Fear of Flying

So last week I was in Penticton on a gaming bender, which is why I didn't have a blog update. Above, you can see Dabu, who was helping me make the hide-a-bed by sitting in the exact center of it when I wanted to put the sheets on. Thanks, cat!

So the trip to Penticton was, as I mentioned, a gaming bender. The weather was, by southern BC standards, apocalyptically cold. Like we're talking -5C sometimes. Even -10C at night. So lovely by Edmonton standards. But this was enough for us to justify staying in and playing our game for the entire time.

The trip to the airport to leave was a bit more stressful. We planned to leave early in order to have a lot of time, and we left half an hour even before *that* but the roads were terrible. There was a lot of snow and a lot of drivers unused to snow. This caused slow traffic in Kelowna and a serious traffic jam on the highway due to a collision.

Luckily, I made it just in time, and then the plane was delayed for half an hour, which allowed me to stretch my legs after the long car ride, which was nice.

It's funny how irrational our fears can be. Later that evening, our plane experienced some mild turbulence and I was thinking, as I tend to, "This is it; the wings are about to fall off and we're all going to die." And then I remembered the collision on the highway. Based on the damage, it's almost certain that someone was hurt. The drive to the airport was much more dangerous than the flight. This helped to put things into perspective.

Anyway, I'm glad Amber and Jason got home safely. I appreciate them driving out to Kelowna so I didn't have to sit in Calgary for 4 hr layovers on my trips between Victoria and Penticton...

As for the rest of my hobbies, the writing continues. It was a bit tricky to get back into things at first, because I started a new story before my trip and then a bunch of things happened in our game, and then I had to try and pick up the threads of what I'd started. But it is done now, and we're working on a collaborative bit for the next day or two.

Overwatch just announced a new hero named Brigitte. She's a mixture of a healer and a tank. She has a small shield to help keep her alive (she's fairly robust, actually), and then she can hit people with her flail, which makes her friends nearby heal. Because flails that heal people is how Overwatch rolls. :)

She looks fun anyway. Overwatch is about the gameplay more than the immersion, and the world has a bit of a Saturday-morning-cartoon feel to it.

I took a break from writing today to walk the dog and throw the ball for her in the sunshine. Life is good.