I have been neglecting you far too long

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Back in the day, just a year ago I think, I used to religiously post a blog here every week. Before that, it was a few times a week. Things changes, life gets busier, and let's face it - my motivations and attention span aren't what they used to be. Still, I love this website, and I love posting to it so I'm going to try my damnedest to get back into it.

What's going on with me?

It's been an interesting couple of months. Medically, I've been something of a mess. Three hospital visits in three months including my first time being admitted overnight - a new record that I'm not terribly proud of. In January I sprained my left ankle pretty good. Still healing a bit from that, actually. In February I got the flu - the strain that the flu shot this year didn't cover - and I got sick enough that I needed to go to the hospital in the night because of the respiratory issues.

Just this last weekend, for the first time in 14 years I threw up (among other nasty things), had a fever of 102.7 and then later on developed chest pains that my doctors thought might have been a heart attack, so I was admitted to Shady Grove Adventist overnight Saturday to Sunday. I'm happy to say it was, apparently, just a very bad virus and nothing is wrong with my heart. I'm still recovering from that but in general am much better.

In my personal life, things are going as they typically go. Some ups, some downs. I had a dinner date with two old high school friends of mine, Amanda & Tracy, two weeks ago. It was great to see them again and I'm hoping it leads to seeing both of them more. Since I've been between illnesses, I haven't really gone out much, although Brian scored us tickets to the George Carlin show at the end of March that I'm really looking forward to. This will be my first experience seeing live comedy, and I'm sure it's going to be great.

I also got a new car in February - my second Saturn, a 2008 Aura XE with all the options. It's great. Power/heated leather seats, OnStar and XM Radio (which I love and am going to subscribe to at the end of the free trial), 3.5L V6, etc. It's a great car, and I'm extremely happy with it. Much nicer than my '05 Vue.

Work wise, I've been extremely busy. Besides my normal contract, my company also has me working on a side contract for a Dept. of Defense program that has been... interesting, to say the least. I'm not doing anything terribly special for this DoD client - developing a public-facing website for them - but it's definitely been a real different experience than I'm used to. I've also had to put in a lot more hours after work and on weekends than I'm used to, which hasn't been great for my mental faculties, but it all works out to more money and more positive notoriety within the company, which is something I've been working at actively for some time now.

At the regular day-to-day contract, things have shifted quite a bit. Normally I'd spend, say, 70% of our time working on maintenance, 20% on new development, and 10% on Section 508 concerns. A few months ago, when I slowed down my blogging, the paradigm shifted and the agency decided to make Section 508 compliance its #1 issue, so we're now spending 70% of our time dedicated to Section 508 testing, fixes, instruction, and revamping, while the other 30% is dedicated to everything else. Keeps us pretty busy here.

My family is good. Well, those that I speak to, anyway. My father is doing extremely well with his girlfriend/fiance in New Jersey. They just got back from a Caribbean cruise - my fathers first vacation in something like 14 years - and he had a blast. My sister just celebrated her 23rd birthday on Sunday. She's very excited that her boyfriend got her a gun as a gift. Yes, a Jewish girl who loves guns and hunting with bows. It's weird, I know. My father and I still don't quite understand that, but hey... whatever makes her happy is fine with me.

Finally, in World of Warcraft news, my guild, <Order of the Raven> on Aggramar-US, (I'm the webmaster for the site by the way, so feel free to give me some props on that nice logo) "beat the game" in the first week of Januaray. That means that all of the raid bosses in all of the instances have been killed. Archimonde, Illidan, all of those jerks. Dead and on farm status now. Last week my main level 70 character, Mayo, got his fifth and final piece of the Lightbringer Raiment (Tier 6 armor set), so he looks pretty bad ass right now. Essentially, until Patch 2.4 (Fury of the Sunwell) comes out, Mayo is wearing some of the best gear in the game. Also, according to Gankbang.com, Mayo is in the top 50 of all holy paladins in the USA when it comes to +healing, which really makes me feel pretty stoked in-game (and makes the e-peen a lot bigger, of course...). In a game with over 9 million players, that's saying something.

So, that's it. I'll post something more interesting soon - no later than one week from now. I promise. Really. Seriously. You can stop rolling your eyes at me, damnit.

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