Holy shit, he's updating!

[grayhawkfh]

Yeah, I've been meaning to try and post for a few days weeks now. Thing is, every time I was up for writing, I was either not near a computer or bogged down with work. When I had the time, I had no interest.

Hate that crap, I do.

Enough, I say. Time to put fingers to keyboard and get some of this crap rollin' about in my head out and down on e-paper. And, I think, time for a Bullet List of Doom (tm)!

• Administrivia: First things first. I'd like to welcome 3 new readers to my little corner of the web, all of whom found me through a post-April Fool's Friending Frenzy hosted by dydan. Please say hi to rainbowchazer, badbookworm, & v_e! Pull up a chair and help yourself to somethin' to drink. I generally suggest that people read this post if they want to know more about me.
  
• State of the 'Hawk: Busy, but good. Definitely out of that last depressive cycle and lovin' life. If I have any regrets at the moment, it's that my "Lottery Investment" hasn't paid off yet. Honestly, I don't want it so much for me at the moment, but there are a number of friends who are having problems that can be solved (and a few that can *only* be solved) by throwing $$$ at them. We're making enough right now that we can put $$$ away...but not so much so that we can help everyone who needs it. It's...annoying. Still, if that's the worst I can complain about, I have to believe we're doing good.
  
• Family: As I said, we're all doing fairly well. mousecat0 is trying to strike that balance between home and work. She's not as ruthless as I am about "I ain't on the clock, so I ain't workin'!" The difference, however, is that she's a property manager, and property problems don't follow a 9-5 schedule. (Yeah, I know, neither do servers, but hey). Kids are doing well in school, with the occasional issue with homework either not getting done or turned in.
  
• Where we've Been:
  • So, the kids went up to NJ for part of the week before Easter; we went up on Friday & came back Monday. Not only were we there for Easter, but also for my niece G's second birthday. She's growing up so quick. As I've alluded to in the past, the kids don't get much candy in their Easter baskets anymore (They still get some, 'cause you've gotta have a chocolate bunny and Peanut Butter Eggs), but we will do books or a movie or something. This year, they got the first 4 books of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series (The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, & The Battle of the Labyrinth). mousecat0 found Sherlock Holmes in her basket.
  • I spent a day at GameCon 2010, playing games, playing in demos, and other fun stuff (which, I think, deserves it's own post).
  • And not too much else.
  
  
• Where we'll be:
  • B & mousecat0 will be at a wedding on Saturday.
  • F & I will be at a Scout camping trip on Saturday & Sunday. This is the first (weather permitting) he'll be able to do, as weather or illness have prevented us from going to any of the others.
  • The following weekend will find us at a birthday party for a friend's daughter.
  • Mother's Day dinner will be at our place; that menu also gets it's own post. Sadly, my Mom won't be able to join us due to her busted leg.
  • At the end of the month is the annual family cookout at my Dad's place.
  • At the end of June is Origins (and there's *another* post), followed by the annual Suburban Charred Meat Festival on July 4th at our place (and please not that if you can read this, YOU ARE INVITED! Details and official eVite to come (and yeah, I'm going back to eVite; myPunchbowl isn't doing it for me).
  
  
• Tech notes: Well, the old desktop was really dying, and TigerDirect had a good deal on a bare-bones system, and I had a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, so voila, we have a new 'puter. I wanna pick up one more item for it (new graphics card - XFX HD477AYDFC Radeon HD 4770), but that will have to wait a paycheck or 2. Meanwhile, here's the specs:
  • AMD Phenom X4 9650 Quad Core Processor HD9650WCGHBOX - 2.30GHz, 4MB Cache, 1800MHz (3600 MT/s)
  • Biostar MCP6PB M2+ Motherboard - Socket AM2+, µATX, Audio, GeForce 6150 Graphics, SATA, RAID
  • 4 GB PC5400 DDR2 667MHZ
  • 1TB SATA Western Digital WD10EARS Caviar Green Hard Drive - 3.5"
  • Thermaltake TR2-R1 CPU Cooler
  • MSI DH-24AAS-17 Internal DVD Writer
  • 7-Slot USB 2.0 Internal Memory Card Reader & Writer
  .
  
• WoW: Been raiding ICC on a more-or-less weekly basis. I've gotten some good upgrades to my equipment. What's been harder is finding time to make $$$ to support my raiding. Flasks and armor repairs ain't cheap!
  
• Mom update: Mom saw the doctors a few weeks ago; the leg is healing as well as can be expected. She's out of the cast and back into the surgical boot, which she can take off for short periods. She goes back in a few weeks for a checkup and to see if she can start putting weight on it again. On behalf of my family, our thanks to all who sent well-wishes, prayers, healing energies, good thoughts, etc.
  
• Other gaming: Playing D&D 3.5e the other week really got my gaming bug going again. So, I'm gonna start up the home campaign again; just not sure which system to use. AD&D 1e is simplest for the kids, but there's other good stuff out there (also looking at Pathfinder), so I'm taking a bit of time to research and read.
  
• Other randomosity:
  • Gonna try to go see Great Big Sea at WolfTrap in August (the 22nd, I believe)
  • TCEP 17: 3 Nights in Laurel is a "Go" Go to the Barking Mad Website for info and to pre-reg.
  • Fun site: I Love TV Intros.
  • Political site I can get behind: The Other 98%: Politics For The Rest Of Us

I think that's about it for now. I'm a-gonna see if I can crank out one or more of the posts alluded to above.

I remind you all to have a good day. The very fact that you woke up on the proper side of the grass this morning makes it a great start to a good day.