Holiday Inn Westlake, Cleveland area

I am here at the StormCon DS convention staying at the Holiday Inn.

This stikes me as an older Inn. It is well kept and you do get a "free hot breakfast ticket" with the room. I haven't tried the food, I brought something soothing for the ole tummy. (By the way, why do they call it a free breakfast when I'm paying for a room? If they gave the breakfast free with no room fees paid, that would be special.)

When I opened the room door I took a deep breath and was pleasantly surprised, no obnoxious cleaning fluid smells. That was a good sign. The room was already cool and clean. Nice digs. All the standard features, you know, bed, TV, coffee pot all in working order. Even the bath tube works the way it is supposed to. The wireless is friendly to connect to, but the speed is so-so and seems to hang a bit from time to time. The room also came with davenport and table. I'm sitting on the davenport right now. Comfortable.

The employees are courteous and helpful, but I couldn't help noticing that they smile only when called on to do so. That means to me that the management is good enough to get work done, but not good enough to make the people happy.

Overall I have to give the place 4 Dragons out of five. Considering the cost it is a reasonable place to stay. At this level the wireless could be better and the elevator makes noise that make me nervous.

Thanks for tuning in!

Man Looses Brain

Man looses brain, cat chases brain, man looks befuddled.

OK, that about sums it up. I hit a wall this afternoon and I have come to a halt.

I do feel the regeneration kicking in so I'll be up and at them in the morning. Now, if I could just pin down who "them" is.

StormCon should be fun. We are not taking a display. We will be putting the "stuff" on a couple of tables and wandering off to play. I should be able to handle the 2pm and 7 pm game slots.

I am taking a Valet and a couple of brand spanking new Phoenixes to play.

Oh, I put up a new podcast. I actually did not make time to do it, I did it while cutting cards.

More Changes and the Laminate Arrives.

Well, we have been testing the new macbook with Sue's new tablet. It turns out that some of her software draws heavily on the graphics card. That means that the older macpro runs them better. Sooo, finally, I get to change computers once again.

In fact, this is my first post from the once again installed Mars Edit for blogging.

This morning the laminate arrived for me to work on the DS cards. This is going to push me into a lot of last minute work. I will probably wind up with a bandage on my wrist for StormCon. Oh, well.. Such is the way of life.

Back to work now.

Sue is Back

Sue has returned from a successful trip to San Diego, and I am glad she is here.

The dogs are glad she is back, they think that I have let her come back, that she has finished her punishment. I think I was the one punished.

We ordered her a new drawing tablet, the Wacom Cinitiq, where she can draw directly on the tablet. This should allow her to create even more art. So far it is working great.

I discovered, when Sue took over our portable computer, just how much my productivity dropped working just on the desktop computer, so I ordered one of the new/rebuilt MacBooks with 4 gig's of memory. It turns out that that extra memory makes her new tablet work better on the new portable than on the old Pro. The result is that Sue now has the new computer and I'm settling back into the old Pro...

And I've gotten an empty case for an ipod.... Why do I think that I'm coming out behind in this deal? I'm thinking that I'm in line for some rewards here.

OK, back to work.

I already miss her, but the iphone works.

Sue sent me these pics from her new iphone. I really do miss her, I even miss the night of sleep I lost yesterday...

Sue got an Iphone and I got a case.

Yes, you read that correctly. Sue finally got her iphone, and while she was there she bought a neat belt case for the phone. Unfortunatley the case is too difficult to use with a phone. It would be a very good case for an ipod touch or classic, but not so good for a phone. The end result is that we wound up getting her a better phone case and I got the empty case, just to be ready, you know, like I may someday get something to put in it.....

I signed up for Evernote on the web because it has an app that works with the iphone. Basically it lets you write notes on the iphone that are available on the home computer through either a desktop application you download or through a web browser. I wrote the following on her iphone:

the new keyboard takes a bit of getting used to, big it will get a lot easier with practice as we learn. For now I need to watch the letters as I hit them.

In the meantime I have transfered most of my programs and work to the tower computer and Sue is working with what was my portable. Her output in the past week has jumped big time. Being able to work where you are really improves efficiency.

The opposite of that is that me productivity has dropped significantly. The power of a tower is thrilling, but it is real obvious that in our lines of work you need both machines. Ah well, I guess I'm just going to have to get a new machine. Fortunatley I do not need the graphics power Sue does, so I can go with a Macbook. I did some looking at HP and Dell portables, but when I got them constructed close to the Macbook stats the prices were pretty much the same. (HP $60 less, Dell $60 more, all about $1200) When did "N" wireless become an upgrade? When did they take out the firewire and ethernet ports on there portables? Reworking them to get the ports I need would be a pain, but you can get adapters to cover that, however, they would be slowed to usb 2 speed. Apples memory is lower, but I included that upgrade in the apple price. I don't buy my memory upgrades from apple, they charge way too much for memory, I use Macsales to buy memory, and they have done very well with it in the past. 4 gb of memory is down to 98 bucks.

Well, I better get to work printing Sue's artwork to sell at San Diego. She flys out early tuesday for the con. I'll get back home and get on card printing right away. Gotta get ready for StormCon next.

New Software

Well, Sue is about to get an iphone and to properly use it we need to upgrade to Leopard OS from the Tiger we have been on for years. So far everything seems to be working just fine. Surprisingly it runs faster than Tiger rather than slower. I don't know, I guess I just expected it to be bigger and more bloated, but they have surprised me.

I have a lot of software to check yet, but it all seems to work. Quark 6.5 appears to be fine with it, so I can put off that upgrade a while longer and keep doing the DS stuff.

Enough for now, the computer says my new Garage Band for pod recording is installed, and I have to check it out!

Wow, I sure am sleepy

I don't know what is going on but since wednesday I have been sleepy.

My weight has finally stabalized at 174. Thats a 16 pound lose in about five weeks. Maybe the adjustment to a new weight is tiring me out. I went out and bought two new pairs of pants and a new belt. The old belt ran out of holes. My old pants I can use to work outside in, but I thought having my pants fall off of me might not do well at a con, or even out shopping. The world gets so unsettled about these things. You would think no one had seen underwear before.......

I am chipping away at getting the card books refilled. They took a massive hit at origins. Now almost every order I prep to ship has one or two cards I have to print to fill the orders. I can't complain too much about that, stuff is selling and that is good.

Sue is making good progress on the Phoenix cards.

Well, enough of this, I need a nap.

dogs and cats living together

Well, it has been interesting. Trouble, whom the doc calls an "ancient" dog, got a bad tooth infection. The result was he wound up loosing most of his teeth. *sigh* So, he is on wet food now and it needs to be low salt. I have done some research and I'm now making dog food for the dogs. The following is the recipe I contrived from the research of recipes etc.

1.5 cups milk
4 oz meat (pre-cooked) ground beef or chicken or turkey
1/2 tbsp liquid aminos for minerals
1/2 tbsp garlic for antioxidents
1/2 tbsp ginger for digestion
1/2 tbsp yucca for joints and arthritis
1/4 cup vegtables (cauliflower, whatever)
10 slices of bread
3 eggs

mix all together completely until the bread is damp. Slap it in the oven to bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Makes about 4 servings.

Since Mocha can still eat the hard food, trouble gets bigger portions.

Now the cat, Mac, seems to have gotten in a fight and has an infection in a cut just below her left ear. Twice a day we need to give her antibiotics. Her shots were up to date, so we don't have any worries there.

And I'm getting back to work. As usual I'm behind. I'll have a big trip to the post office tomorrow with the orders.

That it for today. Hope they stop the new FISA attack on America in congress.

Another Infection and another ten pounds lost

I'm not sure I like this weight loss by sickness idea. Anyway, I've lost ten pounds and I hope nobody I know finds it.

I was glad to see that the supreme court says we can defend ourselves by having guns. I have always thought that disarming people the way Hitler, Mao and Stalin did was a bad idea. But, of course, those guys all wanted to make sure they could use armed military against an unarmed public. Reading some very old radicals like Franklin indicates they were already thinking that the government needed to fear an armed populace, rather than the people fearing the government, just to keep the government from running over the peoples rights. Pretty sharp, and paranoid, people started this country. Maybe we need to keep that in mind.