Bloggery 2009-10-15: Journal of the Plague (years)

With NO APOLOGIES whatsoever to Norman Spinrad's awesome novella from the 80s about AIDS.

I'm finally (two weeks later) feeling almost back to normal.

I've been passing the time -- when up to it -- playing WoW. Getting out of Clothing Discouraged and into Eclipsed was a blessing in disguise. Three *scheduled* raids a week, and this week we had a couple of Good Ones: Trial of the Crusader-10 and -25. I've tried TotC-10 once with CD and we wiped like a 12-pack of Charmin rolls on the first boss.

Not this time, bunky! While we were only able to down the first 3 bosses in 25-man (Beasts, Lord Jaraxxus, Faction Champs), we were able to finish 10-man (Twin Val'kyrs, Anub'arak). Then we did 10-man Ulduar and managed to buzzsaw our way through Flame Leviathan, XT-2000 Deconstructor, Ignis, Razorscale, Kologarm, Auriaya, and the Assembly of Iron. We went bounce off Thorim. Left are Hodir, Freya, Thorim, General Vezax, Mirimon, Yogg-Saron and Algalon. As dessert I managed to get into a no-fail Naxx-10 PuG, and dropped Gluth and Thaddius to finish Constuct Quarter (and this time I made the jump!), Sapphiron and Kel'Thuzad. I am missing one boss -- Instructor Razuvious, in Military Quarter -- from my personal Full Naxx Clear.

New additions to my gear include a ring and boots from Ulduar-10. With the emblems from here (3 per boss dropped) I got my Tier 9 gloves. Now I have 2-piece set bonii for Tier 8 and 9 -- nice because the bonii do not overwrite one another. My "gear score" is in the mid-2400s, good enough to pug Ulduar once I know all the fights.

That's the problem: reading about the fight strategies is not enough for me. I need to actually fight the boss in my assigned role, to really understand the strategy . . . and for many groups, this does not work because they do not want to take the time to teach you the fights (and I had a very bitter experience with this on Marty in Naxx back in April . . .).

Now I'd like to get the guild to run Onyxia's Lair. This is a raid from Original WoW that has been owered up for Level 80. Ony's another draconic loot piñata, or so I am told.

On Sunday I get to see my grandson. Camera in hand, of course. :)

Random Bloggery

1. Health milestone was reached today -- I am back under 400 lbs! I weighed in at 397 lbs this afternoon. Me has a happy. Walking and taking the bus really really helps. Walking consumes kilocalories from the food I eat, makes me think at least twice before wanting to go out and get more food, and generates natural endorphins that promote mental health, taking the bus builds up my supply of "cope" for assorted random stimuli.

2. WoW: Scored enough emblems last night to buy my first Tier 7.5 armor piece for Tyrtrinos, Valorous Scourgeborne Shoulderplates. In doing so, I also replaced the PvP trinket I was using with a good one for raiding -- Sphere of Red Dragon"s Blood. That trinket is my last remaining non-epic piece of gear. There's a Naxx run tonight; I hope to get Grim Toll tonight.

(Later) "Tonight" has come and gone -- the Naxx run made it through Arachnid and Plague Quarters. I still suck at the "Safety Dance" but Clothisis -- Meece's toon -- scored for herself some new bracers and, on her first try at 10 man Naxx, her Tier 7 shoulders off Loethab. My haul was a set of boots for my tanking armor set.

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-22: No Quarter at the Guild Naxx-o-rama, or it's HOT time in the Old Necropolis Tonight

1. Health: Executive summary -- Doc says "Keep doing what you're doing . . ." -- wounds healing, swelling down, weight down, SGLs greener than Ecotopia.

2. WoW: If it's Tuesday, then the raid instances reset and it's time to head back to Naxxaramas. This time, however, it's an all BOYD Naxx-10 group -- NOT a PuG, and Gwenny's there too. We're doing the place on the "one quarter a night" plan. Naxx, unlike Gaul, is divided into four parts: the Arachnid Quarter -- motto being "BUGS, Mr. Rico! Zillions of 'em!", the Military Quarter, the Construct Quarter and the Plague Quarter. Last night spider was on the menu. Lots of Naxx-10 newbs in the group (hand raised, despite the 25 man I did the other day I'm still a real newb here). Three bosses per quarter plus the damned dragon and Major baddie Kal'Thuzad.
Very challenging place. Anyway, the raid gets underway about an hour late, in large part thanks to a minor patch that was released yesterday which refunded all talent points and forced EVERYONE to respec their toons.
Very quickly the pattern for this group is established: Clear trash mobs, wipe on boss, down boss. Clear trash, wipe on boss#2, down boss#2. At Boss#3, we break the pattern because we need serious heal-over-time (HoT) capability from a druid or priest, and we have neither in the party. Tonight we go back with a resto drood or priest to finish the Arachnid Quarter.
I managed a cut of the phat lewt for my healbot set. I'm close to getting enough gear for that set, as soon as I do (and get 1k gp) I will grab the second spec. Major in ass-kicking minor in healbottery, that's Marty.
For the most part, it was a fun run. Marty was cranking out a lot of damage, I was with Gwenny, and the group was learning the fights. Wipes are a part of raiding, the repair bill for the gear damage a kind of tuition for learning the fights. Gwenny and I were 1-2 in damage dealing -- always a good thing.

3. Music: Gwenny introduced me to the geek rock of one Jonathan Coulton. Go. See. This. Now.

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-20: Dude! The Great American Smoke-In Starring The Doobie Brothers!

1. SotR: On my way home from a weekend of communing with Gwenny. Much was had in the way of good times. We played WoW (more anon) and took a walk to a nearby coffee shop where Gwenny got her introduction to Mac OS X. SGLs are an awesome shade of green all weekend.

2. WoW: Got into a heroic Naxx run this weekend; both guildies and a few PuGs. We cleared the Arachnid Quarter, dropping the bosses with just a few wipes. We started on the Military Quarter, dropped one boss after a couple of wipes and called it after the second wipe on Gothik the Harvester. Got two nice items:Grim Toll and Totem of Dueling. I took 25 Emblems of Heroism and bought a Pendant of the Outcast Hero. 38k honor points got me a Hateful Gladiator"s Cloak of Triumph. All of my items are at least good quest blues, Heroic dungeon drops, Badge, Honor or raid / Tier 7 gear. Reset is tomorrow, so I'll be good to run 10/25 Naxx/VoA/OS again. I'm good for most heroic raids now, heroic dungeons -- except for end boss drops -- are no help any longer.

3. Culture: The real story of "420"

4. Gwenny: This relationship gets better and better. What can I say that I have not already said?

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-11: FOR THE HORDE!

I think I'll start this slow Saturday morning edition of "WTF's RichO Up To?" with last night's WoWing with Gwenny.

Last night was almost all PvP. We fought in two Wintergrasp PvP battles, won one and lost one (we almost always lose when defending it). These battles hand out massive amounts of honor points, which can be used as currency to buy decent PvP gear and gems. We lost the one battleground we fought in, then ran a huge raid in on the Alliance and took out their very heavily guarded NPC faction leaders in their capital cities. Not just "took out" the leaders -- we PWNED them. The throne room in Stormwind looked like Orgrimmar on a party night. That bit of PvP action won me the in-game Achievement FOR THE HORDE! and a Reins of the Black War Bear mount. Now my lone epic raptor mount isn't so lonesome anymore. We ended the evening by taking down Utgarde Pinnacle on Heroic mode. UP is one of the hardest of the heroic dungeons because one boss in there is a big challenge. Therein I scored Sovereign"s Belt off of King Ymon. I have one Green item left, rest are heroic blues or epic purples. Another week or two of this and I will be well and truly "geared" for VoA, Naxx and OS (Vault of Archeron, Naxxaramas and Obsidian Sanctum, three raid instances).

Health: SGLs are solid green 90-120 mg/dl. The smallish wound on my left leg is completelly healed, as is one of the two on my right. Drainage is way way down. I'm walking more, and next weekend, Gwenny and I are going to take a long walk for coffee, breakfast and maybe a bit of magick on Sunday morning.

Social.net: Serenity game @ Michelle's tomorrow, and D&D / Miresseia the weekend of the 26th, probably at Chez Iz. Next weekend and 5/2 are trips to Gwenny's, the lattere capped by a visit to my daughter in Berkeley. In both

Gwenny: This lady continues to delight and excite me. And on a slow Saturday, a "Reasons I Love Her" double-header. Reason 30-something I love her: I really appreciate the relative lack of drama in our relationship. In one particular prior of mine, intense drama had already began in earnest by the time we had reached this stage of the relationship. We may have WoW guild drama (and plenty of that, to be sure!), family drama, work dramas, etc. . . but between just us, minimal drama. Reason 30-something+1 is that she does not expect, demand, request or require that I freeze my old friends out of my life in favor of focussing on her. This was a major bone of contention in one of my priors. In fact, she encourages me to maintain my old connections.
Now my friends have a reason to love her, too.

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-10: Never Split The Party

1. Sad day in geekdom: D&D co-creator Dave Arneson has passed on. Now Dave and Gary can argue over weather dwarf women have beards and sling dice together once again.

2. Health: SGLs green (93 this morning), got a nice walk in yesterday, getting another in today. Dressing change after work today.

3. WoW: What a difference a day makes. Marty is ready for Naxx 10! I have a few things I need to get enchantments for and a couple of my items are not rares yet, but I am ready!
This makes Gwenny smile.

4. Speaking of Gwenny, well, this here relationship gets better and better. I can really get used to not being considered "a diamond in the rough" by my SO, being loved as I am for who I am, not jst for my "potential."

Daily Bloggery 2009-04-09: Wee need tose steenkin' badgers o' heroism

Daily global update from the World of Me™

Health: SGL is on target and I'm feeling pretty good today. Dressing change is tomorrow.

Social.net: Serenity game is this weekend. It will be good to see Seanan, Richard, Matt, M&D and of course, The World's Cutest Four Year Old™ (Matt may be a no show due to the proximity of BayCon 2009).

Career: My monthly one to one with my manager was yesterday. Executive summary: "Thou are doing things right!" I asked about a possible reassignment to the Home Based Agent team so I can work from home, and he blessed my request. Now to talk to the manager of the HBA team to get the low down. A life without a commute would be very nice -- and could remove the main barrier from being able to relocate to be with Gwenny.

WoW: Ran heroic Violet Hold last night with Gwenny and BOYD. Scored myself some nice epic gloves out of there off the end boss -- Handgrips of the Savage Emissary. Got them enchanted very nicely with Asmo's help as well. With the badges of heroism scored off the three VH bosses, I got me a Totem of Splintering too. In other BOYD news: the guild's website is up and running. We managed to also get some PvP action in too; winning and losing once each in Wintergrasp. All of this translates to more epic-level (purple linked) loot for me that brings me one

Gwenny: Still going very well, still happy.

Daily Bloggery and Linky Link 2009-04-07

1. This is Jewpordy!

2. Health: SGLs in low 100s-110s for the last three days. The Glucophage™ I was taking is the probable cause of my GI distress last week. I discontinued taking it per my doc. My wounds still look good. Weight is up a pound over last week, which is mystifying.

3. WoW: Martkishar made Level 80 Sunday. Been running heroics with my fellow BOYDers -- Paharita (Gwenny), Vare, Kal, Dae -- to get gear for raiding. We've hit heroic Utgarde Keep, heroic Nexus and regular Vault of Acheraon (a raid) so far. I'm piling up badges (currency earned in heroic dungeons and on raids that can be spent on epic gear) as well. I've a loot list now of stuff I want to get before heading into the guild's Naxx raids.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-27: What part of "She's Gorgeous and SHE's ALL MINE!" don't you understand?

Health: SGLs all below 110. Where's that annoying army you need defeated? It should be no problem.
Dressing change today, early to bed tonight.

Gwenny apparently has a cable access show over there in Fremont. Last night was a taping, so we did not play WoW together. Since she's the Supreme Leader and High Priestess of BOYD, she gets pulled in more directions than the victim of a drawing and quartering. We decided to bypass WoW this time and she invited me into a Skype (video chat client) session. In doing so, I saw her, in real time for the first time.

/drool

Executive summary: Her still shot does her justice, but on the cam she's beautiful.

That's a key worry in an online relationship: that the person behind the profile you responded to simply does not correspond to the picture or profile. Unless Gwenny has hired a body double on top of everything else . . . transcdental rightness, again.

Two short work days and one long night stand between Gwenny and me now.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-26: The Unbearable Rightness of Being (Gwenny and Me)

Health: SG still in low 100s (108) this morning and last night (111). Got some good walking in again, too. Feeling energetic, almost like a teenager.

Gwenny: This is the first long-distance relationship where I have given absolute priority to staying in very close touch with her. EVERY serious relationship I've ever been in -- both that resulted in marriages and my one non-marriage LTR-- have had a geographical distance issue at one time or another. Kate and I chatted often and epically, but our staying in touch was not done with the energy Gwenny and I are investing in this one. With Kate, our very first AIM session was a dusk-to-dawn marathon. Email also played a big role in communicating over the almost-year we were an item but not living in the same home. Amy did not have computer access and was happy with an occasional phone call. The long distance phase of my relationship with Karen was during my Navy days, so weekly phone calls were heavily supplemented with mailed letters. With teh Gwenny, it's chat almost all day at work, textual intercourse during my bus ride home and Ventrilio and WoW until bedtime. Not to mention supplementary love letters via email. From computer and iPod touch.
There is an unmistakable transcdental rightness to us. I cannot begin to describe it in words. It's been tried, and nobody else even comes close. All we need is real space validation. Two days.
*rant=ON*
Dataminers Gone Wild!
OK, so you're a middle aged guy on a social networking site. You sign up for an account. It's free. The business model of the site demands that they datamine the hell out of you and serve targeted ads based on the nuggets.
OK, I can grok that. I have no issues with advertising for a buck.
I have made it more than crystal clear, here and on Facebook, that I am in a relationship. A VERY GOOD one, actually. See the words "transcdental rightness" above. I am not looking for women my age, or college-age hotties.
Yet it seems that the datamining spiders are missing THAT for some damn reason.
*rant=OFF*

Daily Bloggery and Random Linky-Link 2009-03-25: World War Z Meets The Regency Romance

1. Linky-linky: For Seanan. If Jane Austen had written Sense and Sensibility with a World War Z mindset. Because Seanan is just. that. cool.

2. Health: SGLs spiked a bit yesterday to high green (140) back down to 111 later in the day. No missed doses, etc. Got my walking in.

3. Gwenny: Continued yakking online most of the work day and into the night till bedtime. Gathered separate diabetic crash kit for the trip (sans meter, will need a travel meter and lancet holder for future trips).

Future trips? Yes. I cannot and will not envision any other result from this visit but "This is going to work out for both of us." Failure. Is. Not. An. Option. Sex-positive pagan gamer geeks of the female persuasion are incredibly scarce in my generation. A deal breaker will need to be truly epic. I'm taking my herbal supplements and visualizing us as a happy couple in real space, real time, as is, where is, how is. Visualization is a statement of intent through process through to a desired state, not just a fantasy that skips to the "good parts" and ignores the psychic hard work and energy needed to bring "the good parts" about. Life is a process, not a highlight film.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-24: Them Ch-ch-changes

Time till meeting Gwenny: 4 days, 9 hrs (as of this writing, approx).

Health: Morning SGL reading was 109. Green zone = happy RichO because I am doing things right. My weight down 30 lbs since April. I will be see an eye doc for a diabetic retinal exam and new glasses soon. I'm taking my multivitamins and eating my veggies, too.
Yesterday I got a haircut and beard trim. I sent Gwenny the before and after photos from the iSight camera on my MacBook. I look pretty damned good when I keep the hair and beard trimmed. I also bought an overnight bag and travel sundries at Target while texting with Gwenny until the battery in my phone died.
This fairly short jaunt to the store, barber and doctor yesterday brought out two of the shortcomings of the RAZR: one, talk time of 3-4 hrs is shorter than I'd like. Texting is talking, as far as phone power consumption is concerned, you see. Two: I would really like a QWERTY keyboard for textual communication.

On the horizon: Tonight Marty hits Level 75; he ended last night less than 2k xp from leveling. Gaining that 2k XP and followup stuff like training in new spells would have cost me another hour of sleep. Gwenny has promised me a BOYD run through the Violet Hold dungeon tonight. Tomorrow the QoL (Quality of Life) team at the office is serving us breakfast, courtesy of Chik-filk-a.
Finally: The WoW servers go down today for maintenance and, it is hoped by many, patching to game version 3.1. This version introduces a new raid instance for progression junkies, quick-change dual-specs for a one time 1k gold payment to a trainer and more.


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Now playing: Tempest - Hal-An-Tow
via FoxyTunes

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-20: Equinox Bloggeries

Today is the Spring Equinox. Day and night, light and dark, in balance.

Today is also the birthday of my friend David. Did the party thing last night, ate enough healthful veggie lasagne to feed a brigade of Marines. On special occasions I relax a bit. Even had a glass of wine.

Health: SGLs were NICE last night before the party (sub 100s) and 120 the morning after. I really did not eat much and I took a long (for me) walk before the party Felt a bit tired, but still got to crawl into Vent and talk to Gwenny before bed. I loves my Gwenny. Wounds were improved but otherwise unremarkable.

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Now playing: Tempest - Hal-An-Tow
via FoxyTunes

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-19: Heaven Can't Wait . . . not Anymore

Health: 99 mg/dl last night, 124 mg/dl this morning -- happy happy green zone. Weigh in Friday. Nothing remarkable about the legs on Wed.

Tomorrow is David's birfday, which we will celebrate in the usual manner. I shall have more Kaia pics too.

On the Gwenny front, things are still going well. We had our talk last night in Vent. Thank you, Goddess, for bringing her to me (or me to her!). Nine Two Eight days until I haul my carcass onto the mighty AmTrak train to head to Fremont for the weekend.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-18: "We need to talk . . ."

Gwenny was absolutely correct, of course.

The thing is, those four little words have gained a lot of other, less than nice, meanings. Like "I need to have an uncomfortable conversation with you, pay attention," or "I need to talk, you just need to listen." It's a conversational flag more than a literal request for verbal conversation.

Last night, those words appeared in a whisper (private in-game) chat with Gwenny as I was getting ready to log out of WoW. I logged off as planned, but as I lay down to go to sleep, my mind churned over those words. Another concern -- I enjoy expressing affection verbally to my SO. Several times last night, I said "Honey," etc in Vent, and I worried that she was catching flak from some of the other guildies about it.

10 min later, I logged back into Vent (the guild voice chat service), grabbed Gwenny and asked her about it.

The conversation went something like this:
Gwenny: "I was running heroics [high level dungeons] all night, and we did not have any chance to, you know, talk to each other."
Me: "I know how demanding heroics are, so I just listened. Hearing you have heroic fun motivates me to level faster. Anyone bring up any issues with my VDAs (verbal displays of affection) in Vent or gchat?"
Gwenny: "No issues have been brought to my attention. The guildies think you're great. There may be issues with a specific guildie [longish explanation of who and why], I'll let you know if I see him online."
We spent a few more minutes discussing non-WoW matters -- you know, two-way voice conversation, out of game. She does not have a cell phone -- something she's going to fix soon.

I have an ever-growing list in a text file: "I Love Gwenny, Reasons Why." This is Reason 17.

Health: SGLs rocked yesterday, all below 120.

Daily Bloggery 2009-03-16

Health: SG levels still looking very good. Dressings were changed, wounds continue to improve.
Gwenny: We're getting into disclosing deeply personal matters now. The way we both think alike is almost scary at times. The one cardinal rule we have so far: Complete bidirectional disclosure of objective truth. That means more than just "don't lie." It means telling the complete, full truth, without coloring or slanting it. Reality may be a three-edged sword, as Babylon 5 said. We are looking for the middle blade. This means getting outside yourself. Feelings *just are* and need to be discussed in full, so long as they are labeled as such and not as fact. At times, in prior relationships, I felt as though I was doing a minuet in a minefield. We'd be dancing along fine then BOOM! I'd (it was always me) step on some hidden emotional land mine. An hours-long (sometimes) lecture would ensue, just to make sure that I never stomped on that one again. And, of course, every misstep went into your Permanent Record so you never forgot about them. Then again, at times, I'd say or do things without thinking that triggered a mine. With Gwenny, I never have that feeling. Not because I am a lot better at staying away from those signs marking the minefield, but because there are no mines.

Or they are full of confetti, not HE.

More Daily Bloggery 209-03-09

1. Runes pulled today (top) and Saturday (bottom) while pondering relationship matters. With the top cast, Isa (the vertical line) is the rune indicating stasis, as if frozen in ice. Well, that aptly describes the last three years on the relationship front! Othala (the middle or Present rune) mans property, legacy or the ancestors. Could my Norse ancestors be working on my behalf here? The Future rune, Thiriaz, is the rune of monsters, struggle and oppositionism. In other words, be prepared for struggle that changes me. "She changes everything she touches . . . "
The bottom set was pulled Saturday. The past is the aurochs, a rune indicating strength, animal passion. The present, Berkano, is the birch tree, renewal and rebirth. Dagaz is the dawn, new beginnings, that transcdental moment when the light bulb comes on and one's enlightenment value changes to "Gets It."
This has given me much to think about, and to hope for.

2. Medical: Wounds are still making progress. While at the doc's office, I heard a good one: "Step Away From The Nurses Or Nobody Will Get Healed."I have yet to meet a nurse at Kaiser who was anything short of phenomenal. I've had my share of doctors who were not quite right -- one badmouthed the pentacle I was wearing -- but never nurses.

3. Still seeking a new style sheet / template for the site.

Monday Musings

1. Safari 4: Apple's web browser for both Mac (and Windows!) looks kind of neat. Outside of work, I do not use Safari all that much. One reason is that some web sites and Safari simply do not get along very well. Firefox seems to work better on these sites; the reason there is even a browser called "Safari" at all is because Microsoft ceased development on Internet Exploder for Mac OS X prior to the release of Panther (OS X 10.3).

I use Safari 3.2.1 at work under Leopard (10.5.6), and at times, I am not amused by its miserable performance.

Lately Firefox has been showing signs of acting just like Safari 3.2 -- beach ball of doom (think "hourglass busy signal" in Windows), random unexpected program quitting, etc, on two systems that are meticulously maintained. And, these are sites I visit all the time, not sites with wonky logins and SSL.

Safari 4 seems faster than FF. Apple has always marketed Safari as the fastest browser anywhere, based on small-print benchmarks. Small print benchmarks do not impress the typical user all that much. They want speed they can perceive and experience, hands on with their system. Safari 4 launches faster (and does not pollute the startup group with "helper" launch on login crap, thank Odinn) and seems to render the same pages faster, even when both browsers start with nothing cached. Apparently Safari 4 is using a new rendering engine, not good old open-source WebKit (as Firefox does).

I was able to bring my Firefox bookmarks over without pain. Import them (of course you have to know where FF stores bookmarks, but damn it, I'm a tech!) then stick them into the Bookmarks Bar or Folder as appropriate. A nice Automator or AppleScript program would make this easy cheese even for a novice.

Safari 4, in the tradition of all Apple products, has some nifty innovations. Tabbed browsing has been around for awhile; Safari 4 puts the tabs at the top of the window instead of below the bookmark bar. This is actually less confusing to novices. Toolbar customization has been simplified and made friendlier to new users (and it is a LOT friendlier than FF). The big enchilada is Top Sites. Top Sites is a way to view the most frequently visited web sites on a single page. It reminds me of Cover Flow view in Leopard and iTunes -- something that gives me the willies in the former -- as well as the "Spaces" feature of Leopard.. It is visually spiffy and easy to use.

Of course, Safari 4 does this by taking caching to a much higher level than ever before. This means that marginal Internet connections are really going to feel the pain. If your Internet connection is lousy, then the time it takes to fill the caches will make Safari seem dog-slow.

Not to mention the total lack of anything like "Foxytunes" in Safari. I like the ability to post the song I'm listening to -- or a theme song of some sort -- into my blog posts. Safari lacks this ability because the Foxytunes browser addon does not have a version fro Safari. Yet a version exists for IE. Go figure.

2. WoW: I got some good playtime in this weekend. Did a 25-man Heroic difficulty raid on the Obsidian Sanctum with my guildies. Just one wipe (the first time we did OS, I think we wiped a dozen times), but we took down ol' Sarthiron (he's a big-ass black dragon) in what a Brit would call "a close-run thing." The best loot this guy drops is a token that you can cash in for a piece of top-end raiding armor tailored to your class and specialization, aka "Tier 7 gear".

Well, I got the token on a percentile dice roll of 96. And I bought the Valorous Earthshatter Grips

I've been waiting a log time for some tiered armor. I never got a single piece of Tier 4+ gear in 6+ months of near-weekly raiding of Karazhan in the last expansion.

3. Health: Serum Glucose levels are right in the middle of the Green Zone (80-140), and I actually feel somewhat energetic. I have a dressing change later.

4. Photo stuff: iPhoto 8's editor really does a number on red-eye. I got some shots on Saturday that make my Goddessdaughter's eyes look like something out a bad horror flick where the kid just reaches puberty and it is revealed that she was sired by a malevolent entity with the express mission of removing the collective soul of humanity as painfully as possible through its nostrils with mere mind powers.

Solstice Rune Reading 2008-12-19

Interesting Solstice rune reading here. Imagery and indented test are from www.facade.com (the "free online rune readings" link on the link roll), italics are mine.

The left rune represents an important element of the past. Algiz plainly shows the antlers of the elk that it represents. The elk is the object of the hunt, and hence Algiz speaks to the pursuit of goals and the thrill of that pursuit. The rune is currently shown reversed, so this could suggest a failed endeavor or a lack of effort. Algiz is also representative of a protective hand (fingers open wide), so the reversed form may indicate a failed defense.

I think it is fair to characterize my last 20 years of incautious living as "lack of effort" or "a failed defense" of my health.

The middle rune represents a deciding element of the present. Ken is the rune of light and knowledge. The rune is shown reversed representing a state of darkness or ignorance. Either you are unable to obtain information that you need, or the information is being withheld from you. In darkness there is fear, but remember that darkness does not mean isolation. Friendship and comfort can still be available, although they are not immediately visible.

The funny thing about this rune is that I have been increasing my knowledge about my medical challenges. Due to my rabid use of the Internet, information has nowhere to hide from me. I do not think this is so much as isolation from information but isolation from social situations and challenges. I think the stones are trying to tell me that this strategy needs to change . . . .

The right rune represents the critical element of the future. Eoh refers to the Yew tree. The Yew does not go dormant and therefore represents endurance. Even the wood of the tree is strong, resilient, and pliable - the Yew bends, but does not break. The evergreen nature of the Yew is present even in the rune itself, as it cannot be changed even by reversal. This rune is historically symbolic of death, but, as in the Tarot and as suggested by the nature of the Yew tree itself, death is seen only as a transmutation of something eternal and unchanging - the spirit.

In other words: change my unhealthful ways and socialize / continue to educate myself and I'll endure to elderhood. Or become a weapon for an English yeoman . . . .

Weekly SotR: Health 2008-12-15

Rolling 7 day average serum glucose: 121 mg/dl
Rolling 14 day serum glucose: 120 mg/dl

This is where the numbers belong. Had one outlier reading in the 180s, that was right after I stress-ate. I am averaging one injection of "normal" insulin a week with my 2 per days of NPH and the Glucophage.