ease the tension in my back and which should improved the blood flow along the damaged area. She said these exercises should be enough for my back to heal itself correctly. Provided I keep in mind for my back to heal properly, I have to be extra cautious about it for a couple of months. She recommended I think about the damage like it was a broken bone. Even if I am feeling 100% in a few days or a week, I’m still to take it easy on my back.

Whee, such fun. Ah well, at least I haven’t promised to help anybody moving anytime soon. :p

Yeeouch © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

For the rest of my readers who don’t know what I’m babbling about, don’t worry about it. You can just skip the rest of this entry.

Dear Friend,

I truly feel your pain, but there are limits to what I can do too. I gave humanity the gift of free will that every man and woman might find their own way through life. Some of you have used that gift well; others.… not so much. But really, we’re not corresponding like this to talk about me; we’re here to talk about you. You asked “Why does the buck of everyone else’s crisis stop with me.…?”

Friend, through your use of free will; you have developed wit, charm, drive and a loving spirit. The buck stops with you because you want it to. A while back you saw a job opening in your workplace that would give you a chance to do good works and help a greater number of your fellow man. You knew it would not be an easy task, and unfortunately the task did turn out to be even more difficult than you had anticipated. I’m sorry things turned out that but I am grateful what you have done so far. I am also quite looking forward to what you’ll be doing in the future. I would like to promise you your work will go smoothly this year but the flipside of giving humanity free will is I cannot directly intervene. However I do have this bit of advice for you; the bible says I created the world in six days and then took a day of rest. The next time you are feeling overworked; remember if I’m allowed a day off, so are you.

Oh and as for that blessing you asked for…

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
And the rains fall soft upon your fields until we meet again.

~ Divine Power

Dear Friend, © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Then about 10:00, 10:30 at night when I noticed a pounding sound. I was a bit puzzled because it sounded like somebody was at our door. I peeked out the window, but didn’t see any of our friends cars. So I headed up to the door and I could hear voices like the people were talking to one of the neighbors. I looked through the peephole, but couldn’t make out what was going on. Then they knocked again. I opened the door and found two cops on my doorstep.

They said one of the downstairs tenants had called in a complaint that we were making too much noise. They said they’d been told the noise sounded like somebody was stomping or bowling down the hallway. I told them I didn’t know what the noise was because we weren’t doing anything. I also mentioned that sound bounces around in the building quite a bit¹.

They replied they’d been out there knocking for a while and hadn’t heard anything, but when they get a compaint they are required to check it out.

¹ I recounted the story of the time when we thought the people above us were playing their music too loud, but it turned out the music was actually coming from one of the downstairs apartments.

Unflippin’ believeable! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I did get one break since my last real post and that was last weekend’s AnimeIowa. I was rather disappointed with this year’s con. The programming track was only sparsely filled and I didn’t see anything in it that interested me¹. So I mostly hung out with people I knew at the con and tried to help out the con photographer². Mostly, I just helped tear-down/setup his gear in different rooms. *shrug* It was no big deal and I got to see pretty much all of the costumes. As usual, some were fabulous and some were.… not. Of course some of the best were in the Masquerade, and the Masquerade was the main reason we went this year. A friend of ours was in charge of it and overall it appeared to go fairly well. However there were a few problems; most of which I did not hear about until after the con was over. The main thing that I noticed was the costumers wouldn’t shut up. It may seem a bit harsh, but they all know they’re supposed to keep quiet while in the green room and we had to constantly go around asking them to be quiet throughout the whole Masquerade. *sigh* If you know the rules in advance, have them re-explained to you when you show up shortly before the Masquerade then why do you have to continually break them? *grrr*

As for the rest of the con, the dealer’s room was smaller this year and unless you wanted Naruto or Full Metal Alchemist merchandise; you were pretty much out of luck. Since they didn’t have as many dealers; the con-com put the Artists’ Alley inside the dealer’s room. This was a bright idea and I ended up buying some magnets from the guy who does the FAUB webcomic. I was not familiar with the webcomic prior to this year’s AnimeIowa but I really liked the artwork in the magnets and have since read through their entire archive of webcomics and added it to my Portal page.

I didn’t have much desire to go into any of the video rooms, but I did find one playing Bubblegum Crisis which was kind of nice. Though I didn’t get to stay around long as that was just before I had to help Wookie move his gear from the hall cosplay judging room to the green room for the Masquerade.

All in all, it was a disappointing weekend. *shrug* Oh well, can’t win ‘em all.

In more current news, I’ve finally gotten caught up in listing to all the podcasts I’ve downloaded. It’s nice to listen to them and actually hear other people’s thoughts on current events while the events are still current. Along those lines, the jazz mashup from the episode# 240 of the Daily Source Code was extremely cool. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got time to write for now.

¹ I should say nothing on Saturday or Sunday as I wasn’t there Friday.
² Wookie comes to the con and takes pictures of all the Hall Cosplay entries & after the con puts them on a site where people can order prints if they want them. Also, Wookie’s a fun guy to hang around the con with.

Quick Update © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Any hoo, the place we stayed at is called Fulton’s Landing. It’s a late 19th century house that has been beautifully maintained and is decorated with many a wonderful antique. When we finally arrived, Ariesna & I walked inside but found ourselves faced with a small problem. There was no sign of the proprietor! After a bit of shouting hello and ringing the doorbell, I went back outside and started walking around the grounds to see if I could find somebody. Later Ariesna confided in me that just after I’d gone searching that she found a small note saying that our hostess could be found painting the front porch.

After locating Pat, our gracious and charming host, we headed back to where Ariesna was waiting and then up to our room. Ariesna was thrilled and while I did find it to be a lovely room; it was a bit pink for me. We freshened ourselves up a bit and then went to a nearby Japanese restaurant that we are familiar with from previous visits to the area. Their yummy rolls weren’t as good as the ones we’d had back in Kansas City once upon a time, but the Hawaiian rolls were fantastic³! Then she had the Shrimp Tempura and I had the Chicken Katsu. Both dishes were delicious and much larger than I remembered from previous visits. After eaching our fill, we headed back to Fulton’s Landing.

Just a brief side note for the single folks who read this blog: when you get married some day; make sure to eat a good breakfast and/or hide some sort of energy bar in your pocket/purse for later. That way you don’t starve as your wedding guests are likely to keep you so busy that the serving staff will remove your food before you get a chance to eat any of it!

We did get back to Fulton’s Landing without any troubles and had a very pleasant evening relaxing… and doing those things that newlyweds do. The next morning, we had a marvelous breakfast with the other guests: a couple from Nebraska with their daughter from Brazil and a writer from England. Apparently, he writes a column called “The Best…” for The European; this has him gaunting around the world finding the best places to stay, best foods to eat and writing all about it for his clientelle. After listening to him talk for a few minutes, I’m became convinced that I’m in the wrong profession. :) After breakfast, we checked out but Pat allowed us to leave our car parked there so we could go for a walk around the area. There are many gorgeous houses over there, a few of them for sale –and quite undoubtably out of my price range–. It ended up being a longer walk than we had really thought we were in for, with a good chunk leading us up-hill but it also very enjoyable. Particularly once we left the housing area and got back down by the river with the cool breeze coming in off the water. Hmm, that was soo nice.

Then it was time to retrieve the car and head for home, which we spent just quietly enjoying the day & each other’s company. Later in the evening, Ariesna’s parents came up and we unwrapped all the wedding loot. It was a good haul. Heck, there were even gifts in there that were aimed more towards me than they were towards the bride. Don’t misunderstand me, there were plenty of gifts that were definitely picked with the bride in mind! And of course, there was also a nice selection of checks and cold, hard cash as well. All in all, I think Ariesna & I should get married more often if it’s going to bring in this kind of loot.

¹ Due to time & financial constraints, we didn’t get to do a full honeymoon right now but we hope to do one later. Since it was just a night away from home, I’m calling it our honey-night. :)
² For the record, she’d already noticed the sign for the place a couple of times before I broke down and told her.
³ For those unfamiliar with Japanese cuisine, these rolls are actually types of sushi.

Back from “some rest” © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.