Well, maybe it never ends

I have just had three teeth pulled. Such fun. Now I think I will ignore the world for a couple of days.

Good Valentines Morning!

Valentines Day. One of the Hallmark holidays. However, in this case, I think I like it.

It is a wonderful excuse to show someone that you love them, and I have someone I Love. (Hi Sue!)

As my protest against the commercial holidays, no card, but we can share a steak!

On my way to Christmas.

It is now just a few days before Christmas and everything is quiet in the neighborhood. It is a good time for me to reflect on all of the good things in my life. The funny thing is that there are so many of them I have no idea where to begin. I am most thankful for Sue and all of my friends spread out across the country. Sure, there are problems, but life is too good to get depressed about the irritating details.

To make life even better, Sue got a Rainbow dragon in DragonVale.

Last night we played in a most excellent DS game run by Sue.
One thing I can say is that when a Warrior is in a labrynth, without a healer, you really should have a pile of Parries and Ducks. By the time you get to that twelfth or so fight without rest time, you really want to avoid getting hammered, again.
It was a good game!

Just another month, so they tell me.

The village Mother scowled at KaJon. She did not understand this Das Karr. Why could he not understand that his territorial marking is bad, offensive, and must stop.

She followed the scowl up with a nasty glare. "Why do you do this? Tell me!"

KaJon shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. "It is the Wakana. You see, those monsters mark territory too. They take my markings as a challenge and they can not help but respond with a mark of their own. So, each day I check the markings, and if a Wakana has been sneaking around, scouting for a raid, they will forget what they are doing and leave a mark. Then I know they are nearby and we can hunt them."

Mother Bastille opened her mouth, closed it, and reached back for her chair. She sat slowly and considered KaJon. "Crap, he actually has a reason and it almost makes sense."

"Ok, leave that for now. We have an ongoing mission I need you to join. Take these potions with you. I will have you teleported in to the Labryinth. Tell Jinxis that he must keep going. Clean out the place. That damned Rogue is continuing it's hunt for necro's. They will teleport to that warped Labryinth for safety. You people need to be there to catch them by surprise."

As KaJon walked out, she sighed. "Now, all I have to do is get some volunteers out there to rebuild farmhouses and pacify the innocents that the Rogue burns out of house and home. Damn the heart of Jikadell! Why do we always have to clean up after those Rogues? I suppose because someone has too."

Still slowly playing DragonVale. Got the three islands, the special Breeding ground and the Sun and Moon dragons. Still no Rainbow dragon in sight.

Sue just got a 48 hour breeding result from a Reindeer and Blazing Dragon getting it on. We will have to wait two days to see what special dragon it is.

Being sick leaves time to play.

As it turns out sitting in one place quietly leaves just enough energy to play with the iPad. And I have DragonVale for time consuming.

Last night I put together a breeding pair of Cold Dragon (lvl 10, left) and a Swamp Dragon (lvl 10, right) and got the special christmas Reindeer Dragon. Actually it was my second try, I got Seaweed the first time.

So, being sick does have rewards.

So, there I was at midnight putting myself to bed when I put in a Blue Fire (lvl 10, left) and Crystal (lvl 10, right) and I get this:

Ok, I took the picture late, but one of the special dragons (Rainbow, Moon or Sun) is on the way.

Next the new Breeding Island came on line. I put the Reindeer (lvl 10, left) and Scorch (lvl 10, right) and boom, another 48 hour breeding time. So I have a second special dragon on the way.

I think it means I will be getting better now. Good luck breeds good luck.

Christmas comes to DragonVale, and recovering.

Christmas has come to DragonVale. Everything went snowy.

I sat in a chair yesterday and drooled. I am feeling better health wise, but I feel guilty about the jobs not getting done. Building up orders to be shipped. We have sold through so much in the last month I need to manufacture cards to fill the orders.

Now, time to change tactics and stare at the wall for a day.

Health and Conventions, not looking good.

It began a few years ago, but it seems to be getting worse. Whenever I go to a series of conventions, I wind up sick. I have no idea what is causing this, but it is true. I assume there is a reason. I have a multitude of hypotheses, with no proof.

So, I am recovering from pneumonia. The body has decided that I will sit and do next to nothing. When I move, the nose runs. When I talk, the throat itches and I cough rather than talk. When I sit here and focus on writing, the chest tightens and I start to wheeze. The result is I am doing a lot of nothing. Fortunately I am very good at nothing.

What I have been successful at doing is to clear the old mind of a lot of preconceived "truths" that are just opinions and habits. It is helping me to recover my open mind. The problem with an open mind is there are a lot of people waiting to fill it with their garbage.

So far it looks like this blog posting software is going to work.

I also need to find out how it works with photos. I will give that a test by adding a DragonVale screenshot as a picture.

I have been playing DragonVale on the iPad. It is not a type of game I would have played in the past, but I am enjoying this one. I spend just a few minutes a day now on it as I diligently research dragon breeding. I am not very lucky at it, but what the heck.

Yes, I can put text in after a picture. It was certainly unclear how to do this, but it does seem to work. Now, let's post this.

Testing new Blog poster

The blogging software I was using to post to blogs has failed to update, so I am finally getting around to finding working software.

Getting ready for PentaCon and other thoughts

We are slowly getting a good system down for manufacturing the cards. Neal is coming over once a week now and doing the actual card cutting and packaging. If you look through your cards you will see some art by Neal Morrisey, yes, same guy. That means he has an idea of what we are doing, so he can make good judgement calls. Anyway, the card quality is getting better every week now.

I have printed and laminated a batch of cards for him to do tonight. The laminating takes a good deal of time in this process as getting the sheets into the laminate and placed correctly takes time. By getting them laminated Neal can keep up with weekly cutting.

November is going to be an interesting month. We have shows of one type or another every weekend this month. That pretty much takes out dedicating time to a longer project like another shifter or magic school series. I still have a bit of tweaking to do on the Witchcraft cards, the Get to Know pages need updating and there are a lot of other little projects I have let slide. So, for this month I am going to do a lot of little things that no one will notice. To try to help people keep up I will be posting the links to new stuff on my twitter account. You can either sign up for it direct or check on the right hand side of this blog for my twitter feed.

I am discovering all sorts of new tech going on around me, and I have to say that it fascinates me. When the time comes to get the direct to the brain computer hookup I am going to be right there in line using my cane to drive back the kids. I want my direct connection to the Internet NOW!

At the moment I need to do some tweaking on the backgrounds, get the orders packed to ship in the morning, and make some labels. Sue is upstairs painting, so I am using a jury rigged computer set up down on the gaming table. That makes everything slower, I really like my big screen so I can see everything I am working on.

Daily Thoughts, on a monthly schedule

It appears that I do not have daily thoughts. A disturbing concept, but there you have it.

My mother has been having trouble with her legs recently. Basically everything below the waist decides that moving is not in the cards. She has been in two hospitals for it and they are not finding a reason. Each time she gets back a little function and off home she goes. Surprisingly, at the age of 87, she is in a positive mood, she is sure she can overcome this one too. Gotta love the spirit.

I have been keeping half an eye on the OWS type protests. Not being a youngster I remember the protests of the 60's, I was there.

Declaration of Independence opening:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I love what they did here. First, they used the word Creator to include all beliefs. You can believe the Creator is Evolution or God, and it still works. They say all men are equal. Children of the poor, middle class, rich or oligarchs are equal, none are greater. And everyone of us has the born right to Life, Liberty and to try to be Happy.

Are the leaders in Washington trying to guide our country with these words in their minds? You decide. Go look, do your own research, examine their deeds, not the words.

OK, enough thinking, it wears me out.