MAY 04

2026

Monday: got up early enough for two hours of work before my shift, which proved necessary for me to hit my deadline. The shift itself wasn't too bad, though I'm still getting more calls than I'd like. I had my usual salad, despite planning to get salad at dinner. On my lunch break, I heated up my eye mask too much to actually use it, but I put in 15 minutes on my second break. After work, we walked to Stogie Joe's, but the numerous games meant that the crowds were crazy. We were seated next to a group of three players who were unfamiliar with Jimmie's methods. Lots of kids when we arrived, though they left before too long. Our performance wasn't very strong, in part because I didn't feel like fighting for my answer to a couple of ambiguous questions. ("What was the first game to use the perspective that would eventually be referred to as a first-person shooter?" has several answers, depending on where you want to draw the genre line. My answer was Wolfenstein 3D; other teams felt Duck Hunt should have qualified. Jimmie was looking for DooM, naturally.) After a particularly noisy outburst from The Fountaineers, Julie decided that she doesn't like "people, like, in general," which should not have been as much of a surprise to her as it seemed. When we got home, I treated the cats, then stayed up until almost 3 AM finishing my groups for the week. I listened to more music while I worked, after which I listened to some psych videos on some concepts that I'd forgotten about. A couple of videos on limerence and the Jungian ideas of the anima/animus felt like an intriguing follow-up to the enneagram reading I'd been doing recently. Anyway, while I cleared out all my groups successfully, the typing was strenuous enough that I wore my wrist braces to bed for the first time in a while.

2025

Sunday: had my first night up too late since my health issues last month. Because of this bad decision, I struggled to get out of bed when John started his morning ruckus. Julie and I eventually put on fresh shorts and t-shirts so that we could walk up 17th to PetSmart for more of the treats that John and Isabel prefer. A drizzle started just as we were leaving, but we decided to duck into Giant to pick up another bag of salad for me and some gum for Julie. On our way back, we decided to try Taqueria El Jarocho for lunch: Julie had some kind of sandwich, while I allowed myself to be convinced to order the surf and turf. It was pretty good, but it was a lot of food, and I correctly anticipated that it was less like the Jalisco Especial than I would have liked. (Tails on the shrimp, for example, and no queso.) We both really enjoyed our aqua fresca, though; Julie's was a kombucha, while I had pineapple.

While we were eating, the rain reached its greatest intensity before tapering off again before it was time for us to resume our walk. As we passed the park between 13th and the parking lot, I tried to comment on our position by saying, "looks like we're in parking country." The concept of "parking country" was not as intuitive as I'd hoped, and Julie and I spent the rest of our walk back home laughing about the confusion.

At home, decided to decompress, so Julie worked on her latest puzzle, while I caught up on Hearthstone and World of Warcraft quest chores. We debated whether I should make dinner tonight or during the week, and we decided it made more sense to hold off and have the leftover chicken casserole tonight. I caught up on Joseph Anderson's Blue Prince vods while playing Final Fantasy XIV, though I eventually stopped to post this update.

2024

Saturday: had one of those weird nights where I napped early, got up and failed to do much with my programming, and then went to bed again. It didn't stop me from getting to work on time, and it was a largely successful day of chat support. Julie ran to the store (and picked up a couple extra bottles of water for me), so she brought back Taco Bell for lunch. After work, we finished the veggie pasta for dinner, and I worked on Moondrop Isle while I had time, though the cats have been demanding a lot of attention today. I had to escort John into the kitchen like three times for snack. Julie continued watching Voyager in the other room. I've had some games of Interference in my spare time, but I need to finish my zone since testers have started actively playing.

Forgot to add: while I was hanging out with Mim, she decided to bite my hand a little too hard and drew blood. I rubbed it down with alcohol and antibacterial cream before applying a few bandages. Preliminary review from two days later suggests that I was lucky to avoid an infection, but if I notice anything unusual or unpleasant, I'll head into urgent care.

2023

Thursday: a dismal day of excessive escalations at work, though I did get my employee benefit cruise request submitted for September 10. I kind of bounced off the Disco Elysium stream I'd wanted to watch, as I was distracted by ideas about big-picture interactive fiction design and lock-and-key progression systems. The cats seemed cold enough that I turned on the central heat in the apartment. I should have gone to the store this morning rather than sleeping in, so if I want to go tomorrow, I'll have to walk, as Julie's started working in the office on Fridays instead of Thursdays lately.