Well, Here I Am

I am back in Edmonton now, safe and sound.

First up, some pictures that didn't make it into last week's post about climbing the mountain:

The journey begins...

There! We go there!

This wasn't on the map!

A rest on the way up.

Worth it!

... 

Home again. Hound happy.

And there's cake!

And now, some scenes of Edmonton, including my blooming Christmas cactus:

Climbing A Mountain

I am a bit too tired to write a proper post right now, but in the meantime, here are some pictures that I took while Mark and I climbed Mount Douglas today. Most of it was more hiking than climbing, but there were some climby bits too.

Final Stretch

There's not quite as many blooming flowers so far this year due to the unusually chilly February (hahahahahahahaha) which resulted in frost and snow a couple of times. But the place is still a healthy green! Also it has warmed up recently.

Anyway, news.

Well, I may sound like a broken record at this point, but the news is mostly that I did a bunch of writing. There was a co-written email chain and another short story, plus a small amount of editing. Then I celebrated by playing a ton of Overwatch for the last day or two, though now I have some "homework" I should get caught up on, such as moving the email chain into a document. So I'll do some of that this afternoon in amongst walks.

I saw Black Panther last Friday, and enjoyed it. It was beautiful both visually and aurally. It was fun to watch it knowing that it was important to many people around the world, because it portrayed an African nation that was prosperous and advanced. It was a fun movie in its own right, but this gave the experience even more cheer.

It's getting to be the final stretch of my stay here, so I should probably think about what I want to accomplish before I go. I've just been having so much fun with the writing that I haven't focused on much else. And I'm pretty happy with how I spent my time.

Catch you next week!

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.

Guess What I Did This Week?

If you guessed "writing" you get points. Though not many of them, because this game was pretty easy. There was also a little bit of walking, playing games, and watching Overwatch League. In other words "same as I've been doing every week" so this may be a short update. :)

The image above is from Sunday's Munchkin game, where we mixed The Good, The Bad, And The Munchkin with Star Munchkin to have a space & western themed game. I lost both times by a lot, but I did get some style points on the second game, where I ended up as a space-cat dude with diamond cat teeth, riding another cat. With my beautiful assistant side-kick, of course, and just for good measure, some forged ID in order to get out of any troublesome situations. It wasn't quite as powerful as Mike's Bobaser Dazer With Unlimited Ammo, but it was still pretty cool.

Other bits of news: I had cold-like symptoms yesterday but they got better over the day and now I'm feeling alright. I am also caught up on Trollhunters, a show that Karen and Mark really like, so now we can watch them together. I went downtown on Saturday to eat breakfast, visit the nerd stores, and walk along the harbour.

Also, next week I'm flying out to Penticton to visit Amber and Jason. There are some restaurants to visit and some wine to drink, and we'll probably spend a good bit of our time pretending to be racing cars in the New Mexico desert while lobbing spells and grenades at enemy racers.

It's a good life.

I'll probably have a lot more news next week. For now, I exist and I type.

Another Day Another Daydream

On Tuesday, Dean's last day in Victoria, we went to Patisserie Daniel. They had a selection of chocolate treats (and other treats, but the chocolate ones were the ones that I cared about). This is their pain au chocolat, which was so good that I had to apologize to the people around me for not eating it in private.

I promise that Patisserie Daniel has not sponsored me or this message in any way. This is a sincere endorsement. :)

Other than that, I don't have a ton of news. I have been doing more writing.

...

That's about it.

Oh! Karen and I went to see The Last Jedi again, and confirmed that it was great fun (Disney has not sponsored me or this message either). I continue to enjoy the theme of nihilism in it, and how that theme relates to the deliberate referencing of the original films in the previous movie. I was entertained.

I suppose I also managed to get Overwatch playing acceptably well on my laptop once, and since then have been busy writing instead of playing it. I haven't even been keeping up with the Overwatch League, so no news there either. I'm currently in the middle of Philadelphia Fusion vs. Dallas Fuel still (the Fusion are winning 2-0 out of 4 so it's looking good as long as the Fuel don't tie it up). I'm sure some day I'll run out of writing to do, or I won't be in the mood, and I'll get around to finishing it.

Anyway, have a good week everyone. Maybe I'll have actual news next time. :)

The Financial Times

Another day, another $2502. Between a post on my building's forums and a letter I received recently, I have learned that Top of the Valley has decided that now is a great time to drop a special levy on us. Because I'm on vacation and unemployed. Thanks.

For added pizzazz, they want at least half of it on my actual birthday.

So I'm kinda grumpy right now. I get why it's needed I just wish it didn't have to be right now. My finances will still survive to the end of my vacation, but it's going to pull some of the buffer out, which doesn't *really* change anything other than make me more stressed and grumpy.

Anyway.

The writing is still going full-tilt, and the longer this continues the more I think that it may be time to consider the idea of doing it professionally. I've dallied about for 15 years avoiding my dream--and learned a lot and made money and friends and things, which is all good--but I think maybe now is the time to put some thought into making a writing career work. For example, all that money I made over the 15 years, while small compared to most middle class incomes, was invested well enough that I can live cheaply. I might be able to get a part-time job and keep the writing going.

It may not work out. I may end up rationalizing to myself that another few years of earning real money would make my dream even more achievable. Part of me thinks that's wise. The other part of me thinks that if I keep doing that enough times, I'll avoid living the dream entirely.

Sorry if my tone is still grumpy. I am just angry because the special levy makes this question more pertinent and less fun.

Anyway, I've got some time to figure this out yet, and now that my health is finally getting close to normal again, I should have a little more energy to put into it.

My life is otherwise great. Like I said, my health is getting back to normal, I'm still writing my face off, and the weather here is lovely, if a bit wet. I didn't see the super blood blue moon, but I did see the super blue moon really clearly. Next week I hope to have updates on cool things I've done other than "sat on a couch typing a lot." :)

Cheers.