Goodbye leagues...

Goodbye Seasoned Gamers leagues. Been crappy knowing you.

2 more weeks and I'm out. Yeah! Unless we win. Which would be nice, but...

Don't get me wrong, I'm still playing as hard as I can. Of course it isn't a great performance, but I'm still trying.

I've played in 2 leagues previously and been the 'D' player on all 3 teams. It's not a lot of fun. Gaming with other SG'ers requires a level of competitiveness that I just don't have.

The first season was a Rainbow Six league. That was probably the most fun, as the team I was on wasn't terribly competitive, but they were still pretty quick to point out when I made a mistake.

Halo 2 was the next league. It was different in that mistakes were not as obvious as in a lot of other games. They had the same horrible impact, but more often than not, your teammates are too engaged in whatever they're doing to notice anything else. The thing with Halo is that SG has a healthy compliment of almost-professional Halo players. Want an ass-whooping? They'll be more than happy to hand one out.

Gears of War 3 may be the exception to my 'no more leagues' policy. I really like Gears of War and episode 3 is coming out on September 20th. Gears isn't as popular at SG as some other games, so there's a slightly higher possibility that I would not be the 'D' player. Just slightly though.

I'm trying not to be thin-skinned about this. Which is probably the primary reason I signed up for the current Left 4 Dead league. That and my optimism. But at this point my optimism is pretty much dead.

More Kindle review...

So the Kindle can be a little dangerous if you're not careful...and you don't have a bunch of discretionary income. If you're browsing for new books on the Kindle itself, the only place I've seen prices displayed is in the search results if you search by part of a name. Of course prices are displayed on a regular web browser, but if you select a bunch of books to sample, (which get downloaded to your Kindle automatically) and forget how much that particular book costs, you will not see the price again unless you go back to check on the browser.

So I did that. Downloaded a couple of samples and bought a magician novel for $12.99 or something. Certainly more than I would have paid had I seen it in a RL bookstore.

The book is The Magicians, by Lev Grossman. Through the first couple of chapters, I was convinced I had bought a 'young adult' book. Very simple story line. But nearing the last half of the book, I encountered some far more adult situations

It got me thinking about the young adult books I had borrowed from the library, back when I was a young adult. I don't remember vivid details, but I can say for sure that more than a few of them would easily be classified as pornographic. Never told my mom what kind of books I was reading, of course, but had she known, someone at the library would have heard about it.

The Magicians isn't very graphic, but it's a reminder that I need to be a little more watchful than my parent were if I don't want my girlies reading that stuff. Although I'm certainly not going to read everything before they do. We'll just have to have a chat about what's acceptable and what's not.

Anyway... I really enjoy the sampling feature that's given with most of the Kindle titles. It promises to get me out of my regular book routine of choosing those authors I'm most familiar with. The sample of The Magicians was compelling enough for me to purchase the entire book, so I guess it's working for Amazon.

Went a campin'

Testing out Google Photo's slideshow embedding feature.

Camping 8-6-11

Why can't I center this thing...?

So I went up to the Snowy Range on Friday. Left about 12:30 and got there around 2. Having never camped there before, I drove almost the length of the road before I figured out that you have to travel a short way down each side road to see what's there. None except the major hotspots have signs on the main road.

I skipped the first campground sign I saw and kept going until the next one. Stopped in there and found it closed. Got back on the main road and kept going until the next one, which had no trees and was almost completely overgrown, despite the large 5th wheel occupying the hosts site. Only one other campsite was taken.

So I left that one and headed back the way I came. One or two roads down was paved a short way and had a stop sign onto the main road. So I took that one and immediately saw the "Road Closed Ahead" sign. Ok, whatever. I kept going and found that the road had washed out, as you can see in the slide show. But just off to either side was a dirt road. I drove down the right hand one and found the almost completely secluded site I stayed at. That afternoon, I took a walk down the left hand side and found my nearest neighbor, a good 1/4 mile away. There was only 1 other vehicle that drove down the road and went back out. Didn't see another soul until 11am the next day, when some hunters walked down my road. They were staking out a spot for their camper. I guess elk season starts next weekend. Glad I went this weekend.

edit: not sure that I like the slideshow thing. It's nice not to have to load all the pics, but I don't like that it takes over this tab.

Randomursday

- We have a job for a customer with the last name Beardsley. Whenever I see the name, I can't help but think, "Beardsley of bees" and stroke my non-existent beard.

- I just enjoyed giving one of our designers a really hard time for not knowing or even being willing to figure out how to FedEx something. Yes, I called him incompetent... I'm thinking now I should have gone with "lazy bastard."

- I also enjoyed listening to that same designer cuss out the paper towel dispenser. That barely offset the fact that I had to listen to him pee as I sit in my acoustically challenged office.

- I added "as I sit" to the previous sentence because without it, it sounded like he was in my office while doing the peeing.

- Yes Pandora, I'm still listening.

- Where'd my blue Sharpie go?

- Watching the production schedule today is like watching and waiting for the tea kettle...

- Oh for cryin' out loud...where's my black pen!?

- Milestone is nice enough to provide a pen and a box on their coffee bags to write the name of the coffee you picked to grind. Guess who didn't use it... Picked a great coffee and don't remember the name.

- Don't ask me where that beard thing came from. I have no idea.

- This has been the first week where I have not been able to figure out a solution to all the problems without majorly affecting deliveries. I'm a damn good problem solver, so that might tell you how terrifically horrible the last 5 workdays have been. I've had to pull all of the paperwork out of the shop and start over twice already this week. I haven't done that in the 4 years I've been here.

- We have a customer who always calls in and starts talking to whomever answers the phone like they know everything about the job he's talking about. There's only 1 person in this office that handles his orders.

- I've spent the last 3 hours doing data entry that's been piling up over the last 4 days. I need a freakin' assistant!!

- Gonna do some campsite scouting this weekend. Don't really want to go by myself, but I don't know what else to do since I decided to take the day off tomorrow. Maybe I'll find a fish or two.

Have a great week/end everyone.

Kindle stuff + friendship thoughts

Kindle Review:

• Very good. I downloaded A Dance with Dragons, the 5th in the Ice and Fire series. Good book and I like reading it on the Kindle.
• Don't care for the price of the covers though. The cheapest through Amazon is $35 (up to $85!) I found a dust cover at Target for $30. There were full zip up covers too, but I like the 'book' feel of the dust cover. It's about the size of a small slimline bible.
• A really wants to use it. Gotta get kids books on it for them now. And make them talk like pirates...or is that commandeer...
• I charged it when I first got it and haven't plugged it in again. The battery indicator has only dropped about 20%. Haven't spent a lot of time browsing the store though. I guess leaving the wireless on drains the battery faster.
• I did find out some books are free, but they're free from the publisher, not Kindle, so Amazon doesn't advertise that I guess.

To get some rattling thoughts about friendship out:

Friendship is not an easy thing for me. I know some people who just tend to attract friends. That ain't me. I've been told I come across as cold and a little distant. I can see that. Not sure what to do about it, but I understand.

Thinking back over my adult life, I have a hard time seeing any 'great' friends. I spent quite a bit of time with a guy in CA, but it was friendship by association with my ex, and I think he just liked me for my access to an auto shop.

Then there's the guy I thought was my friend here in WY, but it's become fairly obvious I'm just a tool for him too.

I don't think my ex was ever a great friend either. Which explains some things I suppose.

Developing great friendships is a skill. One I don't have. But I also know I'm not alone in that. There are a bunch of single lonely guys out there. My mom was talking about a male cousin of mine the other day, saying he doesn't have any sort of social skills and that's why he can't keep girlfriends. I wonder how similar we are...

The key is effort. I don't put any in and don't expect to get anything out either, but by doing that there's no learning. I'm not learning how to get out my rut. Get out of myself, so to speak. For 10 years or so most of my friendships were closely tied to my marriage, in one way or another. It's not that she got the friends in the divorce, she actually alienated some of them. But that association made it pretty effortless to make friends, or at least find people to hang out with.

I wonder how much of this I inherited. My parents never had a lot of friends. They might know a couple or two that they played cards with every once in a while, but we never entertained. We were all content to do our own thing I guess.

I dunno. Just something I think about. Not too worried about it. Certainly not getting depressed about it. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a good friend or two. Or at least someone to hang out with and cook for every once in a while...

Move along...nothing to see here

There are at least 3 blog post drafts setting in my queue. I just cannot muster enough brainpower to develop the topics further than the 2 sentences they're at so far.

My brain is toast. I'm exhausted. The stress level at work is growing...even on top of the high level it was at a week ago. All of that means the paranoia is setting in.

These "I want to quit so badly" phases are coming more frequently. It's just so frustrating to be part of a company that can't seem to force itself to be at least a little successful, even though I'm busting my ass to please the customer and get stuff done.

I know that I am succeeding, at least on a personal level, but what's the point...? I mean, who is ever really going to know what happened? I could describe it to a potential employer, but they'll never really know. You might think my boss would know...but I don't know that because he has NEVER acknowledged it. EVER.

If you can't give me a raise, at least throw me a bone.

And that's it for my rant. Thank you.